firewheel firewheel is my first book, a mottled and dusty collection of poetry. Explore mythology, history, death, hate, and subatomic love songs. Unfortunately, it's in publishing hiatus right now. The editor who put an option on it has taken a leave of absence, and so we all wait. Here are three samples, to whet your appetite. If you'd consider purchasing firewheel, please fill out the form below. Perhaps we can convince the publisher to go ahead with it. You can even link to me -- copy the firewheel logo. Want one more? Okay. All works are copyright me, though, so don't reproduce them anywhere without my express consent.

ASH one part palace, one part tomb there's dust in my lungs and blood on my cheek a bright smear falls where the sun ought to be and we're washed with deeper blues as it fades one candle for the south, one candle for the west my pacing leaves a marble trail in the fine ash we drown so slowly in the earth or it walks outside itself so briefly (spit up from dry land) don't be surprised that it returns to reclaim we hollow our caves and grottos and thwart the bendings when it comes time to succumb to gravity let me go feetfirst i suspect it won't like the taste for long

the Metal age rust has come you who scoff at Egypt's sand-scoured empires who praise your own cleverness for being born contemporary men the whole earth trembles rust has come eleven hands on the clock, know the time more precisely to what end? i shout at your Colussus defiant and straddling the passage to your soft bellies the whole earth moans and cries out buckled joints, the work of a thousand tiny cracks the whole earth trembles as the sea swallows your struggleless statue a rising tide sucks at the beach as it has done for millennia where Pythagorus figured and Charlemagne once stood it could be any beach we take our stand in daylight dotted and protected by fire at night distrusting though your symbol has drowned unwilling to bow to the metal age wrinkling precious parchment as we bend ourselves to its will leaving no footprints to mar the tidal games rust has come clanking gears announce your plans before the sky burns bronze- and steel-winged warriors from the north your final act of deliverance, appropriate most in the Greek reigning down on us as if we were a threat -- you who hide in sandstone caves lit by such ancient torchlight leather skinned, scry-bones crackling beneath your primitive sandals who fears whom? -- given the outcome (an arc of rubble no closer than a stone's throw) perhaps we are blessed rust has come and the whole earth trembles yards of hell Twenty yards out of Hell. Would you believe I look over my shoulder? It's so much colder outside, past the gates. They're so much prettier from this side. Freshly painted. No doorman, though. Amazing how rocky the soil is here. Last time I passed this way, it was freshly paved. Guess there weren't enough bodies to fill the holes. Another few feet and sweat drips off my forehead like snowflakes. Or fine ash. Maybe I'm leaving a trail of white to follow. Or begging the question of who might follow. Surprisingly, there was no sign over the gates. Perhaps it's implied. Probably unrealistic. I mean, didn't I get out? Play the jailbreak card? Slip past the guards? That reminds me... Where were the guards? There's no sleep there, you know. Now the air slices my lungs... do I have lungs? Push on. Push on. Why? Looking back again, it's a giant mouth, grinning and waving. "I'll put a rock through your eye, break out your teeth!" Who mocks whom now? Step. Step. Maybe I'm climbing a mountain, though it seems so level. Maybe descending slightly. Seems higher, though. Where'd the birds come from? I mean songbirds, not vultures. So cold. How do they have the breath to sing? Ice under my fingernails, in my beard -- I have a beard? Ice beneath my feet, but the footing is secure. I cling to this rock through the earthquakes and the winds. When I have the courage to look back again, there's nothing but progress to mark my journey. Progress, and a few avalanches I've caused. Maybe they're the same. I must be climbing. Imperceptibly. Fifty yards and exhausted. A rock in one hand, the other on a rock. I cling. I climb. I will stand.