under this evening sun

under this evening sun
brighter than neon streets

some unidentified motion
a light in the night sky

caused some great commotion
among commuters home

no amount of media coverage
cold help them uncover

this most mysterious
fantastic flying delirium

how could anyone not believe
such an objective function?

another sunset has past

another sunset has past
without me as a witness

day slipped into the tub
under cover of darkness

the bubbles sizzle
bacon in a griddle

crackle evening breeze
through leafless trees

emerge from the LCD
into this altered nativity

to find my vessel
all alone in an asphalt lot.

pecan tree pigeons

balding limbs are carolling
as they sway in the winter wind
songs of holiday joy

mild giving of trinkets and toys,
experiments in sentiment,
adornments and scents

arranged in flights and patterns
deranged avians of urban heights,
living monuments to dinosaurs.

a patio of uneven bricks
scattered with broken terra cotta
and icing planters white droppings

as they take flight with black wings
frightened by canine insurrection,
alerted by their collars.

in these eternal moments
between a gust and a flurry
everything becomes a fuzzy blur.

emotions connote unrequited intent
carry a weight beyond measure
invent stochastic signals of pleasure.

and to where are they flying,
to whom are they delivering
mixed messages in mottled earth.

they are bottles set adrift,
wash up in backyard coolers and planters
land the pecan tree pigeons.

a lone pecan tree

a lone pecan tree
dangles its cojones
over outstretched limbs

surveys a tenuous tremor
over fallow fields
littered with signs

for suburban developments
which sway like wildflowers
in the breeze.

your liturgical smile

your liturgical smile
connects in moments
many miles of asphault

bracketed by billboards

comments on moving scenery
the silent symphony
the synergy of symmetry

you ride on a highway

built on lowballing
tolling you just so
just enough to complain

to pass your surgical bile

not enough to investigate
another investment in space
another divestment in time

mile after mile for godsake

to shave five minutes
off an hour-long commute
at seventy miles an hour

is this a higher calling?

canyon run butte

power lines cutlass the open sky,
rising suburban sewage tide
washes over the wilderness

in sevens and elevens,
in diamonds and shamrocks,
this retail must be curtailed

as forests are felled,
fuel to this sprawling disease
of so much impersonal property

left in the hands of scaly
cotton mouths and copper heads
with water in their moccasins.

there is no place left to hide.

tears saved for a rainy day

water trickles from rooftops
into pools with plosives
in a steady counterpoint

to passing traffic
streaming rubies that shimmer
as each revving engine

peels out, having waited
at the busy intersections
in the mid-winter bustle,

the preparations for holidays
when family flies in
and people are bound up

like wreaths like packages
shipped a day too late
to arrive by that sacred morning

when paper litters living rooms
and a million smiles echo
the same forgotten feeling

that started it all 2,000
years before in a tiny town
woven into the fringe of an empire.

apothanein thelo

We have idolized
Ancient Greeks
who, few are aware

were the first to veil women,
electing to remove
them from sight

We put their democracy
on marble pedestals,
columns rising

the District of Columbia,
chiseled statues in the same
proportions, the same

golden mean, the same
ratio to overturn a veto
this is another step removed –

representatives of
representations of
a cross-section of a district.

Aristophanes imagined
women in charge
as a form of humor,

Plato imagined
removing the family
as a unit altogether.

We have copped their forms
with the Parthenon
in Nashville,

taken the Memphis name
straight out of antiquity,
out from Ancient Egypt.

As a fine morning mist
settles in over
The national capitol,

the very foundations
of our system leak
history all over the street.

a tenuous tuesday

some days you just gotta hang on,
it doesn't pay to be in a rush,
grasping tightly the bent limb
like a squirrel dangling from a bough,

or a snowplow with no traction,
skidding across the ice,
into a shopping mall.
result - window substraction,

shards, both ice and glass,
scattering over the pavement,
like when you love someone too much
and are shackled in enslavement.

celestic dispute

venus and mars
split custody
over the moon,

the sun of gaia,
daughter of earth,
which gave birth

dislodged with
a prehistoric
asteroid,

dropped loose
from the chastity
of eternal orbit

in a belt held
so tightly
by gravity

and sending forth
a runaway
in a cloud of dust,

luna to the moon.

you are cherry blossoms

(for Kristin)

you are cherry blossoms
i would like to scatter,
unlike the many beings
whose lives do not matter,

yet every year, born anew,
every day another spring,
i would like to ask you,
but it would be nothing.

Stourbridge Glass

a single red cone
rests in earthen tones
where natural fireclay

and fine sands from Ireland
down the locks and canals,
navigated by narrowboat

down the Dudley No. 1,
to the outlying areas of Wordsley,
Amblecote and Oldswinford.

in the town whose foundry
lent the first steam locomotive
to New York City,

these factories have been
fabricated where labor is cheaper
and the glassblowers have all gone away.

Secret Life

Regardless of how often
the actor plays the role,
some part of the secret life
slips thru the pores
that separate with thin membrane
of diaphanous tulle,
presentation and interpretation
of life's most golden rule.

If only I could say that I
am only this and nothing besides
If only we could work together
without such open divides,
but some ideas do not transfer
over borders, under radars,
like a soviet defector,
society's meddling detector.

And lo! these are the songs
that shout out of showers,
ring the decks with wrecks,
put head to shoulders,
rubber to roles,
masks to characters cast,
reasons for all the past
excuses, excuses, excursis.

between two towers

I started this
in the living room,
with no clear trajectory;
two large towers --
a symbol of the old,
columns with glowing embers
announces all's right
on a Saturday night
pointing skyward over the capital --
the other a prod of the future,
ridges rising like thorns
or the horns on a lizard,
with all the incoming people,
how do we keep them
out of the afternoon sun?

