Writing Can Have Side-Effects and Be Habit Forming

Mornings I ride
A bike
To a place
Where I wait
For a poem to come

A piece a day
Whether good or not

Sometimes I hack my
Way through spiny plants
That tear at my skin

Sometimes I surprise
A hawk
Or spot a centipede
As it winds from one hiding place to
The next

More often I just keep
Moving through the wind
The sun
Or the rain

Sometimes the moon
Is blue as ice
Or red

If I just keep showing
Up one will come
Or not

My legs have gotten
Strong
Big as trees

Prison Writing Workshop

Eleven ravens roost

in a winter cottonwood

wind slices through

my jacket as the lock

snaps shut

fingers strain at the weight

of papers and books

and pens and notepads

and other dangerous characters

as a man lights his cigarette

on an electrical coil

wired to a steel post

a bare grey stump

bleaches in the sun

mute now

no breeze can stir the leaves

it used to offer as shade

and here in this

clear unforgiving

light

no one

can hide or run

but a man can refuse

square one of

a new year

a blank page waits

for the story

that will mark the passing

of steps in ponderous time

snow shimmers on the mountain

far beyond the confining wire

one by one the ravens

lift into the wind and are carried

on the words

thrown down like dice

in this the last and

only chance to

harvest a truth

from a turquoise sky
a pearl from a grain
of sand