Poems
Some of my published poems
Click on any poem title below to reveal the poem text, along with a link to the publication, some notes about the poem, and (for most) an audio recording. The poems are ordered by number of syllables.
My favorite poem, for now, is Honor Among Sleeves.
- Magnifying Glass (haiku),
- Selected Quatrains from DBDA2,
- Looking East,
- The Power of Poetry for Climate Change,
- Any Time Spent,
- Hamster in Your Head,
- Stratigraphy,
- A Late Afternoon Lying on My Back,
- Open Mic Night,
- Bookmarks and Headstones,
- Were It Not for the Firefly,
- At the Window,
- Fish Ladder || Going Home (contrapuntal),
- The Wind || A Dream (contrapuntal),
- The Sun Shines Fluidly on Every House,
- The Purpose of Time,
- Under Their Sink,
- Carbon Footprints of Unwanted Children,
- Cueva de las Manos,
- Honor Among Sleeves,
- Stars Fade || Spots Appear (contrapuntal),
- Feather in the Path of a Mower,
- Cruel Sestina,
- In Retirement Sunlight Falls / Blackbirds Hang,
- Golden State,
- A Way of Waving || Wavering Away (contrapuntal)
A few songs:
An interview with the Indiana Daily Student
A view from the microphone, as a featured reader at Last Sunday
Poetry, Writers Guild at Bloomington, August 31, 2025:
A few of my favorite poems by others
- Contemplation by Meredith Root-Bernstein. Published in the New Yorker magazine, March 9, 2009. See also her poem, Trash, in her 2012 book Hock.
- One Train May Hide Another by Kenneth Koch. Published in his book, One Train, Knopf 1994.
- The lyrics of Waters of March by Antonio Carlos Jobim, written in 1972, and performed by many; see especially the version by Susannah McCorkle.
- The lyrics of Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words) by Bart Howard, written in 1954. The preamble (“Poets often use many words…”) is essential, but most performers omit it. Listen to the performance by Tony Bennett.