"It may be profligate, but is it not life?" asks Lord Byron. This is poetry with an edge. Combining grit and grandeur while mingling religion and sex, science and spirituality, this intense examination of life reveals the author's struggles with the nature of reality and existence, in language both simple and complex, erudite and approachable. Showing influences of Bukowski, Poe, Cohen, and a tinge of Greek mythology, the author examines wonder, pain, love, and fantasy. "The Lizard and the Tamarind" is a stirring tribute about the death of a fellow poet. "Explanation of the Universe" does a...