Category Archives: Poetry

Moats

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The rain coming down
has filled up the ditch
at the edge of the yard.

A little more and it will
swallow up the driveway
and separate us
from the world
by a little gulf
of brown rain water.

As a child I used to dig
moats around the castles
I built out of pinecones
and tin cans and pour
pailfuls of water into them.

They never held water:
drought thirsty Alabama dirt
sucked every drop down
and just left muddy damp divots
and I’m pretty sure the ditch
at the edge of the yard
will dry up just the same

but for the moment
I am alone with you
pretending this old house
is a castle overgrown with moss
and the drawbridge is up
so no one can disturb us.

Floodgates

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I had to teach myself
the shapes of strange floodgates:

the open door that leads
to pine trees and crows,
away from the sound of humans,
and back to the sound of squirrels.

The sizzle and crack
of skillet and fat,
the simple pleasure
of a egg being fried
and laid on toast.
A golden gush of yolk.

The hot flush and rush
of a shower head
pouring buckets onto
skin I haven’t wanted
to wash in days,
of sore gums shocked to mint.

These are floodgates
to trickle down the reservoirs
before the levees crack
and all the gallons and gallons
of me smash out and scour
everything I’ve built away.

Asleep Through Storms

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This morning starts with downpour.
No gentle bloom of sun beam
through the bedroom window,
no chirrup and warble of bird song.

This morning starts with flash
and thunder, with crash and clamor,
with the great old pine in the yard
groaning in the wind,
but you sleep through it
and I do not.

The room is dark
and the rain drives down
and the shape of your body
twisted in the sheets
is a stillness the world
forgot to keep this morning.

I want you to know this
is how I think of you often:
a moment of rest in deluge,
a moment of peace in cloudburst,
a quiet in the shouting gale.

Today, I Am Godzilla

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Today, I am Godzilla.
I step: the earth shakes.
Coffee shop customers steady
their mugs. Somewhere,
a small Japanese woman
shrieks in terror and flees,
arms flailing, for shelter.

Today, I am Godzilla,
hunting for a 52L sports coat,
blocked in the city street
that is the men’s wear
section of J.C. Penny’s
by a battalion of 48R’s.
I dash them aside,
lumber off, half-defeated
and half-conquering.

Today, I am Godzilla,
backtracking in the stacks
of the Hoover Public Library
because there is a young woman
browsing mystery novels in my way
and that aisle is too damn narrow
for the both of us.

Today, I am Godzilla,
writing poetry and thinking
of what to eat tonight.

World Cup

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The World Cup is close
and someone asked me to
write a poem about soccer.
This is as close to the game
as I’ve ever come:
A girl kissed me in the center circle
of the campus soccer field,
thirteen minutes after midnight,
under a rainy summer sky
in my sophomore year,
and for the minutes
and seconds of that kiss
the world became a rush and a roar
as if there were
ten thousand flashbulbs
alive in my veins
and my heart couldn’t beat any faster
even if she’d asked it to.
And then,
and then….
she walked away
to let someone else hold her
and I learned what every
player on the field learns:
the World Cup is yours
and then it is not.

This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.

Prometheus Appeals To Zeus

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Isn’t the eagle a little
unnecessary?
I mean,
Maui did it too,
and no one gnaws
his liver.

You know as well as I do
that my gift is more a curse
than anything.

So I gave them fire.
Yes, they can bake bread,
and that offends your
sensibilities,
but they’ll burn their daughters
too,
and soon, their smoking world
will smother them.

This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.

The Leopard and the Moth

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You’ve got snow leopard eyes.
I’m an oldwife underwing
perched on the last wheat stems,
sunning myself
before the cold world sleeps.

Frostbound tigress,
prowl under the bridge of trolls:
The toll is a knife in your mouth,
and I’d break my heart on your headstone
if I could just find the perfect
elegy to sing for you.

The ice on the reeds
at the river’s bank
melts beneath your breath.
I want that breath on my neck–
sandpaper tongue–
and teeth to reap
the red grains from it.

This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.