Pale Fires I
August—September 2020
The fires are out, mostly, in the streets,
just heat laying-on, thick and muscly
under ubiquitous blue moon, over outback,
too, where no beautiful thing shines
in lunar presence as before, and yet,
if desert could sense summer, then, like us,
of magic and memory, no angst and fire,
human heat, would roughage, sand and stone,
viper, creeper, corbie circling its dregs
for steaming dead flesh, wish, as we do now,
frost ice the blossom, winter shelter-in-place,
ground-zero cold-white glow become us?
DREAM WIND was published 2020 (Spirit-of-the-Ram P). Work appears in AGNI, American Literary R, Cincinnati R, Kansas Q, Louisville R, Mississippi R, New York Q, Phoebe, RHINO, Sonora R, Texas Observer, among others. EVERYTHING SPEAKING CHINESE received RIVERSTONE P (AZ) Poetry Book Prize. Recognitions include NEA & NEH Fellowships, residencies, and several Pushcart nominations. He divides professional & personal lives among Eurasia, the Desert Southwest, & Maine.
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