When Santa returned from his trippin’
A bottle of *** he was nippin’
His wife had a brew
And after a few
The elves caught them both skinny dippin’

On most days when I sit to write
Perhaps a rhyme or just a quote
Some words flowing without a fight
Some are poems I never wrote

I write about the things I know
The images that rise and float
But haunting are the seeds I sow
Detailed in poems I never wrote

Compose the promise that one day
I’ll finish strong, I make a note
But hidden words I want to say
Are in the poems I never wrote

The chances that I dare to take
Protected by my writer’s vote
I hide behind the rhymes I make
In the poems I never wrote

Nothing cuts as deep
as a back that’s turned

Denying your existence
—all bridges burned

(The New Room: October, 2022)

Beyond the future
you find the past
Hiding in the present
—first and last

(Dreamsleep: December, 2022)