Poetry

Thanks for visiting my poetry page! First up is my Little Free Chapbook series, below:

The latest edition is another inspired by a certain tuxedo kitty, Her Majesty Waits and Waits and Waits, consists of three poems suitable for kitty lovers of all ages, with illustrations by yours truly. Many thanks to the editors of Seattle’s Ambrosia Zine for including the title poem and We Clean After We Eat in their Animal issue this past autumn, 2023. Like the rest of my Little Free Chapbooks, get it from me directly, or find it in a Seattle Central District Little Free Library.

Here in the PNW we have something called spider season, it begins about when autumn begins, and without giving anything else away, my most recent Little Free Chapbook is inspired by spider season, Perhaps It Crawls Inside, features a spider by good friend Glenn, that’s with two n’s. My partner won’t let me finish reciting it aloud, calling it too creepy. Sounds just right!

An Aubergine Ending is my prior Little Free Chapbook, and it’s a poem about my witchy partner and spooky household. It features corvids and the acknowledgment of our own mortality; and it’s also fun to read aloud as you are feeding your own pets. Again, thanks to the editors of Ambrosia Zine for including this poem in their Love issue.

Ninja Will Eat Me, two poems about Her Majesty, and her incredible patience with the world. This is number one in the Little Free Chapbook series. Best read aloud to friends. The eponymous poem, “Ninja Will Eat Me”, was first published in the journal, Punk Noir. I’ve just finished a second, 100-copy run of this chapbook. Get yours now!

A Failure of Imagination, this is the current edition of my now annual protest by poem concerning the January 6 Insurrection, and the Grand Old Party’s incredible impatience with the world. It’s meant to be screamed aloud and partly sung.

To the Young Woman With the Bee in Her Hand is the third chapbook in my series, it’s a poem I wrote for my daughter concerned with home, and saying hello, and saying goodbye. A version of this poem was published by Cathexis Northwest Press. It’s meant to be whispered widely like a sustained breeze.

Would you like a Little Free Chapbook while I still have them to distribute? Email me at pedalpoet@gmail.com to get one mailed to you for just the cost of postage, plus any additional you would like to contribute to my poetic endeavors. I’ve given away many for free, and I’ve collected a handful of donations in trade for which I’m quite grateful. Have you found one out in the Central Seattle wilds? Have I given you one in person? Please let me know where, and what you think by commenting below. Or, scroll down and click on Poetry to read some other poems right now.

You can pick up my collection, A Long, Quiet Word, right here! The landscapes of the American Southwest, Pacific Northwest, and Northern New York state are frequently the stage for these investigations of loss and grief and love and lust. It features the first poem I was paid money for ($25), “East Wall Bedroom: A Study”, which was published way back then in a glossy magazine called Inklings. Also back then, I was fortunate to study with Allen Ginsberg while earning my MFA at The Naropa Institute, and he’s the subject of another of this collection’s poems, “I Don’t Get Paid Enough to Read This Kind of Shit”.