Collected Poems 2020

The poems in this volume are the author's attempts to put into words some of the inner particulars of his eighty-year journey on the planet and to share the amazing discoveries, realizations and frustrations he has experienced trying to make verbal translations of that adventure. Many of the poems acknowledge the inadequacy of our alphabet sounds and words to adequately represent our emotions, ideas and sensory experiences. Words are stand-ins, written or spoken sound symbols, maps for our inner territories, and not the territories themselves. The poem "Onomatopoesis" asserts that "the vowels howl out" and "the consonants deter deflect conflict" but do not actually share what we have experienced. Another, "Piecemeal," states that "what you're looking for is always hiding in the spaces between the words." The author hopes readers will use their own intuitive experiences to find whatever of him is hiding between his words and be left with some wonder and appreciation.