I sat in the shadow
of a clock rimmed with bells,
suspended between
the future and the past,
the taut slack,
thoughts, comments,
and questions posed,
neither well-conceived
nor well-received, but asked.
In this distant present tense,
when moments elude
the abacus of memory,
the collector's appraisal
shortchanges value,
and I don't know how to finish.

catch a tiger by the tongue

once upon an evening jaunt
from down inside an unknown swamp
i came across a striped feline
which made for me a right beeline.

with obtuse fangs in mighty pangs
and anise in his pounce,
he shaked his head quite fussily,
but must have weighed an ouce

too much or more the branch he left,
bereft of hue, it snapped in two,
and cleft just like a sentence through.
but deftly did the tiger up

and found me so alone hopped down
and pounced upon his little snack.
i hope you didn’t want me back –
you'll never get me home again.

so if perchance you come upon
a tiger of your own,
do unlike me the wiser thing,
and leave that cat alone!

The before and the after

He was never concerned
with how things had been.
As the ash dangled over
the precipice of his fingers
his snore caught a chortle
emerging from dream's portal,
he spoke of future memories
dreams of retirement travels
that lingered in the closed-up
basement with second-hand smoke.

Rising from his recliner,
taking an angle from late night
broadcasts of Larry King
from a timezone six hours
behind the ticking clock,
the second hand counting down
his days left to pass.

He rarely spoke of the past,
always the impending soon
beyond misty Bavarian mornings
fantasied as our ancestral home
drinking the amber lager
that ran down in barrels
tapping out oompah, the opas
in pheasant feathers and caps
the frothy mugs and beards
in the shadow of the Alps.

A-rings and strings

zero-dimensional point particles
have done my brane in
an implosion on a pinprick

Cassini has found moonlets
in the rings of Saturn
footballs orbiting end over end

yet the size of entire fields,
and two thousand miles across
but an eightieth of the system

rings, propellor-shaped wakes
perturbed by gravity
the weight of discovery

that shatters history
like a prehistoric moon
Pan's nemesis the nymphs

which dance through the rings
undisturbed by the vacuous
meaning of celestial things.

vap poya

this evening's hunter's moon
looms low on the horizon,
rising softly at sunset

we point the body out to each other

helping hunters track
their prey, farmers work
the fields into the night.

we dance among the stars

the moon punctuates the sky,
there is no long period of darkness
between sunset and moonrise.

we make our own constellations

the ecliptic plane
of Earth's orbit around the sun
makes a narrow angle

our arms entranced and entangled

with respect to the horizon
in the evening in autumn,
acute gesture from the heavens.

we laugh at the world's pace

in the northern hemisphere,
the Hunter's Moon appears
late in the year, usually October.

a beacon of hope, stepping stone

This day is a feast day in parts
of western Europe and among some
Native American tribes,

means to the path's dusty end

the Feast of the Hunter's Moon,
though the celebration had largely died
out by the eighteenth century.

which we walk from star to finish.

Piedmont

Among northwest peaks, where water
Is bottled, in a domain of Occitan,
Turin sets eyes on foreign favor,
Brings together regional fare,
Hosts games, conferences, events,
In alpine serenity, mottled air.

Rivers have carved up these valleys –
The Po rising out of the Monviso,
Between Monte Rosa, a Grand Paradis.
This terrain was once Savoy and Alba
Then Genoa reclaimed the mountains
To ward off Napoleon.

Today as if with frayed rope,
Vineyards grip the dry clay soil,
Grow Barolo, Barbaresco, Moscato,
The lesser known Barbera, Dolcetto,
Nebbiolo, Grignolino, Brachetto,
Freisa skins distilled into grappa.

Fiats come down from industrial works,
Turned out by workers in Turin,
Railways bead the hills with prayer.
Tissues and silks, finer wares of Biella,
Famed factories of chocolate Ferrero
Bonded with banking and insurance –

Berlusconi is not alone in the afternoon
Shadows of these winding, sinister valleys
Under a left-center local minister.
Miracles moved by these mountains
Maintain the pinnacle in massif
Movements teetering on an avalanche.

Stellaphane

Imagine dim and distant objects
Flickering in the sky, uncountable miles
Billion and billions of light years old

Globular star clusters,
Flickering chandeliers
So close in the eyepiece

Yet stars remain beyond reach,
Beyond the limits of the atmosphere,
Firmament immemorial.

Charged particles in Saturn’s rings,
Leaping off the surface like scraps
of tissue paper levitating to a comb.

Stars linked with exoplanets,
Companions in the night sky,
Networks of constellations

Virgo rising from under the world’s horizon,
Cygnus, sailing swan of the night sky,
Draco of such celestial scale,

These conscripts to human invention
Will appear different to beings
From any planet orbiting any star.

In all of these constellations,
Any meaning is bound to Earth,
The significance perspective from a window.

Moments and clusters back in time.
What Draper must’ve seen as he photographed
The first human face and the moon.

Andromeda’s tilt offers an angle on the birth
Of humans as light from the back predates us,
From the front follows us into the night.

Kepler called the sun the fireplace of he world,
Yet averted vision reveals spokes of galaxies
Passing back and forth into eternities.

Would you care to

Dance we now a break from ennui,
For what could be more dismal

Than to sit idle on a Sunday
As the clock counts its ticks,

Those seconds down to the six,
And, Hell, lost to the nine.

moon in an ocean

Cast in a pallor
draped in grey canvas
twin semi-circles shine,
half-sunken beneath
waves of shadow
another half-drunk
sailor on wine,
bottle bobbing
with a single solitary
message, a will.
The darkness exhales,
light of the moon
the only beacon
stands in the sand
night still and warm
reminder of noon
salty eyes blinking
in the still waiting
barefoot and stranded,
miles from his son.

Found on an English Version of La Monde, September 26th, 2007

Up in arms
High finance — a game of risk
Riches beyond belief
The many battles for Turkey's soul
Who will make our shirts when China is rich?
Shooting the messengers
Israel’s cost to the Arabs
Russia: the polar grab
The Arctic, a sea surrounded by land
Venus from the Poles
Education for sale in the land of the free
Closing the door on the poor
Facts and fees
The summer return
Who lives where
The boats that take the Moroccans home
At the gates of paradise
Françafrique Sarkozy-style

Father of the Poet

What I remember was his silver hair
as he reclined in the supine bed,
the plastic band loose around his wrist.

