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Winter Evening, Crime and Punishment
Cold on the Boulevard - Wind scrapes the window glass, Ice rattles down the Street, But here I sit - Campaign chair deep as an old friend’s lap, Estate-sale throne Soft against my bones. The fire cracks, Shadows dance on the wall, And my glass of Bear Pond Sherry - amber, bitter-sweet as memory - warms the inside slow. I sip, Listening to the hush between flames, Thinking of Raskolnikov - His fevered guilt, That old axe heavy in the night, Blood and conscience tangling In Petersburg snow. Outside - Car tires hiss against frozen curb, Children’…
The Lady of Woodlawn
By the crypt-mist’s breath and candle’s sigh — in the style of Poe Set in Elmira’s Woodlawn Cemetery, this poem listens for the echoes that linger between art and afterlife. The Lady becomes both muse and mirror - a figure through whom memory, creation, and mourning converge. In Woodlawn deep, where shadows creep ’Mid tomb and twisted vine, A maiden sleeps while sorrow weeps Through yew and creeping pine. Her face - a bronze and hollowed grace - Still stares with lifeless eyes; A silence clings where no bell rings, And never sun shall rise. No…
We Plant the Poppies
Remembrance in Red We plant the poppies by the zinnias, by the fence that leans south like it’s tired too. They don’t ask much - just dirt, a little sun - but they come back every year, like they know we need them to. Red. Too red for joy. Too red for anything but memory. But, some things the ground won’t forget, no matter how deep we dig. I’ve seen that color in desert sand, in dust that clings like guilt. Iraq. Kuwait. Men saying goodbye without knowing it. At night, when the city sleeps, their faces rise - not ghosts, just men with unfinish…
That One Bottle — 1989
A Memory in Sweat and Grace In Nuremberg, summer pressed its full weight down - thick as iron, bright as judgment - onto a rugby pitch ringed by trees too wise to move. We ran anyway. Ran until we weren’t sure if the heat was in the air or burning up from inside us. We were the Ansbach Killer Karp - forest green and black, colors of deep things, of roots and shadows. They were the Black Knights of Nuremberg, sharp in red and black - banners from some old war neither side remembered, but both refused to lose. It was not elegant. Not pretty. It …
Redemption, Nightmare, and Reflection
Some men count their wealth; some count their hearts; some learn to count both. Introduction These three poems explore alternate moral and emotional paths in the life of Ebenezer Scrooge. The first presents his worst nightmare: a man confronted with the possibility of change yet refusing it, entrenched in his darkness. The second imagines a quiet redemption, where Belle’s love persuades him to turn toward generosity and human connection. The third is Belle’s reflection on that transformation, offering insight into the power of patience, mora…
