it’s cold out there, and yes, the heat is on but I still like to keep the window open just a crack — it’s fresh, it’s frigid, and it reminds me of what I’m up against… it’s the blank faces of people who love you expecting answers you don’t have, it’s the…

From discord to harmony — The Build-up — I thought you thought — “How dare you” My masturbatory monologue Filling in the gaps of our missed communication Making up my mind about what you have on yours Unable to consider you might consider something else — Projection — The Threshold — I felt you feel…

with the authentic explanations — I love you… I love you in the grams of my soul with the cadences of my imaginations I love you in the degrees of my body with the liters of my blood I love you in the magnetism of my thoughts with the seconds of my existence I love…

Hybrid poem: When words and painting combine — A picture is a moment is a symbol & a story we think we already know at a glance. Everyone knows all the best stories are already written in all the best books Look closer whisper the aspen beguilingly grey Alice sketched in charcoal & ink questioning? or questing? ~~~perhaps…

To protect me… — I hid you in my poetry, To protect me, A line, I misunderstood. Brought up, On the wrong-side, Misguided neighborhood. Down at the shoreline, That’s where you will find me, Hanging out there with the driftwood. What did I do? I wrote some words and ran, Did I do all that I…

What any true painting touches is an absence — an absence of which without the painting, we might be unaware. And that would be our loss. — John Berger Time envies what’s left behind. Through every brushstroke, the painter brings a little of the past along with her, impasto yesterdays…

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible. — Vladimir Nabokov Breathless…the air waits for words. The words that follow already existed, no matter how hard I try to get ahead of them…

GiaB writing prompt #2–14-school — sand smooshes between my toes plunging deeper into the coast curvy waves swoosh Luna’s full-face winks a gesture of perfection above the horizon floating promises kiss and caress my beautiful mind reeling memories transform my Ohio backyard into an ocean dream schools of fish delight me with tickling curiosity cute crabs scurry an awkward dance with the night’s tides delicate waves of distant memories clear my mind to see where…

An intimate poem — It feels like a peeling your flashing eyes like eager fingers seeking slipping in between my sympathetic skin & my unguarded flesh almost too tender almost too raw (don’t stop) exploring undiluted essence exposed. Savouring our vulnerable unearthing tastebuds tingling plunging in to fragrant & sharp citrus spray the ripe scent of…

my rock ’n roll consort Truth is thy consort, justice your goal . Rock your foundation, love is thy soul . Angel of peace move across the land . Stealth is your mission, dark is your hand . An oncoming army, steel snapping spite . Superior Angel rise to your might…

Party on prompt: A prose poem — Drawing me at a distance, the music a hook, a line, a sinker swilling, swinging, swaggering through the streets like a fish glinting, flitting, flirting — scales flashing through a balmy May gloaming —twilight-a-twinkling — rolling through the doors of the Pyramid like Cleo with a fella in the crook…

I have no way of knowing whether the events that I am about to narrate are effects or causes. — Jorge Luis Borges The seed is the flower’s end. By that same nature, the flower is the seed’s end, in a whirligig of entanglements. A writer maps out a narrative…

The text-lines are straight — but the meanings are not — Often mistakenly perceived as modern or contemporary in origin and style, the history of the prose poem stretches back several centuries and across different cultures. In seventeenth century Japan, when poet Matsuo Basho dared to combine haiku poetry with prose, haibun was born. …

Now humble as the ripest mulberry That will not hold the handling — William Shakespeare Dragon scales are proof of the softness beneath. Many winters thicken human skin and narrow the hearty-channels where blood finds its way through the labyrinth of the body. Just as the sea reaches a tipping…

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. — Anton Chekhov Nothing comes into focus without being shattered. Crystalline logic is dazzling in the light of a little room, but storm-light never stays still, not for the crystal, or anything else underneath…

Free verse recovery — stacked sideways eyes climb the bookcase, ascend from illegible brain infected grey lung hum oscillating headsplit gusts burning skin from muscle aborting ache of bones graining the view infirm with carpet germ vitreous floaters and ocular pressure, the gravity mind this isn’t the bedside scene in Victorian lit with a damsel…

Hope you meet your true love! People in this world are all walking on this road of life, and you are also following along. On the way, someone is always coming to you, and someone is always leaving by your side. When the new name becomes the old name, when…

I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth. — William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying If we could hear the earth-chatter, there would be nothing more to say. Silence is the dream of the ears, a fantasy where tinnitus is always interrupting, while the heart beats…

Everyone Makes Mistakes — We played games when we didn’t have a clue. Hide-and-seek, tag, cops and robbers too. Thinking now of how much times have changed. Do today’s kids play outside all day? Anyway. Like most big brothers, you were always on my side, Even when it meant forfeited friends or sacrificed pride. As teens…