Eyes surveying the monitors, he told
a story of being tied to the cabin
on a pontoon that skipped the stormy waves.

Once the bonds were cut, the cleat
wrapped up with rope, he collapsed
from the exhaustion of another life lived.

Language

Beyond bilabials 
                 past the rapid 
decay of dentals
                 downtrodden glottus

Your words mean more to me than any analysis

Forward, clean, break

Somewhere south of the river,
I lost my way,
somewhere between
a live oak and a stream,
crossed one too many times.
I found one way back
to where I thought I had been,
looked back,
and in a stream of consciousness,
which burst from some pocket
in my frayed jeans,
gave up all hope of return.

A Drowning

Deep in the shallow trunk
of the esophagus,
an utterance emanates
with gutteral resonance.
Upon a bitter countenance
a bilabial gulley
washes up between two
driftwood logs, rising
with the lofty timbre
of a familiar name.

And you swim toward the shore,
each salty stroke one of luck,
that the waves asunder
up against the rocks
then drags back the undertow,
retracting nouns and vowels
into the the open maw of the sea.
Those bellows echo,
another breath to wind up,
another fellow to expire.

We have no more heroes

We have no more heroes
To carve up the skies of adulthood
Everywhere else, children look up
Out across the horizon,

Run through fields of mysteries.
Once grown, this wonder
Is lost inside a photograph
That bog of the mind.

Canadian Northerlies
Shake mortal flesh,
Shivering down to the bone.
Out of the soil coils a cone

Wrapped up into cyclone,
Cuts through wood and stone
That stood for a hundred years
Left splintered like a dream.

Memories frame the fields
Of visions that foreshorten
As limbs grow limber, topheavy,
And buckle under the timber.

Only the charred frame
Of a barn remains standing,
As men rebuild uphill,
nestled in a gap in the treeline,

Inwards and upwards,
Ever closer to their maker.
Each year they grow taller
Until all at once they falter.

September

Staying up, outlast the dark,
With no alarm or bell to ring.
Our kisses kept back to themselves
as morning glories, too early up.

Autumn lies, awaits in ambush,
Ash trees swaying evening breeze,
Tightly leaves cling hold to branches
At each parting path tells time.

We are lost two miles from our house,
Memories only take us home.
The thorny gloves release their grip
And summer gives way to the wind.

In these minutes, seasons turned
and in each others' gaze of pools,
cast aside the lake's amnesia,
and kissed upon the bridge as fools.

Hill Country Winter

The treeline lopes with a gnawing slope
Down to the lakeline, that icy sheet
Pulled over the eyes in winter.

Then the head comes up and over
Disarming suspense with a lifting motion,
The sky a staircase of stratus.

What underscores the face of every lake,
Every meandering stream that awakes,
A simple reflection that climbs into the dawn,

Burrowing in a bed of delicate moments
Which bloom in the light and wilt by nightfall,
This is the heart of Texas after all.

Rush Hour

He sat in the traffic among the other drivers
Along the wide interstate highway,
Thinking some unique thought
Then someone cut him off
And he raised a fist with such fury
That the shimmering glint off the silver cars
Under the hazy indivisible skyline
Where the buildings are barely visible
In the foreground a surreal image
And a witty quip on a billboard
And he forgot what he had thought.

Lisbon

I

Waves batter the sandy shoreline
In this Golden Gate of Europe,
Where history ebbs and floods.

A statue resembling the Redeemer in Rio
Directs the westward pedestrians,
As streetcars stroll astride cobblestones.

This city still lingers in memory
Of the Age of Discovery,
When diamonds emigrated from Brazil

To the old country, traded in for a language
That frames the Catholic saints.
In São Paulo, those tildes make waves.

II

Then one All Saints Day, an earthquake
Sent tremors and fires through the city,
And tidal waves bounding up from the shore.

The crooked streets of rumors and lies,
Were awoken in the illuminated night,
And rebuilt in a modern grid of boulevards.

Between these ramparts and bulwarks,
Castelo São Jorge shelters the scene,
Survived the flames, beat back the Moors.

That remaining maze of alleys in the old town,
Runs tawny along houses of red clay rooves
Where cadences of fado echo in the night,

Melancholy folk with mandolins
Sing sad shanties of lost loves and fate,
Wield guitars with sauntered Iberian gait.

This is the only city I know of with a lift,
That elevates between eras – the old and the new.
This city that elevated itself out of a dark age.

St. Anthony’s song of what was lost,
An empire of centuries of liquid capital
Overlooking the Tagus and the sea.

Foreword

And what does it mean to be so sure of yourself
That the afternoon light from a window
Cannot illuminate you, that the writing
On the wall does not challenge your countenance?

From one human to another, let me assure you
That you too will know humility,
When the crowds vanish and you are left to prove
Once again that you are alive between two bookends.

Time shelves all words, healing all wounds
But in those forgotten corridors of covers
In tomes that make a maze of memory,
One more book on the shelf never stands by itself.

huggermuggery

i gave a talk recently
about the use of many models
to solve a single problem.

it kinda felt like gang warfare,
all those conspirators,
each providing his or her point of view.

that's what it feels like
to be in front of a crowd --
like you've had no sleep

and you have to fight each breath
for the last cot, the final plot
in some murder mystery.

i felt like ten little indians
were counting down
like bottles of beer on the wall,

ticking and talking about things
that i barely understand
and watching the clock

to see just what i had to skip,
to save for a future presentation.
and this was voluntary!

as sweet as ornery

as soft as loam
as vapid as foam
as rapid as nomads
as nomadic as the ocean
as oceanic as islands
as palm as fronds
as friends as fingers
as fingers as hands
as hands as some
as some as many
as many as possible
as possible as i am
as you as us
as romantic as moderne
as modern as english
as british as behaviour
as behaved as a flock
as floppy as a hat
as mad as a simile
run on like a sentence
in the middle of road.

