Category: Poetry

Ode to Harpeth Hall

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You students, you plaid, you dress uniforms
You Souby lawn grass, you magnolia shine
You red bricks, you Ann Scott Carell library
You Wallace, you Massey, you Bullard 
You green hills, and rain, and snow sometimes
You cardinals darting from tree to tree
You middle school girls skipping and free
You AP scholars, you Harkness discussions
You United States history, your voices so bright
I sing your praise for days now past
Though some may say he’s a California lad
The truth is, he’s really quite sad
Harpeth Hall you have made your mark
And hark, you who I taught, I may be gone
but you still have my heart

Let Technology Go

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Sit in silence, with screens in another room. Wait quietly 
for each word to arrive. Have faith 
that they will, that the universe will guide you/me/us.

Alone, we feel detached from the world where everything happens. 
Now someone is tiktok singing, now someone is 
posting a photo, now someone is smiling on a screen.

But no one is here in this room, which could be an ocean or
the branch of a tree, free to be. Dare we separate from the 
netflix masses and those who have lost their way? 
I understand them, I too have been lost
but now found.

Dorm Hallway Phone

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it rings and rings, that 
sound now fabricated for
flat screened rectangles in 
jean pockets, or purses

back then you had to jump 
off the bunk bed, sprint 
down the hallway hoping
whoever was calling would be

desperate enough to let it ring
8 times, 12 times, so important
that someone, anyone answer
because it could be a girlfriend

or boyfriend, or heaven forbid
a parent calling about a pet
dog who was put to sleep
then tears in front of all 
the other dormers in Foss Hall

and to think this happened
maybe twice a day, the phone rang
twice a day, or maybe three times

1987 Basketball Hero

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I shoot baskets like no one is watching. No one is
watching, except me, dream of youth, of future stardom, of
current stardom. Driveway hero of every game, concrete cracks
little lines where I place my sneakers, then heave up shot after
shot toward the red rim, its gravity like a sun, my sun, basketball
that sphere of influence. Minutes become an hour, become time itself.
Stand here, move there, under the hoop, arms and legs
leaping toward the sky.

When The Gun Spoke

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trigger
pull it
or don’t
i’m not in charge
it is the bullet
no, it is your hand
no, your fingers
they are needed
for me 
to work
no, it is your eyes
to see 
to aim 
to know what to look at
no, it is your mind that
decides 
to grip me
buy me
shoot me
no, it is your arm
no, it is the muscles 
that have power
to hold steady
to kill
but whatever you do
don’t blame me
i didn’t do it

The Old House: 1978-2023

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this is the place
where i once lived
basement tv, saturday sugar
cereal, endless ping pong
mowing the lawn and
shooting driveway basketball hoops
sledding as a child
reading by the fireplace
blasting the beasties upstairs
on the old stereo
ice cream birthday cakes
hide and go seek
learning how to shave
and juggle bean bags
talent shows with sunglasses
and the elvis moves
staring at jumping squirrels
outside my bedroom window
a home once ours
now is no more

At McKay’s

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the poetry section is a jumble of
paperbacks, anthologies, Chaucer
Elizabeth Bishop, Neruda, Donne
Dickinson, page after bent page
used books, leaning paper spines
the dead supporting each other
most of their words long forgotten
USA $29.95, once the price of wisdom
now two dollars, time erases money
and memories of Isla Negra
Amherst lilacs, and all the rest

2023

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it is the end of 2022
and what are we to do?
celebrate the newfound cold
and embrace all that is beautifully bold

there is a blessing in the air
a promise to live without fear
to love our family and all who are dear
this is what the universe wants us to do

to be kind and speak what is true
stand strong like sycamores against the wind
in this new year we begin again
to be grateful for all that is

and so the days will go by
carrying life like a sparrow song
our spirits dancing on and on
here’s to 2023 and all that is yet to be