Summertide: Available Now + New Preview

 Summertide: Available Now + New Preview

Hey everyone. I'm excited to announce that my poetry collection, Summertide, is now available in paperback and Kindle ebook!

As an added bonus for today, you can find four more free preview poems below. There are dozens more where these came from, so if you like them, consider supporting me by purchasing a copy by clicking on the highlighted links above.

1

Patrons to the Stars

It’s the middle of the night.

Glowing star-spots above devacate the atmosphere,

Pluming in the black to reveal their beings.

Crisp spark-fires, they elevate high above the planet,

Watchful gazes turned down to the beloved below.

But there is a stranger somewhere in their midst.

An idea that, ever-watching, starts to grow.

At first, no one notices the little starry tendrils forming:

It’s been centuries. Surely the sky was always designed like this!

Historians, however, posit no,

The phenomenon we see today is unnatural.

No cause for panic yet. A disaster from the sky-forms above

Could never be foreseen! Not by our knowledge today!

But today’s knowledge cares not for the truth.

Once half the world shone only by moonlight,

Lines of gray and black whispered through the night.

Tendrils shaped above began their slow descent below.

By daylight, the world could not see the strange phenomenon,

Only glimpse its photos on the screens they swiped away.

No reason, they were assured, to panic over what would be

A passers-by mockery of the night before.

But that’s how it became too late.

How the tendrils of the slow-moving beast sunk

Into the skulls of every person that passed by,

Digging into their scalps, pulling them into the blue.

There are very few places this happens. Even so,

Some say if you peer at the sky hard enough,

You can see faded gray lines against the backdrop of black,

Curling, culling patrons to the stars.

2

Sodium Chloride

If this path is but a whisper of want,

So be it, my quart of it weighs in me, taught.

Swimming in their box, awaiting apathy

From their final artificial soliloquy.

The smell of iron and salt, maintained within

By this pattern of clouds that close off the wind.

It’s clearly my battle, but what if I stop?

Sinking, it turns my digestive needs off.

Give me a symbol that isn’t just guile,

Or tempting that twists my taste buds with a smile.

Mouth dry, hands far from authenticity,

Looking for answers in the code of reprieve.

Breath after breath, enigmas are held

Down in the depths where the quietness quells.

Often, in chaos, there is truth in my bones

If the calcium can still remain on the throne.

But sat here, in quieted calls of hunger,

I look to my idol and reach for another.

God, will it stop? God, will it end?

“No,” replies thunder. “But we’re about to begin.”

3

That of Birdsong

At the crest of that Eastern horizon,

A little dove cries into the night air.

She searches for her lost songbird

Whose beating wings once echoed her heart’s.

Despite her chirrups, the sound doesn’t carry.

Notes, belting from her desperate chest,

Fall from her beak to the mud below.

They struggle but once before laying still.

Her downcast eyes scan that cursed horizon,

As if somehow the hope of answer will lead to one.

But not here. Not on this branch whose leaves

Droop more with every day her other half is absent.

Her patience, despite its thin running, never falters.

Even as a new crack threatens her heart each day,

She knows deep down, that soon,

This sitting will be rewarded with a welcome home.

So she sits, watching as the moon replaces the sun,

As another day alone on the branch ends. She closes her eyes.

In the moment between wakefulness and sleep,

It’s like she can feel phantom wings enclose her.

4

It's You I'm Gonna Carry Home

So here we are. At the behest of this town.

We have no choice but to scamper ‘round.

Like a sealed-pair that might be found,

If we start talking,

Start walking in the same room.

How do you become something so real?

Despite the absent heart, still steel,

Who adorns you, but will they kneel?

If we were brought back,

If we talked back to the same crowd.

Do—wait—do you think it’s evermore?

Or just a wave-crash on the shore?

I hope the pain doesn’t paint once more,

And start hoping,

Start joking at the same star.

Young. As if Perseus’ sheet,

We should stay quiet ‘til we meet,

But the wrong words, they might sneak

When I start talking,

Start balking at the same, too.

Grace, but by the quantity it’s there.

As real as daylight in your hair,

But as the watching carries on,

I start wishing,

Start fishing for the same news.

If we could crawl out of this dome,

If this was more than just for show!

Lights, camera, action, glow,

As it wakes up,

As it takes up all the sane rows.

If you’re sure that we’re alone!

No matter what, it’s you that I’m gonna carry home!

***

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