koblenz

at the deutsche eck,
the confluence of two rivers,
the mosel and the rhein,

there is a corner of germany
of history, a monument,
an occasion to come together,

wenn ihr einig seit und treu,
under the shadow of kaiser wilhelm,
Nimmer wird das Reich zerstöret.

along the steep wineyards is kochem,
the cobbled streets and promenades
manned by a castle reconstruction,

the verbal mythology never reads
its own biography, that's past
up in the winding of river paths.

and out along the meandering valley,
burg eltz, over 800 years in the forest,
its courtyard a confluence of tourists,

this modern feudalism, the vassals
paying their lord a fealty, fidelitas,
a form of medieval realty.

in another town from another time,
in herrengasse we find fine rhein wine,
take to the hills with our bottle,

and behind that cork uncover a mystery,
a language we do not comprehend
in its limitless confluence of vowels.

lorelei

along this rock-strewn bend
in the main vein of germany,
where in historical tales
wunderbar maedchen
would sing their songs,
in their sirens flirted
with passing sailors hell-bent
on passing the time interwined
in this land of mosel wine.

now upon a jut in the land,
a rock adorned with the german flag
keeps watch over the winding
sluice where barges run loose
beneath the trees.
a stein above the rhein
an anchor of a landlocked region,
st. goar is famous for hospitality,
where sailors would spend
the night with romantic sirens
and give prayers of thanks.

now stores with steins
stretch between the alleys
and under medieval arches
raised as fortificatins
in the days before gunpowder
when sieges were the norm
this town had its own
bakery, pharmacy,
livestockery,
well, brewery,
where five hundred people
huddled to outwait their attackers.

now the snackers, the backpackers
the knick-knack trackers
have turned this region
on to a new medievalism.
fortified upon a cliff
this high-on-a-hill hamlet
as european culture frowns down
from the precipice of days past.

bmore

kids are growing up
in the shadow of gang violence
nervously joking
about the number of murders last year

not gangs that match their skin,
or gags that match the kin,
but people of an entirely different
social strata removed and unarmed

but wielding their dignity.

the kids in baltimore
are doing hard time
living in neighborhoods
they don't understand

across the railroad tracks
in converted duplexes
triplexes, quadplexes
town and single family homes

paying too much for too little.

trapped in the ratrace
these kids are in over their heads
shielding themselves
from the eventual collapse

of the marketing companies
with their online dealings
and other stealing of their dignity
the ignominity of anonymity.

working too much for too little.

these kids have asbestos-laden
walls exposed in their basements,
live frustrated lives
in suburban tenements.

across the country, i have moved
myself well away, but i am no different,
staying up all night with a chisel,
sculpting out one moment at a time.

making too much but too little.

one bloody happy day

perhaps this day
was the happiest
in all of human
memory.

perhaps this day
was the culmination
of international
cooperation.

perhaps this day
was a day of release
after 60 million died
in fields and bunkers,
but most died in their homes.

perhaps this day
was a day of finding
mass graves and bodies,
but also living beings,
emaciated.

this day was definitely
a day to remember.
august 14th, 1945.

inishmore

peat farmers
are spreading the hay
by hand
anticipating rain
inishmore

the british
pushed the irish west
of their own isle
onto the aran isles.

sent away,
galway
town of the foreigners
12th century

and then the
dispossessed british
inside or out
of exclusive
ferries and selves,

british overlords
the heritage surviving
in tiny pockets
of ruined wall
the central park

the river corrib
runs through the center
of the town,
the fishermen
take turns in waders

casting their lures
beneath colorful facades,
the youthful crowds,
university.

the many dark centuries
of souls gathered
are layered like the soil,
ignite todays fires
in the young country
with so much history.

dad was

dad was
    half a thousand things
    before the wedding ring
    encircled his square
    he'd been everywhere

dad was
    ten thousand things
    he had shown to me
    without ever being there
    like pupping a tent alone

dad was
    a million things
    wanted to say to him
    and now in review
    saw aloud but a few

dad is
    dead as dust
    calm as ash
    living and well
    in my sleeping cell

prediction

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
-- Niels Bohr

So many mathematicians
statisticians,
and beauticians
devote their working
hours to prediction.

Any why is it so important
to know the future?
Is there really so much fear
to be unarmed, now and here?

Half the work of statistics
half again logistics
and still more combinatorial
effort into gubernatorial
predilection.

Instead let's embrace Mandelbrot,
stretch our heads and arms out wide,
let us stand outside under the stars
and ask the world for a surprise.

da

Beyond these silver linings
the day holds tight to the horizon,
unwilling to let go.

Its own volition is to remain
free from night's gaze
the many eyes the opaque watchers

over a transparent sea
of limitless light and silence,
like that day you left us.

One single elusive syllable
that first was uttered
was your one name to me.

I still call out to you, awake
in the night, that one single name
that no one else will ever take.

That moment at your wake
still plays each day in my mind.
The sound of wave on rocks.

hallelujah

My eyes
cast back a gaze
that clothes you
in a dress of confidence
that strips you
of the stress of conference
drawn around the spot
of my circumference
exposes the curves
of your body
My eyes
have seen the glory

environmentalism

the conversation about conservation
has worn on
the observation of overcompensation
and pompus privatization
the deprivation of public lands
without any publicity.
now that being eco-friendly
is so trendy
people can rank themselves
based on their rancor
for the many of hang on
to what few dollars more
than the poverty line
but these people are aligned
with waterfalls of money
windfalls of hegemony
and sail on without acknowledging
without the knowledge of self-sufficiency
but their allowance is sufficient
for them to buy a hybrid
and try to make you feel bad about it.

my os

(in the style of gil scott-heron)

my os doesn't need to be activated,
it's hacktivated.
my os isn't backwards compatible,
it's forward looking.

