David's poetry has appeared in The American Literary Review, The Hollins Critic, The Great Midwest Quarterly, Perihelion and others. David has received a number of awards for his work with a recent nomination for a
Pushcart Prize in Poetry.

  He is the author of several collections with new work and is scheduled to appear in an anthology later this year.

Child Prophet

Pure, pure green as field
Or fertility or open seas

That swarm about you;
Moss green with algae

Bright with sun,
And through Mediterranean

Shoals of coral and shale
You swim off into Arctic

Depths as a winter gale
Fasten the knits and throws

Of kelpline turned shore.
Refuge in a faultline,

Wonders in the wake
And this Aegean utopia

Of middle-earth carousels
Churns to whisk you away . . .

Before mother calls
And dynasties falter

To a desert of dry winds
And plateaus that swallow

Spray for sandalwood,
Penance for shadow,

Forgiveness for light.

Pyrotechnique

In bengal lights, in camellia bright
Flares and sheets of flames,

Where wren and stars and
Mexican nights tarry then

Rush down on you step on
Dangerous step. You are too close

To dream, too close to roll off into
The sierra's half night that bakes

Down plain. And distant chime on
Distant sky carries you in

Singsong grace, lovingly, gently
Embraces you in this blanket of love.

To drift off into an ecstasy as fickle as
The wind in our eyes . . . Tonight

We go naked over tundra,
Soak up the last heat of an act

For sustenance, will ourselves
On etheral soles and bodiless terms,

Then burrow headlong into the last
Cool flesh that tapers into sand.

The Distant Ka'bah

A windowless structure of simple lines fill the colonnade
As soft whispers swirl and blend into the minarets above, below,

Skin, bare feet and cloth compete at a basin's edge for solace
From desert winds. At sunset, pilgrims pass an enclave

Of glittering shops along the plains of Mount Mercy
As the evening light on the banks of a dry channel

Settles to reveal a moon of black velvet that flickers their arrival.
Here is where the fires on hillside and odors lace the warm night air,

Here is where the vigil of medieval pageantry slips into modern apparel
And takes homage by moonlight, here is where the Turning begins

In this sandy expanse of valley time's painful lapidation
Fill a crowd's, a world's yearnings to necklace their prince,

And stone a marble facade of arabesque limbs with redemption,
While their Eve, unnoticed, makes love by the hum of a thousand slings.