Pith & Vinegar

I've been working intermittently at putting together a manuscript that collects poems that were originally published in small press zines that are long out of print; most of those were done with limited press runs to begin with. Other poems appeared originally in chapbooks printed and distributed solely in San Francisco. I've been vacillating on the title, but Pith & Vinegar is one I keep returning to. My goal is to have the manuscript together before the end of the year.

Readings lately have largely comprised new or newer material, so I'm going to start posting some of the older poems earmarked for this volume -- to see if anyone still likes them, and to see how I feel about them now as well. The first is taken from by debut chapbook, Rate of Exchange & Other Poems (1988); it originally appeared in Poetalk, a little mimeographed mag from out of the East Bay.

Juggernaut

My sphinx-like cat
reclines on the
table, soaking up

sunshine

with that spongy intensity
he exhibits
at every new morning.

Wish I could be
that certain
or sometimes, that stupid.