The snow glistened white, pure and sweet

the wind had blown, thawing the top layer

that it might freeze again, a thin crust

like sugar on creme brulee. (more…)

Hey there Mister, are you alright?

I heard you screamin’ in your sleep last night.

‘Round three past thirty after three.

What was it you said in last night’s keep?

“I’m going to the slaughter along with the sheep,

a wolf wrapped in wool has just as much meat.”

She rises early to scrub her flesh in brimstone

and ashes, waxes her board to surf the waves

of undead coming through the gate, their shoulders

bent at just the right angles. Her skin glows sulfur, (more…)

We move together in mass
Like preteen girls at a concert

held at the mall, the day before
the outbreak Now that music

with no elevator, is drowned out
by the masses, whose feet (more…)

Broken urban desert, stale, parched
Dusted and frosted with collapsing automobiles
Skeletal juices crunch and ooze underfoot
All is dead (more…)

calliope whine
the clown’s greasepaint
smeared with blood
(more…)

This is Somalia, land of tradition

A cock crows
beginning the fast
from dawn to dusk
sins burned away
the living pray. (more…)

They say Winter doesn’t forgive

Gospel, true as the grave is cold

But it does forget

Eyes snow blind with hope, believing

The lies told with frozen breath

A blizzard of desperation (more…)

She knows the taste of nails,
a clutch of them in her mouth
like a dressmaker’s pins.
The flavor of iron is comforting,
something she can wield. (more…)

We first played this game as children
some three thousand miles south of here,
clattering out of screen porches
and down back steps onto cushioning grass.
Here my thick boots snap the snow like bone.
Freeze, somebody would yell, and we’d halt,
our traitorous hearts still pounding their drums.
There is no pulse on the tundra but mine.

(more…)

The cuckoo clock
has turned quite sinister
in the darkened parlour of
your ancestors, (more…)