my os needs no service pack,
no value pack,
no packaging.
my os comes with no warranty,
my os doesn't allow focus stealing,
my os needs no backroom dealing,

my os needs no monopoly,
cause it's a technopoly,
my os is not property,
it just works properly.

my os even makes toast,
not coasters,
my os boasts no coastline,
my os has a great bassline.

my os has no blue screen of death,
no angel of death,
no death wish,
no bad breath,

my os has no cup holder,
no paperclip,
no wallpaper,
no desktop,
nor other cliche'd novelties
of metaphor

...my os has no release date.

you're a peon

When I was nineteen
it became clear
that I wanted to be somebody,
if only myself.
Now at thirty-two,
I remember walking
the back streets of Europe
admiring the gardens,
the shared spaces,
the clay, fitted rooves,
the yards maintained
with care and compost
the trains whizzing by
benches and trails
built of beer barrels
coopers and coops,
nearly every plot manicured.
If I am lucky in life,
the weathered patina
will rub off on my mind,
that european dream
to which I succumb.
None of my friends
appreciated this,
nor considered this
of vast import to their souls.

some large lady

some large lady
hailing her way from giverny
at a claude monet buffet
ate by herself all day

at 2pm when she felt ill
she went to the window
and resting 'pon the sill
let out a winnow

then down came the rain
all of her lunch
and ran down the drain
except for the chunks.

transatlantic

Our love took off a 777,
lucky triplet numbers,
then split like a headache
never will even by a pill.

Our love was a moist towel
on a transatlantic flight
burned hot in our hands
then quickly took on a chill.

we were miles from ordinary
then became too old and weary
as our bleary eyes met
in the starry sky kismet

and fell thirty-thousand feet.

phoney buzz

the women swoon,
the men ogle
as the retail
employees engage
them in boondoggle,
swoop in for the sale,

assailing them with adspeak

trapped in this maze
of hype and buzz,
their scripted chatter
becomes a fuzzy haze
since what they say
doesn't matter;

everyone bands together
on this wagon of the week.

9am

grey vapor clouds
crawl across the horizon
the snails of sky
and closing my eyes
tight
i can smell
at the center
of the spiral shell
a rain so fresh and still

circus day

Turkish women watch their children play
as they talk away the waning day.
Men unfurl the tent, its red and white
stripes speaking of a simpler age.

A boy, hat turned to its side, kicks a ball
up and down the left and right sides
of a mown park. The innocent clinks
of the hammers nailing pitons, spikes

into the moist turf, eight-foot poles with spikes
like spines supporting the scaly skin
of a maker of childhood fantasies, like dragons
shirtless men carry large loads.

Women shake their hips, suspending hula hoops
as kids cycle loops around the park.
The trucks, flatbed, stage their production,
a celebration of childhood memories.

An elderly man lunches in the shade
watching life progress as his waves
from the campers step strong men
who lug huge loads to and fro.

One of their husbands arrives, come from work
and sits amid the six women, legs akimbo,
joining his family in the afternoon
around tea time.

The circus family emerges from a camper,
the young children scampering down the makeshift
steps, as one young mother changes shifts with another
shouting an order to her man and chastising her young son

and her own lack of chastity, and as the afternoon
winds on they launch a motor revving.
One kid raises a red flag as her siblings run
about, a lone soccer ball between them.

The Turkish mothers, the German mothers --
all stay at home as the men go to work alone
or in groups for the laboring class,
trying to cover the costs of the burgeoning EU.

alto adige

Life moves at its own pace
or rather stands completely still
in a stone house high on a hill.

As tiny autos wind their way
switching back and forth across
the fields grow wild and forest with moss.

Wildblumen wave in whiskers
of grassy wheat curling back
toward the hilly expanse from wind

men mistrust the gusts
clip drying clothes to lines
the only straight segment anywhere.

The roads as lined with walls of stone
along tome stretches one alone
can pass to cross the stony bridge

the brook passes rushing beneath
as Italians in their daily way
pass us without pause or care.

We are truly visitors here,
but then why oh tell me why
does it feel so much like home?

ex

After twelve years apart
we're reunifying our lives

You have another lover,
and I'm bringing my wife

The party will be us two
singular and duly appointed

In our roles as the family head
we grasp tightly the reigns

Trying to arrange these strange
encounters in the fantasy of void

Without witness to our recollections
lest they be both suspect and annoyed.

early retirement

Today my father
would have turned
sixty-five, reached

that career pinnacle
a well-earned
retirement

instead he chose
between a nicotine
forefinger and thumb

hitched an early out
a buyout on his
contractual obligations.

all that life's lived
all the wisdom
concealed in his tight lips

could not reveal
the will to live
beyond his rustic roots

in Carolina's fields
strewn with tobacco
the barns drying

the filtered taste
of warm smoke
years of life wasted.

I still occasionally
light up myself;
I'm not so bright.

my colleagues / the sun's dawn

my colleagues at school
place distance between us,
seeking to bury axes

in my hatchback commute
hunchback from a packed
backpack and a gym bag

filled at the library,
late night research for
last-minute assignments.

In my age summoning the size
of stamina for night after
all-nighter bleats my eyes

making me a B-student
across the multitude
of disciplines invented

to spread my mind against
to jam with into the night
dance up the sun's dawn.

raven mad

that same dead bird
back two days ago
sat staring up at me

with a lone eye
cartilage missing ripped
from its flapping abdomen.

Have I mentioned
I've passed on over
passed now beyond my own mind

Have I noted
that infinitely singular
sensation that

loneliness of intellect
that moment before sunset
when death comes to collect

back taxes to that day
when you flow in
down into your mother's arms.

