Poem: Becoming a Marylander

Between the tides of the Chesapeake
And the muddy waters of the Potomac
Seedlings cast from an old world
Seeking out new fertile soil to grow

Poem: Tobacco (nicotiana alata)

Nearly every summer for a decade
I watched tobacco being grown and harvested
Cut to air dry on stalks high in the rafters
Out in the old weathered gray tobacco barn
To cure and sweeten in the humid summer heat

Poem: Chesapeake Home

Old tobacco barns and fields of dust
Stories about how life used to be
Before they put the highway through the farm
I used to sit in that old white steeple church
The Enoch’s hands built and contemplate praying

Poem: Old Bay

Her lips taste like old bay
An undefined blend of spices
That is a perfect compliment
To the Natty Boh on my lips
When I’m kissing her

Poem: Pilgrim

A fair pilgrim set off into the North
To a distant sacred place far from home
Where Saint Jude and his lost causes went forth
In the dark wilds he found himself alone
In those places where no good souls should roam

Poem: Necessary

you are addiction
the drug that feeds me with words
necessary muse

Poem: Searching

Under cloudy skies I search the heavens
For a sign of something greater
Out there beyond myself
But above me are only clouds
Raining down incessantly

Poem: By the Moon

She swears by the moon
That she’ll love me forever
And I know in that moment
She’s just like the moon
Changing forever

Poem: Capturing You

How do you capture a smell or vision in words
I’ve filled so many pages of descriptions of you
Still you remain ephemeral like a sheer curtain
You know it’s there because you can see it dancing
Yet everything still shows through giving it shapes

Poem: With Age

I’ve been counting candles
So long I’ve lost track of the years
That grow long like my shadow
Trailing behind me as a cloak
Obscuring things passed