In The Frame - originally published by Tap Into Poetry - 8/22/2025

 In The Frame
 
I apologize, I did not mean
to get inside the frame.
You were capturing a
photo of your family
when I passed unwittingly
between them and the famous
lighthouse. It’s impossible
to avoid these days, when
everyone is photographing
everything all the time.
 
Many regrets, as well,
for intruding on your life by
falling for your wife. She’s
everything I’ve ever wished
for, and you seemed unaware
of her magic. I see no way
to remove myself, for this
is life, not a digital image
to be altered with a click.
 
To live is to swim
in time, floating
from past to future,
unlike a photograph
which is fixed, a static study
of a single moment.
I’m sure you’ll learn to swim
in new waters without her,
as she and I learn
to swim together.
 
You’ll always have the photograph,
and can easily delete me from that.
 
 

Shelter - originally published in Lily Poetry Review June 2025

Shelter
 
library art gallery
poetry reading
a dank weekend afternoon
 
two without homes find shelter
from the rain with me
and eleven Laureates
 
as tobacco-smoke-scented
clothes and bones dry out,
are their hearts warmed by the verse?
 
probably not, but I hope

What's Mona Lisa Got to Smile About (originally published in the Slightly Off-Beat Poets Anthology "Many Voices ~ One Stage")

 
What’sMona Lista Got to Smile About Anyway?
           
What’s Mona Lisa got to smile about, anyway?
I bet Leonardo was no treat to be around.
I bet he never cared to hear what she had to say
 
About the day’s popular sonnets, or satirical plays,
Or even whatever hot gossip had been making the rounds.
So, what did Mona Lisa have to smile about, anyway?
 
If a modern artist were to paint her today
There’d be an accompanying video with stereo sound
So, we’d have permanent record of what she had to say.
 
If I could travel back to those days, I’d be willing to pay
Leonardo in Dollars or Euros or Kroners or Pounds,
To ask “Hey, what was she smiling about, anyway?”
 
Instead, she sits frozen, and Leonardo’s gone away
As thousands of tourists stand silently ‘round
As if expectantly waiting to hear what she’ll say;
 
Perhaps something witty or silly, or suitably gay.
But not one of them yet has ever found
What Mona Lisa’s got to smile about, anyway,
Or if she ever had anything interesting to say.

Coming Events

            

COMING EVENTS

January 23 20026

New Book from Finishing Line Press! 

Relict is a chapbook of poems centered around the death of my father. It deals with questions of grief and loss, but also celebrates the ties between a father and a son, and explores questions of generational legacies. 

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March 12, 2026 – Thursday – 7:00pm – Pour Me A Poem in Mansfield

I’ll be the featured reader, plus open mic. Free.

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March 19, 2026 – Thursday – 6:30pm Dye and Bleach reading series, Willington CT

Two features, plus open mic. Free.

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April 2026– Dolphin Gallery in the Hingham Public Library, Hingham MA – Double Vision

A two person show with artist Becky Haletky. Becky’s art and my poems in response, hung side by side on the walls of the Dolphin Gallery for the entire month of April. (reception date TBD)

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April 18, 2026 – Saturday – 2:00pm – Book Lovers Gourmet, Webster MA

I’ll be the feature, followed by round-robin open mic. Free. BLG has a wide variety of delicious pastries and coffe, tea, etc.

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April 28, 2026 – 7:00pm - Hingham Public Library, Hingham MA – Uncommon Reading

Uncommon is myself, John Holgerson, Elizabeth Birch and Mark Walsh, four poets with different styles and interests, who come together once a month to provide each other feedback and advice on our poetry. Come hear all four of us read, stay for conversation. Free.

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May 5, 2026 - 6:00pm - Norwell Library, Norwell, MA 

I'll be reading along with poets Ed Gaudet, Joyce Wilson and Merryn Rutledge!

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Be sure to check back here regularly for more news!

Coloring (originally published in The Literary Underground - 3/9/2025)

Coloring
 
My parents bought a used ’65 Dodge Dart,
white inside and out, dad’s pride and joy,
and I, just a boy left unbuckled, untethered,
saw the back of the front seat as a blank
canvas, which I covered in patternless
Crayola-tones, an abstract masterpiece, faded
to black and white in memory. Consequences
swift but not corporal. Lesson learned:
elbow grease cleans wax off vinyl.
 
Flash forward to a different world where
artificial light explodes from all
my screens, distracting and assaulting me
with hues no naive technicolor musical
could have foretold, while a gloomy
future looms uncertainly in shades of gray
and sepia-brown, and my clicking knees
and knuckles count the seconds. Punishment
for the simple crime of having survived.
 
And now, having lived through sixty-two
gray winters, green springs, white-hot
summers and firework-bright autumns,
all scrambled together in a shapeless swirl
of errors and triumphs, revelations and deceits,
injuries sustained and inflicted,
 
I still paint outside the lines, with words
instead of crayons, and still usually clean up my own mess.