He approaches with piqued interest.

may day

a day of many sirens
buses crashing
into brick walls

passing one another
on the road, dialogues
across dotted lines,

a day of communiques
to long-since seen
friends and family.

these days linger on
beyond the walls
of sleep, beyond

the satin of sheets
against which and
sandwiched by their

where is castro
on these once
celebrated days?

raul has certainly
wrested full grasp
while fidel rests

in peace.

rainier day women

around mt. rainier,
lone peak rising
above seattle

on a clear day,
the light cascading
down its snowy slopes

the rainy weather,
precipitation
from the pacific

olympic climbers
test their mettle
on the mountain

helicopters rise overhead
lifting unfit climbers
up off the faces.

dangle, tongue, and rot

since words have such power to make all men cower
dangling from a lariot by the proletariat
the poet hasn't much time to think of a rhy-
some quick tongue fling to resonate and ring
in the minds of his captors who devour like raptors
his inner-most thoughts left to dangle and rot.

open lots are / posh lifestyles

(an anti-poem)

open lots are being grabbed
the speculation has begun
leading me to wonder just

and unjust

how long my neighborhood
will retain its special funk
that currently keeps out yuppies

to adjust

the preparation by their caring
elders underscores the lack
of understanding and investment

of mine

as far away as -Park
and -Heights in their whitewalled
fenced-in pre-determined posh

lifestyles.

how many headless / a loss

how many headless bunnies
lie in chocolate repose
while children hunt down eggs
on their twinkling toes
in spring-time dresses
the rain making messes
mud on their spindly legs
far too many I s'pose.

how many legless lambs
are roasted on spits
and frightened way out
of their four-legged wit
cut through in shear terror
but through the human error
spout off the cuff like doubt
fists curled in startled fits.

how many spineless men
hang a lone man upon a cross
responding to crimes with crimes
then celebrate their earthly loss
marching on like reel legions
through so many worldly regions
tell me how many times
must we revisit such a loss.

the nautilus / through musical cascades

the nautilus was a vessel unique
as imagined as can be rational daughters
nemo treated her special to speak
her pilot through outernational waters.

exactly where to the craft had dived
nobody fathomed but the captain
he kept her depths in his mind's
size and in his leagues mapped them.

through the eyes of professor aronnax
surviving giant squid, hurricanes
cannibals, whale hunts, shark attacks
in chapters that wave through musical cascades.

sundays are a / shared morning

sundays are a breeze
the late-rising sun
the endless snooze

dressed in our best
huddled under warm
sheets in rest

news shows at noon
not leaving the room
dual supine perspective

then rise summoned
by sumatran or
columbian beans

grounds for waking
beyond the zone
of our comforter

ranking determination
priorities against
daunting domestication

beyond the remote
reach of each other's
occupational constraints

prior experience
posterior pride
and do not hide the warning

the newspaper stories
that escape the editor's
internal agenda

propaganda of real
estate offerings
ads classified by

shape, size, color, gender,
partitioning criteria
like our shared omelet

we say all and nothing
in a single solitary
sedentary, shared morning.

wisdom / youth surmise

wisdom, though empirically
acquired is not intuitive
no matter what your sources say

no matter how often many
times you're given advice
it's not until you slip

trapped in the grip of a vice
handcuffed to the radiator
as they go through your socks

in search of tiny, crystal rocks
that the absurdity of your mission
the sating of addiction

of your daily life become
so apparent you wonder how
your parents didn't catch on

but they too are not so wise
or so you in your youth surmise.

a warning / a voice

a warning

honesty
never heeds

(humility means
never having
to speak out of turn;

earning means
never having
it all given to you;

silence
never shows off)

a voice

Palm Sunday -- April Fools -- Gimme Five

Worldwide, Christians are lined up
waving palm fronds and leaves
fanning their need for communion

Holy people require patches
to the doctrine so porous
as to tax the poorest latches

to oil the hinges of portals
to the afterlife to be led to
after they live lives as mortals

Any religion in need of investment
that cannot stand alone on merit
afraid to be naked, without vestments

uses Palms to hide the member of David

lost in a chorus of Hymns
lost in a forest of Psalms
lost in tithes of Alms

hide their children's eyes
from what they don't want to see
from what they don't want to be

the selective memory and shared mystery
Crusading against the truth
the power wielded by Church history

invisible forces that wind the hands of time
wield eternity against the aging disciples
who hem, haw, and pray to different versions

subverting the unified notions of the Church

my hands are clean of dust to dust
my head clear of ashes to ashes
of offerings, sacrifices, and devices.

my temples are another story.

said him to her

said him to her

i do not know
what i should
know

to satisfy
your every need

to be your clot
when you do bleed

said her to him

you'd better know
what you should
know

to contemplate
your evil deed

of negligence
by burly gents

said him to her

why should i be
the one that you
internally desire

when with my work
I'm destined to

be destitute
when I retire

said her to him

why should I be
the one that you
in secret so desire

when with my work
keeping your house

depressed and lonely
as your spouse

said him to her nothing more
she had the last word evermore.

tempered in imbalance

trust fund kids
are ruining my
class' curve

upsetting the balance
of class consciousness
in the department

surely i benefit
from past choices
but largely these were

my own sacrifices
my own toil
my own late-night oil

if only I didn't
have to be the baker
of my own bread

I wouldn't have
to be a faker instead
nor would I be rising

in the heat of sucess
at least one step
up from where I started.

I will not be / all by myself in the night

I will not be
implicated
in your psychosis

not be held to
blame for conditions
I didn't conjure

not be responsible
for lost or stolen
valuables --

so lock up your
open heart
which has baited me

these many years
and bailed on me
so many times

leaving me cold,
without a partner
or covers, shivering

all by myself in the night.

no one wants / a dissertation

no one wants to let someone down
(with oh so many obligations)
family tribe city n'town
we write our words with consternation

full-time and parts (both little and small)
making times for all the things
we have to do to do them all
knaves knights queens n'kings

in the noble court we are but guests
(with oh so many nominations)
adventure journey riddles n'quests
that rid us of denominations

when by now we ought to know
what's whispered in our weathered ears
that if to make fame's fortune grow
we cast aside the feathered fears

someone must let no one down
(cancelling all reservations)
smile wince furrow n'frown
then focus on a dissertation.

