The Collections

Poem of the Month

OCTOBER, 2025

From the collection Sound Bytes and The Science of Decay

Led Overcast

One plate

of eyeballs and

one sad laughing clown

is all they'll

have left

to remember

the trip down.

Through the

rusted steel plates

in the floor

like a quick fade

into carbon blades

and winter bones,

Where the weights

gather their

punctured stones

leaking

saltwater antifreeze--

Fork fingertips

easy to please as

this knife in the road

but lacking so much

more than

deltas and dreams

that aren't quite

what they seem.

Poetry Archives

Where previous poems-of-the-month go to hang out.

SHATTERED AGAIN...

Broken pieces

sometimes raw

some testifying

albeit indirectly.

Some scattered mad

in slip-shod patterns,

sometimes overlapping.

Sometimes made of skin-stapled,

wrapped in ornate blades

and calmly snapping.

Some are almost fit to save;

Some pieces shining

catch the light

as quick as flint.

Then all aflame and

melt into a shapeless blight.

Shard for shard

they sometimes raze

and sadly linger,

caught in crimson

puddles trapped atop

the shaking finger.

July, 2025

August, 2025

INDETERMINATE

Useless Diversions

are rendered infallible,

wrenched out of context

and kept in the dark.

Clueless appraisals

meet fractured alacrity,

culled from conscriptions

left hopelessly stark.

Restive distinctions

deplore their conformity,

forced into focus

and tried in the light.

Hampered arrangements

stay calmly insensible,

dulled at the outset

and swept out of sight.

All For Nothing

Blind loyalty is

a dangerous thing

Its appetites carry

a virulent sting

Prepared to dispense

without pause or precision

whatever deceit

its precepts can envision

Unchallenged by truth

or reflection of thought

in shallow defense

of the sham that's been wrought

And carrying forward

without any sense

the bludgeoning force

of a callous pretense

To which are applied

every sordid conception

consumed by dispassion

and cloaked in deception.

September, 2025

Sound Bytes

A collection of my mini-poems, originally conceived as writing exercises during the compiling of Sound Bytes and The Science of Decay, in an effort to move on from longer, messier poems. These succinct verses have since popped up in all subsequent collections. New poems will be added monthly.

SUCUAC

Empty echoes forage

in the early morning,

Feast on open Dumpsters

Having hassles hoping

to encourage reason

ripped to shreds and

gloried into evening storage.

Double Shot

Diaphanous blades

on the concept

of fade:

Dyslexic bibulous

in contact

or colic

Reap havoc

and fascinate

Cleave or

intoxicate:

Wallow and tread

in distilling

ingenuous.

(In order to qualify as a "Sound Byte", only poems of fifteen lines or less will be used.)

Ulterior Angled

Typecast tragedy

hit fast.

Wouldn't last but

for the

abnormal chemistry.

Born to suffer

bad bargains and

bland effigies caught

clean cut into

soft solid rock.

Wrapped in calamities,

Forged first wrong

but second-

placed to shock.

ABANDONED

Grand dividers

creep inside her,

seed the furnace of doubt.

Staunch defeaters

fill and feed her,

advertise their

earthly clout.

Grim reminders

flog and find her

pull the rug and

reality out.

Came together?

He lucidly

corroborate

the fast

reaction;

She willfully

denunciate

the firm attraction.

They in

circular

protraction rate,

rely entirely

on friction

to relate.

Manic, depressive,

occasionally obsessive

when the reckon

right, left divided...

A personality cleft,

beside itself with

indecision over the

undercut of reaction.

Pertaining to a fraction

only, particularly of

lonely thoughts provided

there.

Lyric incentive--

Calm harboring desired;

Partly inventiveness

required, inherent

tension unconcealed,

Solemnity revealed by strain

and not apparently obtained

from feeling incomplete;

but lacking order,

Restless gesturing borders

on frustration, fusing

condemnations to complete.

FAULTLINE: The Splintered Image

Opaque shards

deflecting, not reflecting

within; diversions

beginning to disrupt

singular imagery,

Erupting outward from the

mass as shattered glass

containments falter,

Other matters piercing wholeness

alter the overall construction;

Product production skewed by

an outer influence.