some poems...

haven't posted anything in a while, but I saw over on the KSE blog that my edition of their Next Exit series was one of their fastest sellers, and that made me smile. it's a rarity these days, when each moment is filled with uncertainty and strange rumblings, when the realm of the political is a madhouse where the corporations have free reign and the will of the people is a long gone and quaint thing of the past, when torture is acceptable foreign (and domestic) policy and kindness is an exploitable weakness. but it felt good, so I thought I'd post a couple of poems from the chap while that feeling endures. thanks to my eight readers who obviously bought multiple copies. enjoy:


mobile, alabama

as the trucks
pound across the
giant expanse of
bridge looming
in the distance

the water
somewhere below

exhales and inhales.

everyone is tired
and the world is
a difficult place.

nothing is very reliable.

people are lost, much
is broken.

this road seems
endless.

but it
isn't.

taillights
disappear into
the southern air.

metal, mostly,

groans.


athens, georgia

he is going to
new orleans
to join a jazz band,
to
play his guitar,
see if he has what it
takes.

the pizza dough
encircles the mound
of his white knuckles.

his eyes are
afraid.


dahlonega, georgia

driven, hopeful men
fighting the
curious whisper
of
madness.

no mystery about
the past,

death and slaves,
the glint of
sunlight below the
water's froth,
mountains

that scream and weep,
sweat and bleed.

a gilded future.

the birth
of a nation.

just another
place
where
dreams

aren't.


also, just got Bill Taylor's new book Words For Songs Never Written and it's a beaut. spare and haunting, sad and magical, it's worth the cover price and then some. check it out at Centennial Press.