Poet

I was going for an artistic, contemplative look.

I don’t post all of my poems here, partly because I enjoy celebrating poetry as an art overall. It has never been my purpose to make this blog solely a showcase for my poetry, but to celebrate the things that bring me joy (with a view toward keeping my writing muscles limber), and that includes the best of the poetic tradition, both contemporary and classic. You’ll find many readings, both here and on my YouTube channel, of other poets whose work I admire, poets both dead and still living.

But I also limit posts of my original pieces here simply because many of them are being sent hither and yon in hopes that some editor will have a weak moment and accept one for publication.  Word on the street is that poems that can be found in Google searches are often considered “previously published.”

I will however share a number of my pieces with you, and try to keep this page updated as an archive of them. Some were published in college journals some time back, like the one below which won the Savage Poetry Prize from Bloomsburg University and the Academy of American Poets, and was published in Bloom’s faculty journal, Carver. Others are recordings from live readings at various places, some live on the air, and some I just felt daring enough to post on this blog. I will also provide links for you when something of mine is published somewhere else out there.

• For a live recording of “Overvision” click here. 
• You can read the old moon poem to which it refers by clicking here. 
• A father/husband poem posted during National Poetry Month here.
• And I also read one of my own during my 30 Days, 30 Readings here.
• A Fortune Cookie Poem
• And another Fortune Cookie Poem
• “For My Father”
• A few poems read at Riverfest 2012, Sunbury, PA
• Two more poems at Riverfest
• Me reading with Melanie Simms and Marjorie Maddox
• Two pieces I read on October 12, 2012 at the Pennsylvania State Capitol Building
• A silly poem for my youngest son, read at Faustina’s Gallery in Lewisburg, PA
• Audio of me reading two of my poems on the air on WITF, Harrisburg (scroll down)
• An old sonnet for my oldest son
• And if you really want to make me happy, you can indulge my ego and increase your boredom by surfing my Original Pieces playlist on my YouTube Channel!

Overvision

I wrote a poem once 
about my neighbors and the moon.
Each brief line dropped 
into place as I let them break
at their will. The syntax
arranged itself just comfortably
so.            Years later

I came back with more 
education and a better sense
of rhythm.         I thought
I could improve
it; make the lines
more powerful,

the innuendos more profound.
            But the new ink
was too dark for the old page,
and my good intentions discolored
the moon.  I’d awakened
      a befuddled old man
and his angry, fuzzy-
slippered wife (I’d forgotten
that my old neighbors had moved
away          long ago).

They wanted to know
what the hell was going
on—who was I?  And 
what had I done to the sky?
Too late almost to save
it, I took whiteout
to the street (the last
bottle on the shelf
at the all-night mini 
mart on that same block),

dimmed     the stars
and ushered back to bed
the little man and his grumbling
wife.          That globe of blood             
still had a pulse—
thank heaven, and I let it return
to where it had been;
on page one
of a college literary 
magazine              simple
and perfect,
hanging low there
in that early night sky.

Related articles

• How To Break A Poet’s Heart – Poem by J.Gawrych (inparenthesesmag.com)