Memoirs of a Praying Mantis, Turtle Moons Press, 2009,  is a collection of poetry addressing a variety of topics, be it the preservation of the environment, legends of the past, or the horrors of wars. The poems take the reader from everyday life and events, linking the concepts from art and literature, to science, to history.




for Shell

In the palm of your hand

among the spear throwers

and beads and pendants

I spotted her.


Sculpture in the round, you proclaimed.

Venus of Willendorf, I said.


With your sculptor chisel you carved

her bone, wood and stone

while she danced her bulbous oval shapes

evading the searching blade.


A spear of light set a high relief from an angle

and I saw her.


Burin scars shadowed her face.


Your eye cast on her, on me with fury

shaped, sanded, filed, polished

her rhythmic arrangement of bulbous oval shapes

while she danced her Paleolithic steps

in a mammoth rib cave.


She is made of marble

every sculptor’s dream, you said.


I’m of limestone, I proclaimed.

Cannot be polished.



We crawl through the labyrinths

as the icicles of stalactites

touch the pedestals of stalagmites.


Columns rise

in a musical sigh.


Let us pause

marvel at Her beauty

as the universe blinks

one moment

before the calcite dripstone fills the cave.



You are not there, I said.

An embodiment of my primal self

incarnated want, failed aspirations

longing craving ache

is in your eyes, in mine.


Deep and green your subterranean womb

of muddy peaks. Your eyes are mine

adorned in oak leaves.

Yes, I said, and followed you

hand in hand.


“A Grenadier I am, entombed in an icy scab

and if you scratch your corneal guard

and peer through my sodden skies

your vision, mine

your eternal botched self

mine    mine    mine.

The war of 1812, the Battle of Fort York

I a Grenadier of the King’s 8th regiment

plunged to my throne of incarnated want

failed aspirations, longing craving ache.

Your stomping grounds

your dog-walking trails

your lovers’ stroll

willow crowns luminous in icy rain

swaying in their mint overcoats.

I gaze through silken moonlight

from muddy depths of my sleeping eyes.

Give me your hand my forlorn bride

and I will be your eternal lover

a soldier of your incarnated want

failed aspirations, longing craving ache.”


A shroud of snowflakes

we stand on guard, hand in hand

my Grenadier and I,

gazing through silken moonlight.


Look down into murky depths of our sodden skies. We’re there, eternally,

skaters on thin ice, paddles rippling along the corneas of our sleeping eyes.

His eyes mine.