Category: Poems

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Poems

The Truth Is. – New Poems Published

The Society of Classical Poets has published poems from my new collection, The Truth Is.

Check out the society’s website here and order a copy of my new collection on Amazon.

Here is a sample poem of mine that The Society published.

The Dancer
The dancer turns elegantly:
her pivot light and feathery,
her eyes as brilliant as a wren’s,
her lithe form swanlike as she spins
in ceremonial artistry.

The dance is life, felicity,
and also deep despondency.
Away from falls, time and again,
–the dancer turns.

The nimble dancer gracefully
moves to the places she should be:
past the stages where dreams end,
to the theaters that love attends
where with airy vitality
–the dancer turns.

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Poems

The Truth Is. – New Poetry Book

My third full-length collection of poems, The Truth Is., was just published on America’s 250th anniversary, July 4th 2026!

You can order a copy of the book on Amazon: https://a.co/d/06KZvgHj

Here is a sample poem from the collection.

Nothing To It
Nothing to it: some twists and turns,
the knot is tied, and it’s been learned.
Untie it; the rope’s like before.
It’s like all our works at their core:
fleeting; time won’t let them endure.

From string to knot, from knot to string,
we pass our time constructing things:
making songs, families, and more.
Nothing to it. 

We’re just passing the time and days
learning and unlearning our ways,
tossing a pebble from our shore
to the universe’s sea floor,
loving the ephemeral sun’s rays.
Nothing to it.

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Poems

The Truth Is – New Poetry Book

My third full-length collection of poems, The Truth Is., was just published on America’s 250th anniversary, July 4th 2026!

You can order a copy of the book on Amazon: https://a.co/d/06KZvgHj

Here is a sample poem from the collection.

When the Heat Dies
When the heat dies so shall all time.
The universe shall stop its climb.
All shall become still, deathly still.
Then what will happen?  Nothing will.
Blackness, coldness, the last design.

More silent than a shattered chime,
more futile than unfeeling rhyme,
will be the cosmos when all’s nil,
when the heat dies.

There’ll be no light, no wan ray’s shine,
no good, evil, or God divine;
all life gone like the daffodil
that lives a season then is still.
Even entropy ends with time
when the heat dies.

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Poems

The Truth Is. – New Poetry Book

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

I’m pleased to announce that, as an independent author, I’m publishing my latest collection of poems today on America’s 250th anniversary of independence!

You can order a copy of the book here: https://a.co/d/00Jv6tGA

As the Flag Waves
As the flag waves bold spirits rise;
it lights us like the sun the skies
and emboldens our pioneers
whose discoveries over years
make America the world’s prize.

In the patriot’s noble tries
come harsh setbacks and painful cries,
then sweet, gritty triumph in tears
as the flag waves.

As the eagle does symbolize
the powerful, the free, and the wise,
so does the flag over her spheres
mean justice and peace for our peers.
We’re a union, through lows and highs,
as the flag waves.

Wishing you all a happy, safe, and celebratory day!

Categories
Poems

The Truth Is. – New Poetry Book

My third full-length collection of poems, The Truth Is., will be published on America’s 250th anniversary, July 4th 2026!

You can pre-order a copy of the book on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0hGaux8h

Here’s a sample poem from the collection.

Pale Blue Dot
A pale blue dot seems what we are
when we see our Earth from afar.
It’s a view that prompts great surprise
by hinting at Creation’s size,
a space so grand it is bizarre.

For if we dream beyond our star,
beyond the last waves of radar,
there may be worlds with sapphire skies,
far pale blue dots.

Such planets may have life like ours,
whose struggles leave their dwellers scarred,
whose triumphs lead to joyous prize,
whose works and cultures fall and rise
in this universe of stars, of pale blue dots.

Categories
Poems

The Truth Is. – New Poetry Book

My third full-length collection of poems, The Truth Is., will be published on America’s 250th anniversary, July 4th 2026!

You can pre-order a copy of the book on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0hGaux8h

Here is a sample poem from the collection.

Condolences
“Condolences,” the letter read,
yet meant more that could not be said,
for there are no words that suffice,
just as a good life has no price
for valuing the treasured dead.

Death exists without being bred;
Death reaps all others in its stead,
unable to self-sacrifice.
Condolences.

Though sometimes welcome, Death is dread
met in cradle or hospice bed,
in dry desert or sea of ice,
by hair perfumed or head of lice.
Its nippers snip each mortal thread.
Condolences.

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Poems

The Truth Is. – David’s New Book of Poems

Hello everyone! I’m delighted to share that my third book of poems, The Truth Is., will be published on the 4th of July! 💪😎🎉

This will be my seventh book that I’ve published since 2024!

