Coyote Crossing

On reading discussion of poetry in a writers’ forum where poetry is not discussed

I don’t like poetry.
I love poetry, but I would never
comment on it, would never bring
my personal opinions to bear except
on writing that is not poetry.
I am interested in stories. I am not
interested in words, or
in language.

I don’t get

Trinity

A draft of this fourteen-sonnet cycle was on the old blog. I took it down and fiddled with it, then submitted it to Camas, the environmental and literary journal of the University of Montana, whose site seems to be down at the moment. It ran in

leaves of cat grass

OK, so there’s a LOLCat poetry forum at the new Read Write Poem.

That’s all the explanation I have for this.

Original image courtesy Tillwe … (continues)

Save big money by buying poetry

My recent collection of verse, A Tapetum Knowledge, was selling for 19.99 when I first released it a few months back. I’ve decided to drop the price to 12.99, starting now. (I realize that this may be annoying to those who bought it at the higher

Behold This Troll-Post

A couple days ago I found this recording of Walt Whitman reading the first few lines of America, and I’ve been a little choked up since. Walt Freaking Whitman reading onto a wax cylinder recording! Until last week, I would have thought that about

Lunch Tuesday

This was for the best, you said, and I think
you were a little disappointed I agreed,
nodding against your shoulder in the parking lot.

A year since we met last, that day I loaded
a few last boxes into the Jeep, kitchen things
and what camping

The Litany: Part Two (Naiads)

If you haven’t yet read Part One, you should do that first.

In youth, sun-fever-burned, replete with doubt
and awkward angular, I walked unshod
and in the center of the viscid creek, heading
upstream, the algae tangled ropes
to bind my ankles.

The Litany: Part One (In Medias Res)

[A project I’ve been working on for a while, and it’s time to give it some light.]

A token for the sweet and blameless dead,
the fallen facets of this jewelled earth
each loss a weakened place, a broken strand
in this our fraying web. A token for … (continues)

At home

Out on the slope, above the alkaline
and sterile sumps of rivers long deceased
they watch, dry-tongued and stark. They bend their limbs
at angles toward the sky, fists full of knives,
a vulnerable heart, a growing urge
within each nest of blades.

Chat transcript, 6/26/07

creekrnningnorth (3:35:43 AM): yes, I do sometimes talk to the air. Why do you ask?
creekrnningnorth (3:36:32 AM): there is air everywhere: one is thus never alone.
creekrnningnorth (3:37:00 AM): thin air in the fringes of space,
creekrnningnorth

A Tapetum Knowledge

A Tapetum Knowledge, the long-awaited-by-me collection of my poetry, is now available for purchase. 94 pages, 19.99. … (continues)

A Lando

From southward comes the moon: bright yellow, desert-scented
From southward comes the moon: bright yellow, desert-scented
Hanging low above the plain brilliant, unornamented.

There are those who live their lives without examination
There are

Stargazing

Under this vault of stars I am content.
Stuck fast to this small rock I am at ease.
Minuscule, ego fading by degrees
and what remains of little consequence.
Only the wind and stars, and nighttime shades
of loves abandoned, fire going cold
as in the

Xolotl

Citrus flower hangs heavy in rain-washed air.
Restless parrots argue over palmfruit,
their brilliant green tails flashes against the lapis sky.
Coyolxauhqui’s round white face
watches over all from above the temple.

Xolotl’s blood drips on the

A reading

I’m putting together a collection of poetry to make available for sale — I will of course let all of you know when it’s finished so that you can rush to buy several copies for each of your friends — and I found one I wrote some time ago, entitled

Alluvium

This pebble in my boot, when it was one
still with its mother rock, cooled over tens
of centuries: a batholith. Bright grew
the flakes of muscovite, bright grew the pale
discolored quartz, each grain an infinite
fine tetrahedral tesselation, it … (continues)

Paleontology

[Time to haul this one out of the archives, what with all the targazing I’ve done the last couple days.]

Paleontology

“What is it that sets us apart,” she asked,
“from sunset or sierra?
What is the line between ourselves
and the terrain from

Elysian Park

I miss the certainty I had back then.
I miss the knowing all of it, the keen,
the ardent hewing to my heart’s clear path.
Old men slow-shamble in the liquor aisle,
sigh Russian imprecations baleful, soft
under their smog-choked breath. This

Camas

I’ve just been notified that my sonnet cycle Trinity will be published in the upcoming issue of Camas, the environmental and literary journal of the University of Montana. I’m immensely grateful, of course, not to mention flattered at the company

Quick pointers

1) I have a submission up at Postal Poetry. Go check it out.

2) On Saturday, October 4, I will be joining a few other desert writers at the Riverside Public Library, 3581 Mission Inn Ave Riverside, CA, in a reading to celebrate the release of