Now I know why
the wolf howls at night.
Now I know why
it sounds so alone.
It’s not like I ever had you.
It’s not like I ever would.
It’s just that a hope
had lodged in a corner
of my heart
And that corner,
has been ripped away.
Now I know why
the banshees wail
Now I know why
it chills the heart
For the wail
of the banshee
is the wail
of loss
And we don’t want to lose
that much.
This poem was written in 1983, inspired by my senior ring, which had a blue spinal stone because my favorite color is blue. It was published in the Spring 1984 issue of Metanoia, the Montgomery High School creative writing magazine. Blue Spinal, Spiral me down, down to the depths of your ocean. I see everything…
Written in 1983. I stretch for endless miles. My brethren stretch out beside me. I have many visitors. Yet I am always alone. Bubble gum and cigarette butts on my belly, Dirt on my back, I lie and watch the creatures who forever traverse my stomach. The old lady who pushes a cart Cares about…
Written in February 1983. I am trapped within this cage. I can’t see or feel the cage, but I sense its presence. Is it me? Is it my peers? Is it life? Why can’t I fly? I want to be free! But how can one escape from something unseen, and untouchable? How can one be…
I was cleaning out some old boxes of documents and found this snippet. It is a fictionalized account of the day of my miscarriage. It needs some work, but I think it has potential as the kernel of a horror story (which is where I think I was going with it). What do you think?…
For the past two weeks I’ve been dealing with my dog’s health. She’s been sneezing blood all over the place — a bad combination of high blood pressure and aspirin seemed to cause it. Anyway, I’ve really had blood on the brain lately, thus this somewhat dark haiku for this week. Cleaned gore off the…
The imagery of a lonely old house always grabs me. I take pictures of them when I see them. And they often put in an appearance in my writing. Here’s a case in point. Towering, it stands. Long driveway spirals down the hill. Forbidding, it sits on Grecian poles. Dark and lonely are its windows….