Poetry

Poetry is that which saves the language, and creates the language anew. It destroys banality and order and reestablishes it with beauty but also pride. Who are the poets to tell everybody what to do with word-things? Poetry is free to the masses, like the Wind and the Aspirations of the Heart. Free from bondage to economics, to society, and to condemnation. The words are out there, waiting to be arranged.

The following is a sample of my poetry. While not always representing what I believe, or even who I am, poetry for me is a vehicle to try on different personas and to examine situations that I have yet to be in, a prophetic experiment in roleplaying.

Collections

• The Panda Poems
• Battle Metaphor
• Dreaming Life
• Living Under the Shadow of the Infrastructure
• Orphaned Poetry

The Panda Poems

The panda resists the forces of evolution by natural selection better than any other creature. It is completely ill-adapted to its environment, and yet it lives on. Perhaps we are just as ill-adapted to living on this earth and in this society we struggle so hard to maintain.

• The Picture in the Mail
• My Furniture Walks
• The Common Tragedy
• Sham Sleep
• Don't Forget the Shovel
• Black and White
• The Child's Bedroom
• Where My Treasure Is
• The Visible Glass
• Morbidity
• Charles Darwin
• Her Playground
• The Glare
• A Flight of Discovery
• Red Panda
• The Trail of Trials

Battle Metaphor

A direct sequel to The Panda Poems, this collection expands on the spiritual and existential challenges that face our nameless narrator.

• Battle Metaphor
• Step One
• The Streetlamps
• The Eagle - Sequel to The Child's Bedroom
• My Chapter Six
• Deception Imperative
• Misinterpretation
• Too Much of Too Much
• The Phantasy Kiss
• The Cuts and Bruises
• Armed
• Sail on a Whale
• Journey to the . . .
• SOS
• Ode to Origami
• Under the Tiger's Watchful Eye
• The Sword
• Words and Actions
• The Fear of All
• The Gift From Asia
• In the Image
• Celestial Governance
• In to Heaven (?)
• Total Honesty
• Essential Emotion Denied
• The Impossibility of Redemption

Dreaming Life

If I record a book of my dreams, should it be published in the non-fiction section as a memoir? Or does it belong in the fiction section, as I really had no control over the storylines? We have dreams every night, but do we ever dream our days?

• The Division is Fuzzy Now
• Wood
• Fire
• Earth
• Metal
• On the Way to an Epiphany of Sorts
• Water
• Nightmare
• Beyond the Meadow Lies the Forest
• Coda, Years Later

Living Under the Shadow of the Infrastructure

A story of a man living in a place he does not want to be. While the shadow of the infrastructure initially refers to the edge of the city where he lives, he finds that "infrastructure" is more than just roads and transmission lines.

• The City Claustrophobia
• The Hum
• The Kids
• The Elevator
• And There She Was
• In Part
• The Depot of Deposit
• The Nonintention, I Swear
• Not Pretending Anymore
• The Means

Orphaned Poetry

Poetry that has no home, wandering solo, but not without aim.

Fractured Integrity
A short math lesson on how to treat women.

Hope
That moment before consciousness retires.

The Factory
A partially autobiographical sketch on powerlessness.

The Poet's Labor
The closest approximation I have to a poetic statement on the medium.

The Remainders
When the world ends and all that's left is two.

The Structure of Salvation
Will you use it?