Select First Lines from The Poisoner’s Garden & Others

Teasers from the Collection of Poems

From the poem “The Poisoner’s Garden”:

Among the thorny grasp of roses

Near aconite and pale foxglove…

From the poem “Why My Doll is Evil”:

She came from Japan in 1963…

From “The Salt of Undone Collars”:

There are points in time when specific people come together

To vandalize chitinous shells with ancient vulgar graffiti…

From “Swimming in Underwear”:

When I turned nineteen I fell in bed

With a boy my age

Should I call us young men?

From “On All Hallow’s Eve”:

In villages dark

When spies the night moon…

From “For St. Valentine’s Day”:

For St. Valentine’s Day 

I rip out my heart…

From “Winter Solstice”:

At dawn we shift the sand and mud

To find a passage haunted…

From “On the Ides of March”:

Recall the time when Julius Caesar

Heard prophecy

From some old geezer…

From “The Christmas Smite”:

When the wind howls like wolves

Leaping rooftop to shed…

From “Medea in Transit”:

Chopping arms 

Legs 

And their little heads…

From “My Younger Self”:

My younger self, who is no more,

I hang his hat

Outside the door…