This book was my gift to myself at the half-century mark. I still call In Utero the new Nirvana album. How did I get to be fifty? One of my favorite short stories is “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros. According to the narrator of that story, even at the ripe-age of eleven, you sometimes feel scared like when you were five, or you want your mama like when you were three. That’s also what being fifty is like. Some days you feel every creaking day of fifty. You tire easily, and somehow you injure your shoulder sleeping. Other days you’re twenty-five, and the world has yet to give you what you’re owed. Or you’re eighteen, and your every thought is pure lightning slashing across the sky. Or you’re a confused forty-five-year old with a meme guidebook and a growing contempt for electronics. None of the dread or hope disappears. It all sinks down. It all compresses. It all becomes you. Some days you thrust your middle fingers to the sky. Some days you weep at all the terrible beauty that’s almost over. Toils and Snares is available as a download or physical paperback from Amazon. Scroll down for a sampling.

Toils and Snares

I know we don’t talk much
But I’m glad you’re still there
The reason I haven’t been around much is
I’ve boobytrapped my apartment with a series
Of mindless distractions
I have many means of escape
The one I use the least is the front door
It’s good to know where you are
Like a winter coat thrown across the unused
Half of the couch
Like an umbrella in the car
I’ll find you when I need you
And I guess I need you now

Apology

i stumble over my speech
my fingers twist into the
balloon shapes of a nervous clown

“I balled up the hurt
you threw at me and
hurled it back. I’m sorry
for the stones I added in.”

now here i stand with
my animal hands at bay
hoping you'll retaliate with
an apology of your own

Maneuvers

one time and just that once
i beat my father at chess
he hemmed and hawed
shook his jaw and couldn’t
comprehend how his less-than-twelve-year old
could best him in fewer than five moves
i learned it from a book

seven years later he called me at college
told me he was thinking of ending his life
i did what any son should not have to do
attempt to talk him back from the edge of the board
it took hours and all the words i'd learned
to land on a stalemate
two kings all-powerful and useless
unable to approach the other
he called every night that week for a rematch

Open a copy and fall inside.

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Chokes and Warbles
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