First Breath

 

Before our lips touch

we inhale this first breath. 

 

Our diaphragms lift. 

Our abdomens contract. 

 

Then each and every 

molecule of vapour 

 

exhaled embraces 

the moist evening air.

 

Our lungs conduct this

dance of gaseous exchange.

 

And the heart? 

Only the heart knows 

 

what lips will touch. 

The lips its emissaries.

 

Or maybe only the tongue 

sends back word silently

 

to the heart. Of how it feels 

to beat outside the body. 

 

Then the heart may know 

love is the consistent beat

 

that shares the pulse 

of another body echoing. 

​

- from Vital Signs (Cinnamon Press, 2024)

 

 

Albaldah by Night 

​

I sit by the window 

of the old house. 

 

It is no longer raining. 

 

A single star shines 

in the clear night.

 

Wondering if ignorance 

has its charm. Or is it 

 

innocence unplotted 

in the constellated mind?

 

But Albaldah shines 

after our inquiries.  

 

Mass of six suns five 

hundred light years away.

 

How reassuring to be dwarfed.

Being ourselves small miracles. 

 

Star gazers cast their eyes

on this sight in search of Pluto. 

 

So it is in the galaxies 

of words seeking smaller 

 

almost indetectable sounds 

pulled by silence. 

 

Beneath those the ever

tinier universes love shows.

​

- from And Then the Rain Came (Cinnamon Press, 2022)

 

​

Poem by Donald Trump

​

I haven’t learned

yet how to write

Poetry

 

but I’m a very quick learner

very quick and I’ll have

the best people

 

the best people around

me I mean some of my

best friends even are Poets

 

are even Poets and they’re

always telling me what

a great Poet I’d be

 

and really how really

difficult it would be

for me not to be so great

 

not to be a great Poet

and when I become Poet

they’ll just have to forget

 

everything they ever learned

about Witman Eliott Yates

Oppenheimer Heiney Otto Plath

 

and all those other Muslim rapist

Mexican women and letterists

who are terrorizing this Great Cuntry

 

of Ours that is not a poem

in our eyes but will be

My Poem Trump Collected Inc.

 

pasted on every goddam

mile of every goddam wall

of My Great Wall Cuntry

 

You can bet your bottom

$

on that ass

 

facker

 

January 2016

 

Note: Donald Trump is not the author of 'Poem by Donald Trump' and the poem does not express exactly any of his opinions, views or comments.

​

- from Exploring Rights (Cinnamon Press, 2020)

 

​

Punctuation Points

 

The Comma

 

A stepping stone,

in the pond of meaning.

 

The Full-Stop

 

The smallest and largest

point in the universe.

 

The Colon

 

A pair of identical twins:

balancing.

 

The Semi-Colon

 

A comma;

with a chaperone.

 

The Hyphen

 

One of many bridges

across-the-pond…

 

The Dash

 

A hyphen on holiday –

 

Inverted Quotation Marks

 

“Side-burns at the

face of language.”

 

The Exclamation Mark

 

Surely this could not

happen to a full stop!

 

The Question Mark

 

But can this key, as you say,

truly unlock the world?

​

- from Holding Unfailing (Cinnamon Press, 2017)

​

​

Fragment: Unaccountable

 

I lean towards

your city

 

but do not move

…] as China floods

 

past, its floods past

in the present metal.

 

The continual ships

of the continuous river

 

…] the metal of our days

to you I lean and see

 

today’s tomorrow

yesterday

​

- opening poem from Holding Unfailing (Cinnamon Press, 2017)

 

 

Note on Text

 

Around the time of writing

a cat brushed his knee,

 

demonstrating for one

and all how the most

 

resourceful creatures

make their opinions

 

known in silent messages

surrounding the truth of words.

 

- opening poem from A Force That Takes (Cinnamon Press, 2013)

​

​

Reversing Sonnets

 

‘Is this love?

 

A cure for the visible.’

 

~ Lavinia Greenlaw, ‘Winter Finding’

 

 

Until she lights on somewhere to arrive

box-cut hedges in a cul-de-sac drive

smart her sense longing for impatient cliffs

without a view but within a minute

photographed traipsed to know them there the skiffs

the anchored bay the clouds that suddenly fit

the frame of bobbing hulls and blent sea air

how stepping backwards from a wintry edge

is almost to ask ‘Is this love?’ or care

enough to touch a painted window ledge

as much a cure for seeing as to know

face-to-face the visible betrayal

of winter gone that melting ice will show

the harbour master’s hands unfurl the sail

 

The harbour master’s hands unfurl the sail

of winter gone that melting ice will show

face-to-face the visible betrayal

as much a cure for seeing as to know

enough to touch a painted window ledge

is almost to ask ‘Is this love?’ or care

how stepping backwards from a wintry edge

the frame of bobbing hulls and blent sea air

the anchored bay the clouds that suddenly fit

photographed traipsed to know them there the skiffs

without a view but within a minute

smart her sense longing for impatient cliffs

box-cut hedges in a cul-de-sac drive

until she lights on somewhere to arrive

​

- from A Force That Takes (Cinnamon Press, 2013)

​

 

 

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