Listen (:27)

September 21, 2026

Difference Engines

in the chasm between intention and effect,
where the cause can be lost in translation
or found in frustration,
there is often an urge to overprotect,

and despite modern instruments of memory,
whose…

Listen (:30)

September 14, 2026

Perchance

Asleep in a dream
Or is it just a half-life of waking?
Unknown in the shroud of languor,
Suspending disbelief in real time.

Or is it just a half-life of waking?
Put on view…

Listen (0:52)

August 17, 2026

After the Wake
On the 240th anniversary of the death of Frederick the Great

He found the dark and stays
there most of the time, through
snow, rain, and blackout mornings escaping the front
he…

Listen (:39)  

June 29, 2026  


I’m still of the mind that reaching the halfway point of the year is a good time to reflect on the books that have influenced, shaped, and highlighted the past twenty-six weeks. This is my…

Listen (2:02)

June 22, 2026

Unpaged

discontented,
circumvented,
whistling past the graveyard,
collecting words that weigh more than they burn.

apprehension,
surface tension,
consorting with the lost,
sequestering the lines I failed to learn.

bought low (it seemed like a…

Listen (1:08)

May 24, 2026

Lingua Franca  

when it’s late or dark or dusk  
or in ambient light,
when you get caught in the rain,  
wringing out your possibilities,
being poor on purpose, catastrophic  
as a last-minute cassoulet,
insufferably loud…

Listen (:56)

April 27, 2026

Pen(z)ance

the idea of a stroll through the garden gained currency
as other aims waned and withered,
yet her penchant for distraction often spoiled such a ramble.
today’s turn could forgive others, though,
and the…

Listen (:50)

March 30, 2026

Occam’s Razor

it’s terrible when the knick isn’t mutual,  
and the left won’t get on a plane and stay  
out of sight, out of mind, out of time in  
a place where leaving is an…

Listen (0:50)

February 23, 2026


Pride of Place

A turned hem in

the darkness,

under the Dog Star.
I don’t

need to sing

what I hear to the she  
likes the dusk  
under frost bit, writhing  
vines, but to freeze…

Listen (0:51) 

February 2, 2026

Deliquesce

Winter plods like a

capricious and wild tramp

in shoes of river stones

through February’s gnawed  
vestiges, boundless and out of rhyme.

The sky is a purple bruise

in this season of disappearance,

a…

Listen (0:38)

January 5, 2025

New Year  

I went around the back of myself
looking to hitch the cart to a cause
whose truth is as fantastic as 

my imagination might be.  

I don't want to end up at the
…

Listen (11:23 )

December 29, 2025

Part 4 in reading order from July 1st to December 29, 2025

84. The Comfort of Strangers  by Ian McEwan
McEwan’s early, fast-paced, dark novella introduces a young English couple, Colin and Mary, on…

Listen (10:43) 

December 22, 2025  

Reaching the end of the year is a good time to reflect on the books that have influenced, shaped, and highlighted the past fifty-two weeks. This is only my second year doing this, and it’s…

Listen (0:29)

November 3, 2025

The Ballot Box

54-40 or Fight!

Vote yourself a farm, president of the people.

Return to normalcy a bigger stick,

Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, The Continental  
Liar from the state of Maine.

Happy days…

Listen (1:15)

October 20, 2025

West Penwith

I follow the old trail,
where the path is dense beneath,
and the crisp lunge of autumn charges the air.
It begins proud of the churchyard,
where the gravestones stand like silent sentinels, …

Listen (4:52)

September 29, 2025

It could be argued that “Peace For Our Time,” the infamous quote from Neville Chamberlain summing up his delusional perspective on one of the world's most important meetings held 87 years ago today, would be…

Listen (6:13)

July 7, 2025

Part two of two in reading order from April 1 to July 1, 2025.    

29. Time of the Child by Niall Williams
 Dr. Jack Troy and his eldest, unmarried daughter Ronnie, find their world turned…

Listen (6:19)

June 30th, 2025

Reaching the halfway point of the year is a good time to reflect on the books that have influenced, shaped, and highlighted the past twenty-six weeks. This is only my second year doing this, and…

Listen (3:15 )

April 28, 2025

General Maxwell arrived in Dublin early on April 28, 1916. Pearse claimed that, “although they may win it in death,” the Volunteers would ultimately prevail. By evening, the GPO was on fire, and the…

Listen  (3:14 )

April 21, 2025

In his delightfully thoughtful review of my ‘Kernow’ album for A Closer Listen in 2024, Samuel Rogers noted at its outset that I am “a musician who monitors the turn of the seasons,” and…

Listen (2:22)

March 24, 2025

Loss often comes in waves and is occasionally seasonal. I have long been fascinated by how we navigate loss, especially when it involves a friend or loved one. "Processing" may be an inadequate term for…

Listen (3:17)

January 27, 2025

The new EP will be released at the end of the week, and I'm looking forward to setting this one free. I've had this music in the can for quite some time, waiting for its…