Sword Blades and Poppy Seed

This collection gathers lyric poems and prose‑poems that mix unrhymed cadence with traditional metres and opens with a preface on poetic technique and French influences. The pieces range from urban vignettes and domestic scenes to nature and introspective meditations on love, art, yearning, mortality, and irony, often using impressionistic imagery and formal experiment. Several poems use a fluid prose‑verse form that emphasizes organic rhythm and the speaking voice, while others retain classic metrical shapes. The tone shifts between sharp wit, melancholy, and ardor as the poet pursues concentrated emotional effects through precise diction and vivid sensory detail.