The Mother Tongue

My Mother's voice, the
scribbling of a ballpoint
correction was the key
to my becoming a lover
of words of lovers.

A love-hate relation to
exponential extent. Where
pinpoint details often drive away,
my mother taught me better,
taught me more.

And the attention to detail, the
exacting scrutinies of a poet's
pen, is not unlike the loving
glance of my mother's
ear. All for the better.


Appalachia

Tennessee is unforgiving.
Enraptured genitalia know not
the length or rigidity of places
such as this. Mounds of time
cover memories of nights
better than these, cleaned
by the tides of woes and wrecks.
They flow from the loins of
places such as this, where
brothers reckoned days forgone.
Each a slave to the other's
pastime of remembering.
Tennessee is unforgiving.


solo

lonliness is my four letter word
for the ill-present ears,
or rather an unspoken curse I
have conjured in silence.