Blue Lake Review

Blue Lake Review has just accepted my new poem "Following the Thread" for publication in their March 2011 issue. The poem is part of an ongoing chapbook collaboration of love poems and artwork with my better half, Staci M. Cole.

This Week's Poem

Historic Scenes

I drive across a covered bridge, failing,
planks loosening beneath my weight,
all manner of tree russet and gold, shedding,
praying for a little less permanence.

The road winds around abandoned barns
wearing name plates and birth dates.
Perfect square plots of earth the state cannot sell,
that so few people visit still the scents
of horses and musket fire endure.

I see a wheel smoothly
carting river water in circles,
toward me and away.
A silent wheel
a boy of five might see
very differently
being acclimated to the deafening
marvels of science.

The White Mountains loom overhead,
dip below the tree line and reemerge, unchanged.
They’ve forecasted an early snow this year.The morning sky could hardly be darker.


-published by The Heartland Review and in my chapbook, A Pure River

Winter Issue of 322 Review out now!

The winter issue of 322 Review is out now! The full issue is available online. Click here! It contains my poem "The North Sea"...

This Week's Poem

Farmer’s Almanac

Once again like clockwork gray days
of rain recycled from April.
Maple boughs glassing over.
Children stiffening their limbs
for recycled lessons.
Neighbors predicting thunderclaps
moments after they strike.

Glimpses of what will be lost, again,
tugging at the day’s shortening sleeves.
Already there is talk of rebirth
before a single tree
has shaken free of color.
And talk of gardens,
everything next to plant.

Wet matches.
Lurching furnaces.
It has been written
we must board the night bus to Gloucester.
There is no such bus this time of year.
It seems we have a long wait, again,
in the rainwith wet matches.


-published by Offcourse Literary Journal and in my chapbook, A Pure River

Show and Tell Gallery podcast

The podcast of last Monday's Show and Tell Gallery is now available HERE. It's broken into two podcasts, and Part II includes myself and friends A. Moltkov, Mark S. Strizan, and Rick J. Give it a listen!

This Week's Poem

A Brief Respite

When the battle dies it’s as if
oceans have calmed,
the world has balanced
evenly upon its spear tip.
The dead gather their organs and go about
washing themselves from the grass.
Crows, cicadas, rains return.
People walking empty streets
who hear from behind
their names mysteriously whispered
turn to find everyone they have ever kissed.
In a moment’s order
poems gasp for one free breath-
relieved of the burden of choosing
who next to vanish and which midnight street to people.


-published by Third Wednesday

Show and Tell Gallery Tomorrow

This week's Show and Tell Gallery will be a full 3-hour open mic, without the usual featured reader segment.

Come join us for a wide variety of poetic voices!

When: Monday, Dec. 13
Where: Three Friends Coffee House
201 SE 12th, PDX

Carcinogenic Poetry

Carcinogenic Poetry has just published three of my poems. Follow the link to read them!

"Who will lay flowers", "I cannot keep this poem", and "The Rhetoric of Silence" are now on the main page of their site.

Open Poetry Reading in Hillsoboro

This event is open to all in the community, allowing local poets an opportunity to read their work and receive feedback from other poets and community members. I'll be participating in the mic and discussion.

When: Tue, December 14, 7pm – 8pm
Where: Walters Cultural Art Center Gallery
527 East Main St Hillsboro, OR 97123

Hillsboro Community Arts fosters the arts through entertainment, education, experience.

December's Stonehenge Studios Reading

December's Stonehenge Studios reading will feature Henry Hughes and David Hargreaves at 7pm, followed by an open mic. Fellow poets, including A. Molotkov, and I frequent this popular, serious-minded reading and open mic series, and I hope to see you there!

When: Sunday, Dec. 12, 7-9pm
Where: Stonehenge Studios
3508 SW Corbett Ave, PDX

Caper Literary Journal

Caper Literary Journal has accepted for publication two of my poems for their February 2011 issue. "At Exactly Three" and "I tend to leave splinters" will be displayed alongside the strong work they publish.

Notes on the journal: Caper Literary Journal will be launching a small press in 2011, publishing e-chapbooks and some full-length books. They will also begin accepting work for a Global Words project, which will print work by authors from around the world or who write about cultures and between-cultures.

Heavy Hands Ink

Heavy Hands Ink has accepted for February 2011 publication my poem "A Strange Place". The editor, Maxwell Baumbach, said "this piece packed a great deal of punch", and I am happy it's found a home with a strong print/online journal.

Heavy Hands Ink's print issues are available at lulu.com and free pdf versions are available online. I'll let you know when the issue with my poem is out!

This Week's Poem

Common Enemies

A russet moon hanging crescent
with its sharper tip nearly touching earth
is only half the story.

The obvious symbol, the dotted line
cut around to paste
its romantic shape upon flags.

I wonder if school children here
slip into the hands of crushes
multi-colored half-moons,

as we might snowflakes or hearts
with arrows half-piercing
or our virginal hands

when the adult world’s eyes
are diverted by war.
War, with its common enemies.

War with its silent nods of resignation.

I am praying to this moon tonight
as I would any other.
Listening to American jazz

on Damascus radio.

-published by The November 3rd Club

Lines and Stars Best of 2009-2010

Lines and Stars is presently anthologizing a Best of 2009-2010 chapbook, and they have selected my poem "In the Wilderness Between" for inclusion! They originally published this poem in 2009. I'll send an update when the physical chapbook is out!

Lines + Stars began as a means of establishing a new creative forum in Washington, D.C., a city that all-too-often coasts solely on its more mechanistic pursuits.