NoPAD Chapbook 11: Timely / Timeless

"Be sure your sin
Will find you out,"
My mother said, her fist
Full of butterscotch wrappers.
I didn't have to be told
What came next;
I trudged, knife in hand,
Out the door,
Through the yard,
Toward the barren mulberry tree
To cut the green switch
That would hurt her
More than it hurt me.

Bill Cosby's PR firm
Thought it would be cute
To release a Cosby Meme engine.
"Go ahead. Meme me!"
@BillCosby tweeted,
With examples like
"Happy Monday!"
And  "Vegetables? Yuck!"
What he got instead
Were "14 Allegations of Rape?!
Zipzopzuppitybop!"
And "My 2 Favorite Things:
Jello Pudding and Rape!"
As the PR firm scrambled
To take it all offline,
I heard my mother's voice:
"Be sure your sin
Will find you out."

NoPAD Chapbook 10: Car Trouble

the trouble with my car
is that it goes too fast
for me to gaze at the moon
behind her translucent cloak
of shimmering clouds.

the trouble with my car
is that it is enclosed
so i can't feel the west wind
blowing winter into Kansas
or feel the drifting snowflakes.

the trouble with my car
is that its radio works,
making it impossible
for me to hear the coyotes
lamenting autumn's death.

NoPAD Chapbook 9: News Poem

In Berlin, 25 years ago today,
The Wall came tumbling down.
Checkpoint Charlie was suddenly irrelevant,
The Palace of Tears obsolete.
A generation's languishing socialist hopes perished
As the next generation's democratic hopes were birthed.

I had just turned eight.
I didn't understand the frenzy,
And I didn't like their mohawks.
I just wanted to get back to my rerun
Of "Alvin and the Chipmunks,"
But even there, I couldn't escape
The anthem: "Let the Wall Come Down."

(True story: http://www.vox.com/2014/11/10/7187211/alvin-chipmunks-berlin-wall )

NoPAD Chapbook 8: Blind

When you can't trust your own eyes,
Who can youtrust?
WHEN you're typing, for example,
Are the keys still where you remembderd them,
or are you making subtle mistakes?

When you're blind,
you have to learn to trust
whether you like it or not.
Maybe that's why it's so dangeroius
to pretend
to see

NoPAD Chapbook 7: Compulsion

She can't help but blush
At the brush of his lips.
Her rosy cheeks belie
The mock severity
Of her coy nightly flight
From his burning touch.
His caress warms her;
They continue their
Intricate, intimate dance,
Unending cycle
Of pursuit and retreat,
Of cooling and heat,
Of his glorious gaze,
Her desire to yield
To that passionate embrace,
To the rush of heat that comes
With every new day's dawn,
With every fresh sunrise.