Night Watch Dog

Too frigging cold trying 
Hard to bark 
Head off in used car lot 

Not enough juice 
In battery 
Motor on 

Last legs.

Dry Spell

Some not so dusty 
Plodders not so wet 
Behind the ears as you 
Say you can smell the rain 
Approaching if you’d just stop 
Long enough to unclog your nostrils. 

Call of the Wild

Passion flowers— 
Sword-billed humming 

Bird pierces it. 

A Poem Should Be (6)

Understood internationally 

Like a Chinese fortune 
Cookie that says 

It’s all Greek to me. 




NB: Hopefully, this poem should need no gloss, but as we're dealing with languages here--and very difficult ones at that--I'd just like to add that when a Greek comes up against something written or said that he/she does not understand, the phrase used is "It's all Chinese to me."

If It Grins, Bear It

Like a candle 
Lit gap 

Toothed, marrow-hollowed 
Pumpkin weaned of the mother 
Patch plotting dastardly deeds

Against its seed, 
Keep smiling. 

Never a Question of Black and White

“As you make your bed, so must you lie in it.” 
--Greek proverb 


Mist but snow clearly

Blanketed the world 
And we thought our thoughts clean 

White sheets covering what 
We mistakenly thought was right. 

Poets That Dance Revived

I want to thank Annie Wyndham for her latest blog entry; I’m grateful she took the time to not only say some nice things about my poetry but also to write some of her own in the process. Annie spent some time in Northern Greece quite a few years back and she retains an avid interest in anything Greek—especially the music—so it was doubly satisfying to see her include a rare (but nothing-to-rave-about) video of a not-so-successful “whirling-dervish-of-a-poet” tripping the not-so-light fantastic to the rhythms of a classic rembetiko song! My turn to say in the language that’s still close to her heart— “Ευχαριστώ, Αννούλα, για την αγάπη σου”.