The Tune of Non-Being

Go ahead.

Try to smash 

your reflection.

You and your world

remains unchanged. 

This is a truth

that cannot be 

rearranged, no 

matter how hard

or how many 

times you try.

To find lotus flowers

covering your lake,

paradise is liberating

the illusion of self.

If there is no 

birth, there will 

be no death.

 

This is another truth.

Among all the 

NOTHINGNESS

there will be no 

song to miss.

Sing now.

NOW with no

sign of an 

eclipsed sun

to come.

Kozan Ichikyo

Kozan laid down 

his brush and

died sitting upright 

at the age 

of 77 on the 12th day 

of the second 

month of 1360. 

No longer entangled 

between                              the 

             coming and going, 

his shoes were removed 

and he left them requesting 

no ceremony or service 

to interrupt his final exit. 

It is said

no footprint

could be found 

upon the mountain

he left behind. 

TKW Discography Anthology

My first poem was written in the late '70s. I was awarded first place in the local paper for a Mother's Day poem. It felt so rewarding to turn my own thoughts into word sculptures. I couldn't draw like the rest of my family, so I kept writing. Like most kids who don't have much control over the things that go on in their lives, poetry was the one place I could build an entire world and move about it freely. Shy about my poems, my high school English teacher secretly collected my work and submitted them to various scholastic contests. I was awe struck when I actually began winning. and in 1989, I won the New Jersey's Governor's award for my poetry portfolio. I dreamed of going to NYU to pursue my passion for poetry, but due to a string of family tragedies, college would not be in my future. I began working in a record store my junior year of high school and music became my sole passion. I have dedicated my entire adult life to it. A low self esteem limits what one imagines for themselves and their future, but thankfully friends and customers gave me the confidence to dream about joining a band. I taught myself how to play guitar and suddenly my volumes of high school poetry became a springboard to writing songs. 

By the early '90s I transitioned from writing poems to writing songs. I used to regret that I never kept journals, or write more poems, but writing lyrics has been satisfying in ways I could have never imagined. My songs offer glimpses of nearly forty year of my life. Most poets don't have the opportunity to place their own words to music, no less create all of the melodies to truly bring them to life. I have never been one to applaud my work, but I am proud that in the 4 decades I have been making music, the words and vocal decisions have almost always been my own. 

My poetry has mostly remained a secret other than when I created tiny poetry zines and left them anonymously around Richmond in the early 2000s. This poetry blog has been my outlet to offer me somewhere to keep writing and reworking older pieces. My discography is the closest I will likely ever come to having an anthology of my poetry. Eventually I will have working links to all of the music and songs (1991-2025), but for now, this is nearly everything. Some of the music listed below has never been available for streaming until today.

My Bands:

Broken Mouth

Dahlia Seed

Little Twin Stars

The 17th

Souvenir

Scissorettes

Down with the Ship

Calico Ghost Town

Ringfinger

Positive No

Outer World

Guest Appearances:

Dunebuggy

Small

The Figgs

Me & Dave

Idle

Forensics

Long Arms

RVA Xmas Indie Rock Collective

Gotobeds

Gauchiste

The Start of My Thirties

 1.

Have you ever played hide and seek with a dead body? That December we found my brother's ashes 

seemingly forgotten in my parent's garage. My family is not heartless, they couldn't bare to part with their oldest. My sister and I used humor to dampen our grief of this morbid discovery. We brought him to a bar with a note the read "Hello my name is Pete and could I really use a drink.", knowing he would have approved of us offering him one last happy hour. 

2.

Have you ever held a grown man between shaking hands and begged him for forgiveness? That fall I carried another brother for my father who could not, and my mother who struggled in her wheelchair to part with her favorite. I am the clinging little sister who was being asked to let go of him for one last time. I still imagine him, resting next to pop-pop, patiently listening to an eternal string of stories about navel ships, locomotives, and the other things only Chris appreciated and loved. 

3.

Have you ever driven in a car with your father resting in your lap wondering where all of his has gone while praying as an atheist that he doesn't come spilling out? That April, my father took his last swim in the Atlantic Ocean among his family. We were so grateful that your pain was over, how you would have loved to see your girls all together again, and most of all, that you were finally at the beach without that miniscule blue bathing suit that spared us nothing. 

(2004)

Acknowledgement

To aim to be 

nothing doesn't mean 

what what you think

it does.

A nothing is not a nobody.

My vibrant self 

is an ancient echo 

only I can hear. 

I am a cunning 

                       continuous 

                                       current

without a category

constantly moving 

through a borrowed body

working towards 

a purpose 

only I can define.

To be invisible 

is to embrace

my truest self 

whose identity

refuses to be 

                       confined

Sacred is the person

who I am 

when 

I

am 

                       alone

so when the time comes

the voice calling me home

is unmistakably my own.

 

 

One New Memory

Before telephones 
were hidden inside
pocket size computers 

and memories 

became notifications

delivered into the 

lining of my pants,

moments of my past

appeared randomly 

like a leaf blown in

from a tree I could 

never quite determine, 

on a breeze I never

saw coming. 

I was slapped in my face 

only once. My father’s 

hand had an electric 

message for my 

left cheek that 

told me in no 

uncertain terms that 

My mouth was not 

as smart as I thought 

I was. 

I marched this stinging 

feedback upstairs and 

my mirror held onto 

the moment for as 

long as I wanted this

one new memory

to stare back me,

a burning angry flame

only I should be able to

extinguish or reignite.

 

Math Happens

To calculate the sum of two,
once one was me 
and one was you.

Math happens.

People 

div ide.

[1998]