Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, March 2024

copyright d®ead

the seven wonders sightseers looking only at themselves

cottontails the garden at a loss for herbs

deckled edges

sailors know how to read

the shoreline

Heliosparrow Poetry Journal, February 2024

Thrilled to have the following two paper collages and four small poems featured on February 29, 2024:

Note: these paper collages incorporate phrases culled from my book, "Warp and Weft: Tanka Threads"

bones thinning the only part of me

flow state of the mind's ink

mackerel sky bones disintegrating into rain

echolalia

echolali

echolal

echola

echol

echo

ech

ec

e

Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, September 2023

buzzwording this deep dive into a cloud of fish

AI winter : everything nothing but a memory

corroded bones reducing me to rust

from out of nowhere

the grizzly bear

and a bicycle

Half Day Moon Journal, Issue No. 1, August 2023

spring thaw : the ice steps out of its skin

the once upon a time nevermore of it all

backscatter the almost of an echo

old

the

from

emerging

life

new

ecology

carcass

 

Five Fleas (Itchy Poetry), September 2022

my garden lexicon

eyecandytuft

churchbellflowers

uptickseed

magnificatmint

sandhillcranesbill

boogiewoogiebugleweed

proseofsharon

inthelimelighthydrangea

outfoxglove

daiquiris

Failed Haiku - A Journal of English Senryu, Vol. 6, Issue 61, January 2021

 

Weird Laburnum, December 2020

 

Bright Stars Tanka Anthology, Vol. 5, August 2014

sunlight
floods the bed
we wade
into the billows
and drown


peeking through
midnight's velvet drapes
a spotlight moon
scans the theatre
for fallen stars


the stormy thrum
of our quickening breath
as your lips
wend their way
to the rain in my breast


thirteen
her first boyfriend's
hard slap
some of our memories
are burning brands


he gave me roses
and larks ascending
I offered tanka
bound with strands
of my silvered hair


an eagle
carries off a lamb
still struggling
the new mother grieves
her lost baby


our initials
tattooed on sand
b e t w e e n
heart-shaped tracks
of white-tailed deer


with ink stick
and wolf hair brush
on rice paper
I paint the unlikeliness
of my married name


mourning's
warp and weft
woven
into the tapestry
of war-torn faces


lonesome
these delta blues
blowing through
the broken reeds
of my heart


e x h a l i n g
the unspeakable
slipping-down pain
i n h a l i n g
the unknowable
stripping-down bone


rearranging my (negative) space


ruler

measures the tread of infidels
and your infidelities
incremental reign of words
affection over-ruled
broken-thumbed dictator
the judge declares you out of order

paper clips

clip clippings of your clipped words
to my origami wings
paper-quilled intimate intricacies
bent out of shape
i am undone
by your undoing

tape

unfurls over cutting edge
sticky tongue catching the fly
tearing the tip
zipping the lip
securing your crime scene
and sealing my evident fate

keyboard

warning
experts advise that using
may cause serious injury
while turning over and shaking out contrapuntal crumbs
a scattering of unplayed scales
falls from my eyes and fingertips

white out

rubs out the road to there from here
in an icy blast of shrouded blindness
equidistant
pointed to pointless point of no return
we listen to the static noise
erasing everything i meant that you would never say

staples

hold documented scars together
never dissolving or resolving
punctures wounding
both the paper and the skin
thoughtless perishables behind closed doors
fill my emptiness of self

screen

reflects my distorted
fingerprinted face
viral truth and lies
lies as thick as the dust on my illusions and your collusions
first the shield
then the reveal

cords

entangling and untangling
electrical and umbilical
i wear the frayed fabric
faded ridges worn down by the misgivings of forgiving
you chop and bind the rotten wood
and wither the blossom's bud

pen

cages the page
confining lines
between the gates of prologue and epilogue
wielding this instrument of might or might not
treastise broken
indelible ink blots the pain on my escutcheon

trash

overflows with used tissue kisses
world stained with acrid acid tears
plastic oceans and emotions
sweet rot begot and forgot
i watch your ashes drift away
on burning waves of truest blue forget-me-nots

Bright Stars Tanka Anthology, Volume 7, November 2014

this amulet
of feather and bone
how frail
the hope that my verity
could banish your demons


trade winds
washing through my hair
at ocean's edge
the salt of forgiveness
in morning's mercy


we compose
the music of our lives
with grace notes
scattered between
lullaby and requiem


winter winds
play an aeolian harp
of barbed wire
a lone coyote and i howl
at the long night moon


all i ask
from you is sanctuary
the world's weight
is upon me and my hands
are filled with weeping

on the stroke of

my parachute

careens earthward

p u n c t u r e d

by flashes of memory

in this blur of falling

paralysis

ineffable fear

knocking

at the closed door

of my understanding

shadowed maws

swallow me whole

s p i t t i n g

my softened bones

into the crib of a coffin

thirst

silver trees

nurse me

from torn bags

of slow-dripping rain

i am swaddled

in a blue shroud

c r a d l e d

in the web of my harness

rocking like a baby

hunger

a roosting bird

spoons worms

into the red gape

of my slack mouth

so many voices

in my broken brain

g a r b l e d

all the tangled lifelines

that hold me here

loneliness

creatures hover

and shout

someone else's name

as if i cannot hear

i exist

between layers of life

i m p r i s o n e d

keeping the company

of ghosts and crows