These poems are about age-old themes: love, hate, the natural world, and our place in the universe. The poetry describes how kindness, curiosity, courage, and creativity give meaning to our brief lives.

If you’d like to pre-order a digital copy, you can do so here:

https://a.co/d/0iAYEUeY

Or, if you’d like a paperback, they’ll be available on Independence Day.

Many thanks to those who have supported my career as an author! I plan to keep it going for the rest of my life.

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Poems

A Poem about Our Astonishing Outer and Inner Worlds

Outer and Inner Worlds
Beyond where ships sail on salt
lie staggering danger and untold discovery;
beyond the romantic specks of our cosmic vault
lie an astral range worth uncovering;

and in this rare, ordinary build
into which we people have evolved
(one of idealistic hopes forever unfulfilled)
lies powerful mysteries that never shall be solved.

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Poems

Cloud Kingdom at Dusk: A Colorful Poem for the Imaginative

Cloud Kingdom at Dusk
On his back on a grass hill
lies a boy, who, in this dusky hour,
watches the sun paint a castle
with pastels on keep and tower:
a gentle peach upon the spire
that’s lit by a cloud dragon’s fire.

Cloud Kingdom at Dusk
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Poems

An Amazing Poem about Moonbeams

Moonbeams
Sometimes, the moon drops down a line
when fishing for him, or her,
who’ll climb starward that silvery vine
in search of wild adventure.

Moonbeams, child, lake, watercolor

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Poems

A Country Woman and Her Daughter

A Country Woman and Her Daughter
The girl enters with a glad meow,
summer weather following like a tail.
The screen door bangs on sunset’s brow
she pounces on her mother with a purr.

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Poems

Looking through a Microscope at the Universe

Looking through a Microscope at the Universe
Evidently, you have it backward.
The microscope is for the microscopic,
the telescope for those enraptured
by the awesome scope of the cosmic.
Clearly, you’ve made a mistake.

Yet in life’s surprising petri dish
lies a macrocosm of creation:
startling stuff that makes up bird and fish,
complex atoms which incite elation,
that look like stars in a great black lake.

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Poems

Church Bell

Church Bell
The air’s dead in the cemetery.
Unmoving, the Spanish moss drapes
like monks’ robes in a monastery
in that gliding Reaper’s shape.

Live oaks stand as still as lead.
A sound.  Through glossed air comes a knell:
sliding like glaze, sticking like dread,
conducting a new soul to its stone cell.

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Poems

The Candle

The Candle
A flame leaps on a taper’s end
like a child filled with joy
or when playing with his friend –
such warm, bright light in a boy.

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Poems

Desert Revival

Desert Revival
We once were all in desert dry:
scorched by sun, parched by thirst,
we’d thought that here we’d die.
But when the night came coolly
we felt we’d weathered the worst.
Our zest it quickened duly,
as life extended, untraversed.

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Poems

Season’s Chimes

Season’s Chimes
It’s inadequate, the sounding chime,
to convey the sundry dawns and dusks
that rise and fall like crops of flowers,
and seasons that stock and sap the bowers,
and fields aging from seed to fruit to husk:
these many great and small cycles of time.

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Poems

Sunset

Sunset
I saw a fine sunset
of bright citrus oranges –
of that a long wire –
and gold, harvest yellows.

I longed to not forget
how the wild color singed
the sky like a fire
when stoked by the bellows.

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Poems

Pioneering

Pioneering
New horizons yearned for,
and adored, like far shores
where rest the fertile stores
that learners oft explore.

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Poems

Heartgash


Heartgash
This wound no hand can stanch,
neither doctor’s nor family’s.
For it, no balm in homilies,
in truths, or olive branch.

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Poems

The Great Motivator

Happy Saturday!

Here’s a new poem.

The Great Motivator
Life, that grand adventure,
is fraught with zestful noise
of kings, paupers, alloys
strange, shaky, and unsure,
and is hung o’er by death,
clammy and ominous:
the dark, repugnant bliss
that vitalizes breath.

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Poems

Thanks & Update

Just some thanks for your support and a reminder that my latest mystery, The Vortex Mole, is available!

It’s been a very active year. I’ve published six (count ’em!) books, and am working on a new one!

The Natural World, 12 October 2024
The Murders in the Endicott Hotel, 19 November 2024
Afghanistan, 1 February 2025
Wherever Fact May Lead Me: A Ranking of the Sherlock Holmes Stories, 3 April 2025
The Vortex Mole, 18 June 2025
Limericks, 29 July 2025
Also, there’s a new poem below!

Common Heroes
Life soon becomes what we chose:
More than what might be or could,
it’s how we quietly stood.
The world is full of common heroes.

Thanks again for your support!

