At the Louvre Museum

Amazing how quiet the multitude of viewersCompared to the works that speak to usEach visitor drawn to something somewhere hereThis … More

Night Watch

They sat and smoked the cigarettes they’d rolledLaughing softly about the way the grass grew hereCompared to how it waved … More

The Green Waves Roll

When they mow the lawns where the white crosses lieEach section of the American Cemetery at Normandy is cordoned offSeparating … More

Becoming a Nazi

This may not be the case if you live in GermanyBut I find it difficult to recall the namesOf stars … More

Uh

My dentist calls to tell me, after a lengthy search – before the internetHe’s found an orthodontist who doesn’t use … More

Lucky

In Operation Market Garden200 soldiers of the 82nd Airborne’s 504th Parachute Infantry RegimentRowed across the Waal River to take the bridge … More

My Father’s War Souvenir

Paulie, my father’s friend in Madison, tells meThat after the Army bussed him back to MilwaukeeHaving held onto him for … More

Annual Birthday Party at the Zeppelin Field, Nuremberg, Germany

He stands at the podium projecting out over the fieldGrips the railing, his hands a ghostly whiteThe master orator had … More

The American Cemetery at Lorraine, France

All of them, like brilliant dominoes, lined up in perfect rowsColumns of names carved in stone, these markers of soldiers … More

Why Do I Shiver at the Site?

It gives me a chill, somewhat of a frightening shiverTo stand at the grave of a Nazi General and feel … More

The Haunting of Permanent Night

The moon may go down, but the night never endsHere where we mingle with the spirits of the deadIn the … More

The Concentration Camp at Dachau, Germany

I’ve traveled by myself, and I’ve gone with tour groupsAnd the thing about solo journeys is thisWith trips anywhere when … More

Encounter

I do what I’ll do when there’s free time on a tourHead out into the wilds of the place where … More

Christmas in September

The man wears a T-shirt that says“Spending Christmas with My Kids & My Cats”There’s a cartoon drawing of two playful … More

Age Before Beauty

She asks me how old I amWe’re standing side-by-side at the row of individual sinksI wonder each time I come … More

Transportation Inspiration

Planes are for writing poetryThink turbulence encounteringPerhaps Death’s come a’knockingHis scythe gleaming keenlyBringing instant panic with stomach acrobatics An inspirational moment … More

Roots

He stops drilling into the root canal because I raise my left handTrying my best to hold back a world’s … More

Bracing Myself

The green tinted windowsCast an emerald glow over everythingIt’s like coming to Oz to ask for a fillingMy new dentist, … More

My new collection of stories, The Rainbows That Follow, is now available

I’m happy to say that my new collection of stories, The Rainbows That Follow, is now available on Amazon in … More

Extraction

It’s at moments like these a man faces his mortalitySmokes that last cigarette to settle his nervesA prisoner facing the … More