I am so happy to announce that my collection of poetry, Running Red Lights, is available today from Gutter Snob Books. Michele McDannold has been a great publisher to work with and I am thrilled to work with her again. She was here a the start of my career and published my first ever collection in 2006. Her belief in my work has always held a special place in my heart.

This collection is largely about observing the small moments in the world that other people glance over. Some of these were observed by me, others were back page stories in the news. Here are a few poems to tempt you:

Staring down a white-tailed doe

Small town factories
put the hard line
on faces. All of them
in a vertical destruction of youth,
skin hanging there
a wrinkle of time.

Generations
pulling long hours
sucking in black death,
diamond death,
poverty death.

It is all tattooed
on the inside of lungs,
painted over eyes,
along the jaw
clenched unknowingly.

The subconscious is the only faction
aware that there were
once dreams
of something more
than making rent and car payments,
of cigarettes and six packs

consumed.

Toothless

Parked in front of the KFC drive-thru speaker,
a toothless woman hangs out the open window
of a rusty blue Chevy truck, arms flexed,
and crossed over the door tightly as if she
fears falling the two feet toward the ground.

Her right hand cradles her cigarette like a lover
dragging its breath hard and long enough
to cave her cheeks inward to meet each other
over tongue and under palate,
cutting off the smoke
so it slips weakly
from the corners
of her mouth.