James Niles Poems

There he was in what passed for dirty clothes,
the lamplighter poem blasting from a mouth full
of rock candy mountains He carried the lantern alight
in the light of day for journeys so long that they were
...

I am afraid of the ocean, not the
seashore with its magic gifts of shells
and sand-dollars or the bars and
nearness of sliding bodies on poles
...

Dear Annie,

Avedon, you look so much like him nowadays. I loved sharing the cherry phosphate at the soda fountain below Union Square. The paparazzi were so so very pretty, in their Calvin Kleins and Madoff muscle shirts.
...

T’was a small eatery, walls nautically enriched
with charts, a polished brass bell, at the kitchen port,
so bright., burnished to a gloss gong gleaming, glittering
with a mist of virgin olive oil and the
...

Not here no more gone
Laying down in fragrant hay
Kissing pretty girls
...