Poems

Click here to find two poems about old movies, kindly published by Diode.

I have a poem a recent issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Two recent poems are up at Blackbird, the fine (electronic) magazine out of VCU. Check them out here.

My poem about the story of Abraham and Isaac was published in Confrontation.

Here’s a poem up in Cumberland River Review. And here’s another.

My poem, “Pre-School Race, Seen Through a Bus Window,” appeared in Antioch Review, and was recently featured on their blog.

—

Here are two poems from the chapbook, History Here Requires Balboa. You can find audio of me reading these poems in the Multimedia section of the site.

Cortez      one story goes
killed Montezuma      with a stream of gold
poured molten from its crucible      into the crucible
of the king’s mouth      five soldiers
had to hold him down      one to each arm
each leg one with      palms on his forehead like a nurse
while a sixth     pulled from the embered fire
the shimmering cup      the liquid offering

they would have had to      hold his mouth
wedge it      with a stick perhaps
between the molars like a trap      and then the tongue
cooked like beef      the soft tissues
of the mouth bursting      the scream like a spark
leaping up      and then gone the gold
cooling to a plug      the shocked throat gilded silent

 ~~~

Keats, his lungs full of pure serene, staggers home
between moon and sun. The page awaits, and soon
Cortez, much travelled in the realms of gold,
will take his place in Darien among
the soldiers and the native guides, his armor
gleaming in the jungle sun. His pose
is Keats’s own, the poet’s mix of dread
and wonder at the world transformed. He shades
his eyes. Keats, that quiet stowaway, needs only
Cortez’s iamb, the heartbeat in his name.

~~~