Crocodile
Sly for a six-footer you are
a briny guy stretched out & chill
as in literally a cold-blooded
dinosaur with a killer instinct
When the tide flows in your heart slows…
Find out how you can participate here!

Sly for a six-footer you are
a briny guy stretched out & chill
as in literally a cold-blooded
dinosaur with a killer instinct
When the tide flows in your heart slows…
Find out how you can participate here!

The nature of your need dwells beneath
the earth’s most ancient continental rock…
Find out how you can support my both my challenge, and a fabulous, non-profit, independent literary press HERE

With gratitude to Crow at Words and Feathers for choosing the words, badger, thrombosis, and erectile…
What you’ve got is only a touch of neurosis,
so don’t get your knickers all bunched in a twist—
your worries will give you a deep vein thrombosis!
Do you think there’s a prize for a self-diagnosis? (…)
Learn more about the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project here…

With Thanks to Clyde Long for Naming That Title & 3 Words!
It’s been the same, old thing, year after year:
You mope around, all gloomy and convective,
grow turbulent with variable shear…
Learn more about the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project here
With thanks to Matthew & Cameren Harper for Naming that Title!
Having risen well before daybreak hitched
the Silver Bullet Airstream to the SUV stashed
the buck knife beneath the driver’s seat & crept…
Learn more about the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project here!
With thanks to Robert Okaji
Another death hoax? Gee, how original…
Learn more about this project here
To submit, or not to submit–that is the question:
Whether ’tis wiser to pay another
Reading fee (speaking of outrageous fortunes!)…

I’ve really done it now… Starting today, for the month of May 2017, I will be participating in the Tupelo Press 30/30 Challenge—a program that both raises funds for a non-profit champion of the literary arts, and provides an online platform for poets to showcase their humiliat-er-heroic efforts to take their writing practices to new, poetic heights—which means that I will be relying on a month-long, panic-induced adrenaline surge to compose a new poem each day for 30 days!
But wait…there’s more!
In order to make my poetic endeavors as fruitful and rewarding as possible for all involved (because, face it, I will involve you, one way or the other), and to encourage your generous funding of a cornerstone of literary excellence in the independent publishing industry, Tupelo Press, I hereby offer these valuable incentives for DONATIONS in the following amounts:
$15: Commission a Sonnet! Shall I write of Rainbows? Broccoli? A Colonoscopy? Porcupines? A Holiday or Event? Your wish is my command (as long as it won’t get me arrested)!
$15: Specify 3 words for me to include a poem. If it’s Google-able, it’s fair game!
$15: Name that Title! You provide the title, and I’ll provide its poem in an unspecified format (probably free verse, but it could end up being rhymey and/or metrical). If you can think it up, I’ll give it my best shot to do it justice!
$25: Combo Deal! Choose any two of the three options (Sonnet and Words, Words and Title, or Sonnet and Title).
$35: Best bang for your buck! Combine all three options!
Donate Here , then submit your assignments to me via my email . Your requests will be honored in the order in which they are received.
$Any Amount: Express your support for this worthy cause at your discretion! Your vote of confidence in me (and in the poetic arts) will be of enormous help!
Thank you, Everyone, for your support and enthusiasm as I take on this unprecedented (for me…) challenge!

Sour-apple-flavored candy
The team color of your alma mater’s rival
A jacket that never gets misplaced
The labial-nasal fricative of choice
for cicadas & fire-flies on a summer’s night
The vaguely perturbing chortle
of that quintessentially hip grandma
who reclaimed her youth through Yoga
The tinkle of that crystal bell
you long ago purchased in Prague for a song
An herbal cold remedy’s fizz
Key-lime pie’s tang
The fizz & the tang of a Midori Sour on the rocks
& the fuzzy socks
that of course you wouldn’t be caught dead in
The vinyl stool you still covet in your mother’s kitchen
& the satiny ribbon you once got for honorable mention
In other words
the dessert menu’s less lethal option
for the lactose intolerant on a date
My dear, talented, generous, wickedly brilliant, and did I say talented?, friend, Robert Okaji, IS the man of the hour, for his wonderful poem, “Sault Ste. Marie.” I’m so pleased for you, and proud, Roberto!
It seems I’ve won LCk Publishing’s Inaugural Spring Poetry Contest. Let the festivities begin!