love

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The poems I never read in public (a virtual reading from said the Frog to the scorpion)

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I don’t read longer poems at poetry readings. However, I composed some of my longest poems in said the Frog to the scorpion. Months ago, I made an intention to record these poems because I slaved over them and wanted my physical voice attached to them as they are to the poems I read aloud regularly.

So here is a 13 min reading of longer poems from said the Frog to the scorpion

Poems:

1. "when asked why I believed Her"

2. "who She is" (I screwed up the title in the video)

3. “when asked about toxic amnesia”

4. “take your pick”

5. “when asked why I won't”

And yes, there are a lot of squirrels behind me...

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Interview with My Bad Poetry Podcast

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A podcast where I (painfully) discussed some of the very first poems I wrote in college. Heaven help us all.

You can read the poems discussed —"musing,” “she says it’s only in my head,” & “(at) fireworks on the 7th" — below.

As I mention in the podcast, there is a good chance that some people reading these are mentioned in the poems. Sorry about that.

Two poems in Discretionary Love

Some times people ask me why I don't write love poems. I tell them all my poems are love poems, but I know what they mean. So I show them ones like these two just published in Discretionary Love and they stop asking.

sweetness

before she began, she placed the glass jar between us—
filled with fresh, golden honey—and a sizable spoon.
homemade. an amateur apiarist, she kept a ready supply.

as she began, I remembered how my mother mixed 
honey with lemon, a pinch of salt. a folk remedy 
for sore throats, the beginnings of a cold. 

when she was through, I asked why. she thought 
I meant the amber on the table, not the gaslighting
she called brutal honesty. she said it was to help me 

swallow my feelings.  

an open letter to the one who should have got away

                                            …yet, somehow—
as the scorpion thrashed her pincers
and drowned—the frog survived,
flopped ashore, croaked himself
back to life. a week, a month later,
along the same muddy shore,
another barb-tailed arachnid
implored him for safe passage
across the stream. a ride
atop his slick, perforated back.
it’s not that he doesn’t remember.
it’s just his nature. he never learns.