–David.

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Poems

The Vortex Mole

I’m very pleased to announce that my latest book, The Vortex Mole, has been published through Dreameyrie!

The President of Vortex Defense Industries, Maj. Gen. James Gibson, sets out on a mole hunt that will have devastating consequences for him. His Russian opposite, Col. Gen. Dragomirov, struggles to survive Moscow’s duplicitous political games. Meanwhile, Gibson and Dragomirov’s men clash and strive for dominance on Ukrainian soil.

As the mystery surrounding the mole’s identity deepens, Gibson and Dragomirov draw closer and closer together, and their blows against one another’s forces land with ever more destructive power. At last, the mole brings the two formidable rivals face-to-face, and the consequences prove shattering.

In this military thriller and espionage mystery, the mole could be anyone, while the search for truth about betrayal takes a dark and subtle route through a bleak and savage war.

Find The Vortex Mole here.

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Poems

The Greatest Ocean

The Greatest Ocean
When stars glimmered o’er the wand’ring gypsy
when waves dashed ‘gainst the hulls of clipper ships
that cut through foam under night’s diamond sky;
when young lovers touched their yearning hips,
their eyes glinting for each other like jewels,
hope lay in their hearts, fighting against time.
What is time but a relentless killer?
It kills men, leaves, larks, galaxies, and rhymes
with the same cooling, corrosive pressure.
Paradoxically, it kills e’en age,
which, like all things, it has birthed in its way.
Such things as sailors carry: hope, promise,
a lookout and longing for distant land,
are, like youth, destroyed by time’s steady hand.
Time, whose heart is a mysterious sea;
Time, that the universe must have to be.

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Poems

Time

Time
Who knows thee, Time, but the living?
Who fears thee, but those who know you?
Thy ways, strict and unforgiving,
cripple and bow that which you grew,
and bury what you brought from earth.
With march and mien unpitying,
you bring sadness in place of mirth,
then, again, you make the old new.
Such baffling brew is all thy worth
that draws death from life, birth from dearth.

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Poems

My Niece’s Mind

This child’s mind is full of nature and joy,
among her thoughts are rivers, leafy trees,
sweeping flocks of swallows, and scudding clouds:
a mind of unbridled imagining
that looks on beautiful and healthy things.

This girl has intelligence, unalloyed
and pure, as fresh as fragrant spring.
Such innocence sets her apart in crowds.
At five years old, this girl dances and sings
and brings sweet love like an angel with wings.

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Poems

Freed, Wild, Strong, and Clean

Freed, Wild, Strong, and Clean
They’re saying now that you ain’t true.
Heard while I was going full speed
that you got some new gasoline
that’s got you running hot and lean.
Well in my heart I always knew
that I’d go far too far for you.
I go faster’n anyone needs.
I don’t care when I break and bleed.
I’m tougher’n anyone you’ve seen.
So when you hear folks say we’re through,
you can know, too, that I feel freed, wild, strong, and clean.

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Poems

Summer’s Shades

Summer’s Shades
After spring’s pastels come summer orange.
Like a glaze, lilac hardens to purple,
carnation pink deepens to a rose tinge;
and powder blue turns cobalt, deep and full.

While on branch and twig, birds sing, perch, or cringe –
sweet songs praising, perhaps, shades bright or dull.
In summer the birds soar o’er prairies singed
by a sun that dyes grass like golden wool.

Like through a syringe, bright colors Time pulls,
while the moon, white skull, illumes the night strange.

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Poems

Recurrent

Recurrent
Upon the beach there lies a rainbow foam
white, at first, then with opalescent shine:
a shimmering hue in the dazzling sun
whose bubbles in their iridescent domes
display, like love, attractive and subtle signs
for brief and beautiful whiles, then are done—
burst like a primer when touched by the gun.
Now the beach grows cold; the gloaming glows gold,
while new waves that roll reflect stars of old—
and, again, the foam’s hues shimmer and run.

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Poems

Death in Autumn by a Waterfall

Death in Autumn by a Waterfall
In autumn’s gold-larched, cold Cascades
a river runs down a mountain—
whose slopes are hued in honeyed shades,
glazed in spray as from a fountain—
to kiss the stone of an abyss.

From water dashed against granite
a roar rises like plains thunder,
while the bay, from trees that dam it,
smells of moist earth from dense vapor,
and mist bedews sheer cliffs of shist.

And there in brumey, drizzly clag
waits the gloomy, black-robed reaper,
calm ’neath a cantilevered crag,
to bear an old careworn sleeper,
with soothing hiss, to the last bliss.

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Poems

Afghanistan

Shepherd Boy on a Muddy Day with an Abandoned Soviet Tank in the Background. Balkh Province.