Poems

The Fishing Rod in the Corner Ugly Stik, seven foot, medium action.The reel is a Shimano, beat to hell,the drag knob frozen with salt and neglect,the line so old it would never hold and wellpast the point of catching anything–but it stands in the corner by the doorlike a walking stick, like a shepherd crook,like […]

The Dybbuk Box – Dybbuk’s Presence Buried in dust at the back of a pawnshop shelf, the box waits–timber pitted, iron hinges rust-locked by griefA wine cabinet crafted with a carpenter’s hope,stained now with the centuries’ ache and an unseen, ancient thiefHebrew inscriptions scar the wood,their prayers worn thin by the touch of hands who

The Engine That Quit did it without any show —no backfire, no smoke, no dramatic glow —it just stopped caring one unremarkable morningand sat in the driveway, no warning, no warning. The man who owned the engine stepped out and turned the key —got the click, the half-catch, then the hollow nothing —the engine refusing

The Draft That Got Away There’s a parallel track running somewhere near—the other sequence, the alternate yearwhere I kept going past the six-week wall,where the enthusiasm didn’t stallbut carried into the thing itself. That selfis on a different shelfof the possible, making the choicesI didn’t make, running with different voices. The road I didn’t take

The Dress She Wore to the Funeral Black dress, tight at the waist and loose below the knee,She wore grief the way a razor wears its edge, clean and free,And I am a bastard for the thought, I know it, wrote it down,But she was devastating in that black and narrow gown Her shoulders bare

The Crow’s Call The crow’s call is a stark reminder of life’s fleeting natureWhere withered trees claw the sky and dusk devours the sunA dark-winged harbinger perched atop a crumbling sepultureHis song a dirge for hope undoneIn the abyss where shadows stretch, a truth becomes clearEach heartbeat, a fragile bell tolling against oblivion’s earRattling the

The Dargavs Cemetery, Russia – City of the Dead In the northern spine of Ossetia,where mountains hold their secrets like clenched fistsStone crypts rise from the wild grass–sentinels weathered by frost and centuries of missed sunShadows crowd the valley, and the wind walks careful,refusing to disturb the sleep of the deadHere is Dargavs, a necropolis

The Crescent Hotel, Arkansas – Whispers of the Crescent Hotel In the brittle silence of Arkansas twilight,the Crescent Hotel crowns the hills like a secret meant onlyfor the brave or the brokenStone spine arching into dusk,its turrets bristling with the hush of stories better left unspokenEvery balcony creaks with memory–ghostly fingers trailing through the balustrades,the

The Cold Embrace of Nightby Dawg Night folds its chill around trembling hearts,a black shroud clings–tight as fear’s first bite,yet in its grasp, a paradoxical warmth starts,the cold becomes the proving ground for light. Breaths cloud in the moon’s implacable gaze,shadows slip through rooms with soundless tread,but courage, forged in darkness, sets ablazethe icy beds

The Color of His Car I watch you pull into the drive at half past eight,that waxed and gleaming import sitting there so great,my knuckles whiten on the window frame I grip,I count the zeros on a price I would never tip. You bought it with the money that I never made,you wore it like