My flash fiction story "Facility" was just published in OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters.
The poems I never read in public (a virtual reading from said the Frog to the scorpion)
I don’t read longer poems at poetry readings. However, I composed some of my longest poems in said the Frog to the scorpion. Months ago, I made an intention to record these poems because I slaved over them and wanted my physical voice attached to them as they are to the poems I read aloud regularly.
So here is a 13 min reading of longer poems from said the Frog to the scorpion
Poems:
1. "when asked why I believed Her"
2. "who She is" (I screwed up the title in the video)
3. “when asked about toxic amnesia”
4. “take your pick”
5. “when asked why I won't”
And yes, there are a lot of squirrels behind me...
Short Reading from said the Frog to the scorpion
I read two poems from said the Frog to the scorpion at the open mic of the Pour Me a Poem gathering in Mansfield, MA hosted by Wayne-Daniel Berard and Sara Letourneau on the second Thursday of each month.
Listen to “hevel” and “when asked what it’s like to love Her.”
"...believes all things" in 3 Elements Literary Review
I’m happy to have another one of my poems, "...believes all things", appearing in 3 Elements Literary Review. Read the full issue below
[Say pity is not love, is not action] in Presence Journal 2023
I’m proud to, once again, have a poem in the Presence Journal.
Update: Presence Journal has nominated this poem for possible inclusion in Orison Books' annual Best Spiritual Literature anthology!
Note: This poem takes its title from a line in Shūsaku Endō’s novel Silence.
Interview with My Bad Poetry Podcast
A podcast where I (painfully) discussed some of the very first poems I wrote in college. Heaven help us all.
You can read the poems discussed —"musing,” “she says it’s only in my head,” & “(at) fireworks on the 7th" — below.
As I mention in the podcast, there is a good chance that some people reading these are mentioned in the poems. Sorry about that.
Two poems in Discretionary Love
Some times people ask me why I don't write love poems. I tell them all my poems are love poems, but I know what they mean. So I show them ones like these two just published in Discretionary Love and they stop asking.
sweetness
before she began, she placed the glass jar between us—
filled with fresh, golden honey—and a sizable spoon.
homemade. an amateur apiarist, she kept a ready supply.
as she began, I remembered how my mother mixed
honey with lemon, a pinch of salt. a folk remedy
for sore throats, the beginnings of a cold.
when she was through, I asked why. she thought
I meant the amber on the table, not the gaslighting
she called brutal honesty. she said it was to help me
swallow my feelings.
an open letter to the one who should have got away
…yet, somehow—
as the scorpion thrashed her pincers
and drowned—the frog survived,
flopped ashore, croaked himself
back to life. a week, a month later,
along the same muddy shore,
another barb-tailed arachnid
implored him for safe passage
across the stream. a ride
atop his slick, perforated back.
it’s not that he doesn’t remember.
it’s just his nature. he never learns.
