poet I’d pony up daily un-
distracted by paid gig or
prose chore I’d double
down and poems
would sanctify my obsessive
focus on avocation I’d wake
myself early stand till all
hours at my mental
ironing board flattening
to perfection the drawers of
my lyrical progeny what
a poet! and much
thinner because I’d embrace
austerities of all
sorts eat healthy run
uphill in cold
rain a soaked watch
cap badly insulating my
incredibly macho natural
baldness against pneu-
monia the whole world would be
better thanks to my sacrifices
and oh the poems
I’d write
lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he earns his living as a Jungian analyst. He is co-translator, with Emiko Miyashita, of Santoka (PIE Books, Tokyo, 2006); and has two collections of his own, Telling The Difference (2010) and Walk-Up Music (2015), both released by Fisher King Press. His work has appeared in such journals as Smartish Pace, Interim, The Carolina Quarterly, and Rattle.