i stayed up / in my memory

i stayed up way too late once again
retiring to bed as the sun rises
the salmon swimming in the turquoise
of morning sun's golden embers.

keeping the schedule of an astonomer
the days tumble over like dominos
the nights fading into one
single apparition in my memory.

a gutterpunk from / down under

a gutterpunk from pedestrian Drag
smoking a cigarette, a large black piercing
deviating his septum, the nexus of his nose
from some suburban subdivision,
(his mama drives a lexus
while he lives his life a deviant)
a misguided miscreant
as I walked by asked me for change
I looked him straight in the eye,
said no, sorry.
He said sorry is a game.
I told him so is payday so get a job.
He sat on the sidewalk asunder
down out, down awning, and down under.

i was set / no point

I was set upon by a disenheartened
man who questioning my right
to coffee in peace ranted on

from a position of existential plight
his gnarled teeth stained from his words
or from smoking his youth away

male pattern baldness to a tee
for over an hour he spoke to me
providing little room edgewise

thinking his wisdom was so unique
the boutique of pretension
suspending his individualism

further widening his schism
with society the lack of variety
or nuance in his viewpoint

he rambled on and on with no point.

here is there / set adrift

here is there is an

everywhere an ocean
of solitude (we must learn

to swim before we speak
stroke after stroke in ancient
moats one step ahead of the boats

that float upon the rippled surface
paddling over darkened depths)
that runs on like sentences
over the horizon without parole

not a cloud in sight
in the sky in your eyes
the stroke promoting the hour

as days pass rifts dissolve
(into furlongs i can't fathom)

like a raft on the sea set adrift.

salerno, south of napoli

wedged on a ledge
the ancient lane overlooks
alleys steep with history

sorrento named for sirens,
minerva, the people embodied
in crafts and wisdom

a traditional italian dish
of mussels arranged on a plate
then off to the gelateria

the places named for biblical
as well as polytheistic
borrowings from greece

the commune of amalfi and towns
perched upon a precipice
as the windy way bends

around cantilevered architecture
the bridges and aquaducts
that engineered positano,

big buses packed with people
rooftop domes on patstel homes
cafes, galleries, boutiques

overlook a narrow mediterranean beach
where towers watched for saracen pirates
reminder of the maritime power

of renaissance italy,
the tiled maps on imported arts
from constantinople,

st. andrew martyred on an a-shaped cross,
a freak storm saved the town from pirates
but this is no haven from modern day tourists.

only so much / and ness

there is only so much time
to spend in this life
with friends and with wife

with liberty reserved for two
days a week, though we
deserve three or more

hours to play and maintain
or otherwise waste away
send blissfully down the drain

like so much vomit before us
shaken loose by stress
and spew't forth under duress

sent somewhere reserved
for detritus and urine's musk
never at home before dusk

the pursuit of busyness
in semi-aware stuffy air
the climate control

stifles what would fare
endlessly effervescent
our happy wit and ness.

when who shouts / not looking

when who shouts a name across a crowded grin
is lonely and silent much more than quiet
the sun cuts deep into skin
freckles emerging from each tickled pore in daylight

assay the moon with its smiling reflection
of solar rays back across the multitude of miles
immeasurable by earthbound dreamers un-
der the lives one step ahead of death's wiles

revolving like the head of a child's doll
those ancient memories of tomorrow's dreams
uncountably many stuffed in the closet all
dusty with nocturnal creatures that come out beings

and hugging stuffed bears to ward off the nothing
that's coming to get us when we are not looking.

a run before / their grasps

(a cut-up from 2001)

a run before the workday begins
major employers There is a neighborhood
homebuilder famous homes recently opened.
The par 72 Forest certainly scaling down
best value in the value does not mean a
near future. new model But increased
golf among the younger set,
lowest starting price level
With their close proximity to more affluent home buyers
mean any loss in amenities, family-oriented
snack bar and cafe, a three-tiered Forest Creek
size of your home seen in the two prefer
a single love the one-story established
What seemed like an unreachable
lifestyle is now firmly within their
grasps.

sputum and hocksum

sputum and hocksum
are geminate clusters
gutteral refutum
grammar metric musters

up the halls of throat
the tightening tourniquet
of an aspirated note
tonsils in silhouette

breaching etiquette
downright ground spitting
the lugie pirouette
splatting and splitting

i have been meaning to write you a letter

i have been meaning to write you a letter
put my heart on a page to deliver
to your very doorstop
awaiting your approval
i had hoped to write you a note
but i can't seem to fold up my ideas.

every day

the world moves on
beyond where you've been
fording a river of indifference
of lines dividing the countenance

we face the facts
of our inherent, self-affacing
existences, measure
distances between us.

a career change alters
a decade's point of view
I long to long for something
other than something to do.

day in the park

I spent the day in the park,
saved it permanently with these words
with their historical weight.

Among all the world's relationships,
the one with dog breeds faithful
companionship through seasons,

rough waters, frigid waters,
pathfinding and warm fur fuzzy
lost ways and frothy waves

today a multitude of these metaphors
sponsor my conscoius thought,
upend the usual cerebral pathways.

I longed to take the day
to reconnect, rest, re-create,
then learned of further duties

One look at my companion,
the white concavities framing his eyes,
then deepening cavities incise,

and we left for the woods.

Home, of a past life

Home, those hollow halls
within each memory's loss
and a faint echo
another passing shadow
across a mortared wall.

Moss grows laterally
along the bare retainer
clings to life
and the raindrops pirouette
in an old rusty drum.

The iron container
above which a meniscus
clings to life
drops discuss in concentric
waves our reflection.

Flat discus wavers
over the shallow resonance
and a faint echo
in the deep pool
of a past life.

sheba's ethiopia

Archaeologists search for graffiti
left by giants of philosophy
Plato and Socrates
in wave-swept nooks
on the shores of Greece.

Solomon broke Sheba's arm,
took her to bed like Porter
night and days,
and a light shone
from Ethiopia to Israel.

