email: SOST_18@hotmail.com age: 21 school: University of New Hampshire major: English passions: reading, writing, random adventures, design on the side favorite authors: Wilfred Owen, Robert Frost, Edgar Allen Poe, Gregory Corso also published in: it doesn't matter, does it?

*Spoken word featured in "Harmony Conspiracy"*

Poetry After Sun Bathing At the Beach Beside the White Fence In the Garden at Morning mourning On an Autumn Walk Perched above the needle setting sail The Loons To Audra

Writ Reviews Robert Bly - What Have I Ever Lost By Dying Ernest Hemingway - The Old Man and the Sea

mourning

The night wears black
the morning flame.

In the absence
of your heart's
fingerprint
I remain
a daily phoenix:

Every morning
         a baptism
Every night
            a burial

Setting Sail

Over the hum
of the waves
and the cymbal crash
of the foaming edges
throwing themselves
flat against the
pebble forest
clawing the small
circular tombstones
of hermit crab shells
that clump together
like a New England Graveyard

Over this haunting song
I sing my own apologies
slipping the words
like paper
into the glass bottle
of the undertow
hoping my voice
will somehow reach you
wherever you are

And the seagull chorus
scavenges my words
left bare in the
blue green clarity
of the sea
dropping their hard shells
on the rocks
and savoring
the meat

At the Beach

my cousins patter
across the rocks
armed with worn,
plastic spades
and buckets brimming
with sand sewn seawater;
a small band of
potbellied pigmies
stomachs full of
homemade sandwiches
 
sun browned feet
follow the leader
in searches for
bold sunset crabs
that scurry 
from upended stones
 
in tide pool kingdoms
they hunt wild haired
with sunscreen
war paint
snatch with deft skill
clawed kings
from their castles
 
Triumphant they'll return;
tanned faces lit
in eager light,
their stretched shadows 
racing ahead
to show me
their wares

The Loons

They bend like bows
arch taunt before they dive-
twang through water clear
as I watch from the shore
 
my bobber floating
belly up;
letting the waves do the work
burning its white meat red
with the noon day's touch
 
they poach round my marinating worm
flint beaks spearing
small mouth bass
like my brethren of old
 
I real in my
bloated, sunburnt bobber
give my worms a burial
among the reeds
 
"leave things 
to those that know best"
let the sacred hunters
give thanks 
with their calls.

On an Autumn Walk

Worn, two trees
lean together
in the sharp Autumn wind

creased, their faces
share secrets
with limbs creaking
in careful embrace

In the sharp,
Autumn wind
they dance rough cheek
to rough cheek
delicately
amid a swirling
chandelier of leaves

To Audra

I fell in love with her eyes.
they flashed
reflections of myself
stabbed by lightning
split and shaken

She was a storm unto herself
fierce and proud,
her tempest - her breath,
her touch - an earthquake

I was shaken
flung ragged
drunk and mad
soaked to my bones
naked in her eye
naked to her core
threadbare in her
disrobing stare

I found myself
clothed myself in her slumber
Left her with the dawn.

Beside the White Fence

As I walk
through the damp,
fresh cut grass,
straight and combed
by biting teeth
like a barberUs razor
on Sunday afternoon,

I nod to the post
standing white washed
planted in the ground
made over
three measured paces
from his brother.

Gathered at
his ankles
the country cousins crowd
with unkempt hair
and gap-toothed smiles,
singing
in the wind.

Oh! To cast off my shoes, yelling
and dancing an unfettered dance
among the ragweed and
dandelions.

Oh! To walk straight and
tall, three measured paces
in clean shaven  grass
strolling in rows.

In the Garden at Morning

Amid the dew-cupped
lilies:
soft silk sails
fluttering against
stern mooring

Butterflies teeter on SpringUs
breath
tissue paper wings
caught like kites
flown by ants

After Sun Bathing

To me she was like
when reading a poem,
you come across one
of those words.
One of those dark
secretive words
standing stark
in the alleyways
of arrainged letters.

You catch your
hidden breath.
Your shoulders hunch
millimeters.
Your eyes freeze
like your feet
at the sight of a stray dog-
neglected back arched.

And it growls.
And you move on.

Perched above the needle

Perched above the needle
of the gray stone church tower
the balanced decay
of November spills over
with cloud wings heavy.

Fly the rain does, down
like sheets.

The cottage bed shudders-
silk knotted
in entwined taffy limbs
beneath clawing on dampened slate
cream and sunrise cry out.

The tower bell tolls low,
knows no relation.