Abandoned Spoils Of War

The few stone houses 
Of the village still 

Standing, up 
To their waists 

In stinging nettles, 
Doorways eternally wide- 

Open, windows that were 
Once their eyes one 

By one plucked out, home now 
To mythic hoot owls mooting over 

The specter of tatterdemalion 
Orphans playing nonstop 

War on wind buffeted marble 
Threshing floors. 

Absconding With The Goods

No real damage done 
And no caveat, save that 

Of coming clean 

With the poem, the spoils 
Intact. 

"And Beautiful Times We Had"*

—*Sappho, from poem #94 


We were young and not 
Yet old enough to know 

When black wolves start 
Descending 

The white mountain 
Slopes in early spring, 

It’s too late to lie 
In wait, low 

In the valley still 
Acting like sheep.

All That Jazz, And Slam Poetry, Too

Hey, man— 

You be cool now and don’t 
Be such a drag—I tell you this 

Ain’t no waste of our time—no way— 
You just take another toke and look back

At what all those wiped out long gone 
Hepcats that came before us done 

Drug in. 

Four-eyed Doppelgänger Before The Treacherous Looking Glass

The last time 
You looked, you looked 
Twice and kept 
Rubbing your eyes 
At the spectacle 
Of seeing

For the first time 
An aging 
Sold out poet
Seeing his 
Younger double
Crossing double.