Poems

JUST ANOTHER WORD

At fourteen
I wanted to be Janis Joplin
to have that raspy voice
come out of my still smooth throat
thought
I already knew the blues
what it felt like
when somebody took
another little piece of my heart.

I wanted to hear those windshield wipers
slappin time
sitting in the cab of some truck
as I sang my way out
left my crappy little life behind.

Trying to get that voice
the one I thought I wanted
I smoked half a pack of cigarettes
the first time
I sang her songs
at what passed for a dive bar
in downtown suburbia.

I belted out
freedom was just another word
but I had no idea then
how much there could be
to lose
when you think you got nothin left.

Paterson Literary Review

NUMB

the word
is undisturbed
by sharp consonants
with a soft hum
at the end
barely breathing
like grieving.

The Stillwater Review

MARSH HOUSE
Lieutenant’s Island, Wellfleet, Massachusetts

Trees take turns with the wind
as the tide comes in
two arms of saltwater embrace the island
touching at the narrow bridge.

Water flows through salt grasses
in a web of branching veins
that rise
until road and marsh become bay.

Birds arrive
geese and laughing gulls
the arrow of a heron
glides above the reunited inlet.

At low tide the moors empty again
the rutted road returns
combed with sunlight
damp grasses become golden.

I want to memorize these patterns
of wind and water and light
but all I can do is watch them
come and go
until the call of an unseen owl
ushers in twilight.

New Jersey Bards Against Hunger