Beneath the Campanile

She walks by the pond, 

Following the path 

Past children feeding ducks 

And other strollers 

Enjoying the sun, like herself. 

The campanile casts a long shadow 

Across the quad. It is early May, and early 

In the day, the colors are of spring. 

She envies no one, is glad

To be sharing the warmth with all.

Colt and Laura

Colt and Laura are sitting in his truck 

Talking quiet and huggin’ up. She smells 

Like something he ought to know, but doesn’t. 

Her warm breath on his neck makes him stir. 

He tries to see the vista through her eyes. 

It’s all new to her, but it’s all the same to him. 

He can’t do it. She talks low and easy. 

He likes the sound of her voice more than 

Just about anything. More than anything. 

She doesn’t ask him questions. She doesn’t 

Talk about Pittsburgh. She doesn’t talk 

About school or play practice. She just talks 

About the wind and the stars and how the air 

Feels soft and hard at the same time.

Cupid Deconstructed

Your beauty 

strikes me though my heart, 

Dear one. 

I fall before you, 

prostrate. 

I am yours. 

As I lie, 

my head a little sore 

from the fall, 

I reflect upon my state 

and conclude 

it is my mind, not my heart 

that is pierced. 

My head is addled, my heart is full.

Hi-Lonesome

She needs a cowboy, 

a big-hearted man, 

to ride into her life, 

gather her up, 

knock those demons 

out of her head. 

There's a buckaroo 

riding 

the Hi-Lonesome plain 

and he's looking for her. 

They'll need some magic. 

It's vast, but it's quiet.

Two hearts beating as one 

sound like thunder.

Hurstwood

"Left me!"

— Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie

Damned, he rocks

alone in a boarding house room

suffering ignominy, poverty, criminality

all for an unrequited love

while she is celebrated

enjoying the finest amenities of society

having put behind her

a calculated ascension to the top.

I Take my Reader on a Ride

for JK, my pard

Such things happened today 

that would make ten good poems. 

I choose not to tell a one. 

Instead, know this day is warm, 

the sun is bright, and high cirrus clouds 

are foretelling a change. 

That my hands appeal unsullied 

is proof of nothing. That my dogs know better 

than I can say of my day, 

for I am carrying odors of gunpowder 

and oil and blood and manure and straw and soap. 

But they could never put the story together, 

nor do they care. 

And no one knows how a state of grace 

can come and go within seconds. 

If life is better ended on an inhalation expectantly, 

or an exhalation spent.

`