Featured image: detail from “The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus Discovered by Alexander the Great”; folio from a Falnama (Book of Omens): ca. 1550s, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Featured Poem, Fall 2019
Autumn Prayer
Time for a prayer. The summer lasts too long,
the sundials steeped in shadow afterwards…
Let no one decipher right or wrong
in fields just harvested, grapes on the vine.
Two afternoons of sun are all they need
to ripen, swelled with juice before we read
a blessing in their flavor, in the wine
pressed from their pulp, and other small rewards.
It’s time to move back to the make-believe
shelter of memories we never leave—
letters transcribed in which we are the words
friends treasure, read, and nobody discards.
(Inspired by Rilke’s “Herbsttag/Autumn Day,” forthcoming in The Cylburn Touch-Me-Nots and originally published in Bluestem, Spring 2014.)
A Selection
A Spell for Lamentation and Renewal New York Encounter Poetry Contest, 2019
From Desire: a Bestiary [Magnificent Frigate-Bird] Verse Daily & Lives of the Sleepers (U of Notre Dame Press)
The Underground Tour New Criterion
A Word the Romans Used First Things
The Sugar Thief Poetry Foundation & The Trials of Edgar Poe and Other Poems (Story Line Press)
Stella’s Children Look Out from a Photo Faded Gold The Common
East of Tin Pan Alley String Poet
Musicology Delaware Poetry Review (Prince issue)
The Afterlife of Beatles Poet of the Month & Cimarron Review
Live from the Dakota, Major Tom and David Bowman, Glory-of-the-Seas, On Trial for an Imaginary Murder Alabama Literary Review
Fire Victim American Life in Poetry & Lives of the Sleepers (U of Notre Dame Press)
Holy Wars for Us Verse Daily & Upcycling Paumanok (Measure Press)
Text and Flame Scoundrel Time
The Lunar Deniers Light
On Goodbyes Valparaiso Poetry Review & Upcycling Paumanok (Measure Press)
Near Halloween American Arts Quarterly
Remembrances of Yours Per Contra
Dark Horse Baltimore Review & Upcycling Paumanok (Measure Press)
Sea Star Ecotone
Miraculous Spirals Literary Matters
Poems of Resistance
Predictions for the President-Elect Poets Reading the News
Crybully Rattle: Poets Respond
Trump in Triumph The New Verse News
Dream Songs for the Governor of Michigan The New Verse News
Cell Phones Lifted in a Public Square Poets Reading the News
Post-Truth Villanelle The New Verse News
The Dark What Rough Beast/Indolent Books
For a Mother Born During the Great War, A New Moon for Neptune, Wren (Italian Americana feature with brief autobiographical essay)