Incense route across the desert
ports along the Red Sea
parchment and roles
in Dead Sea scrolls
long buried beneath the sand.

The shore of Adalis where Sheba set off
for Jerusalem on an island
sand and haze,
in a maze so deep
the shallow water through coral reefs.

The muddy currents part the soil
revealing an ancient post
trading and mating,
where merchants bartered
for olives, dates, and oil.

In the Ethopian Book of Kings
Solomon's baby in her belly
slaves and masters,
named the tribe of Judah
she ruled her own kingdom.

Then stolen by British and Italian
along with the Book of Kings
London and Rome
took Addis Ababba
and the desert sun set on her empire.

stutter to speak

a stutter interrupted the sound
as my tongue slipped,
interfered with my rounded lips

the sonic register oscillating
like a transistor radio
sending a coded message

across space and time.

transcriptions countenance
in the college classroom --
liberal arts in the air abound

resound across the sunset evening
after a brief downpour,
outpouring of letters addressed

to noone in particular.

we had a cold snap

we had a cold snap
ice clung to bent limbs
and the city slumbered

in the midst of an afternoon nap
you rolled over in our bed
like a bear in winter

hiding yourself from the world
in some sudden hibernation
dozing off for a dozen hours

and the dogs played hookie
in the icy snow, chasing
cardinals and robins.

all told we lost a palm,
our hibiscus and eureops
and a few limber limbs

but we gained a day
of rest and relaxation
and internal temptation

and in our own mental way
award had a day's break
from life's eternal taxation.

i need a space

i need a space
a place to call
my very own.

this location
lies beyond mere
speculation

provides a place
for introspection
thought collection

to find a new
direction
find a new facing.

these days
I sleep soundly
without a peep

secure in knowing
that when i die
i'll have a box

six feet long
six feet deep --
my very own space.

spring in the field

(a manifesto)

For more and many years, our
mothers brought us forth on this continent
in this body, conceived in coitus,
and dedicated to the procreation
so that all men are created.

All our lives we are engaged in a war
against death, testing whether our bodies,
or any corpus, so conceived and so dessicated,
can so long endure to be re-cremated.

We are met on a great manifest of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that mind,
as a final resting place for those who here
gave their genes so that body might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should strive.

But, in a larger sense, we can not ruminate
—we can not consume—we can not swallow—this ground.
The grave men, living and dead, who are buried here,
have constructed it, in this hour, far above our poor power
to add or subtract, multiply, and divide.

The field will little note, nor long remember
that we lay here, but it can never forget
that they rest here. It is for us the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished destiny
which they who lived here have so humbly understated.

It is rather for us to be here medicated
while the great questions asked before us
— that from these honored dead we take
evolved promotion to that cause
for which they gave the last full measure of devotion —

that we here highly resolve that this head
shall not have died in vain — that this body,
under new management, shall have a new birth of freedom —
and that government of the poets, by the poets,
for the poets, shall not perish from the earth.

the kids in my hood

the kids in my hood
gotta play me their music
to school me old school
as they cruise by my home

a new tejano sound drowns out
the rain, scares even the grackles
into the sky, the crackling
of the snare, rim shot

and accordion rings, the man
singing a song of anguish
then the droning spanglish
of reggaeton drenches these

children of another mother
loving the evening air --
their bilinguilism their passport
to other worlds -- many know but one.

the kids in my hood
got every way to go but down,
got a lot of fences to climb,
got dreams to ascend to --

they ain't given their homes
in the hip part of town --
they' got to earn every penny
'cause they don't start with any

and I'm happy to live in their hood
happy until they make me hafta hear
their music at 3am while I'm in bed,
and not in the mood for the bass,

'cause i'm tryin' to earn every penny
i can for the same damn reason.

fourteen golden dancers

They gave us seats
where we couldn't
see the show

facing the steps
behind iron bars
like some art prison

you were trapped
in the narrow seat
squeezing your critique

as you shifted
in the intermissions
that came every 15 minutes

this damped out passion
and with no context
the curtain lifted

the show began the
dancers prancing about
the blank slate of stage

this is a city of amateur theatrics.

i looked you up

i looked you up
since it had been years
since we'd last spoken

though you'd been there
my entire life
it was time we met again

i looked up to you
all those years ago
the way you'd lie

out in the sunlight
or under the stars
rapt with joy and wonder

or stand at the window
watching the lightning
in an evening summer storm

hands clasping as thunder
cracked open the heavens
you've been there all along

in the shadow of my ego
that altar of self
out of sight and mind

i looked you up
but found the wrong address
i'd just missed you again.

a single grammar string

in order to answer
how was the first
word ever muttered

and to imagine who
will get in the last
word ever uttered

we must start small,
at that most basic
underlying form --

subatomic particles
and participles
with prepositions

denoting a meaning
extra dimensionally
unintentionally

substring theory
merging phonology
and orthography

in one grand unified
iconoclast and deified
catalog of dogma

where syntax works all
morning after tips
cashing out like a cow

tricks from semantics
decompose volumes what
this poem is all about

in cross-linguistic
presuppositions
assuming too much

suggesting more then branes
along the membranes
that filter emotion

fermions go on for eons
everlasting thoughts
that oscillate with the ocean

and words dangle
from our mother tongues
waiting for an angle

then flitter then fly
away like the subject
of ornithography

and disappear, a woolen
sweater left far too long
in a wooden dresser

this notion has become
too frayed at the ends
to mend, i'm afraid.

if you're looking

violence is rarely subtle,
the chicken bone at the bottom
of vegetarian soup

that added mis-ingredient

the towel soaked in blood
with a set of teeth
stranded from the mandible

cross some gradient

in some prize fight
cocks and boxers
akido and akidas

beaten senseless

in a polyester sheen
don king and adidas
the golden belt

of a clenched fist

the tense shift
of yesterday's news
jettisoned like

an empty can.

The Dean of Echo Park

voices carry, repeated
over traffic and sirens
intersected by Sunset Blvd

the pond lined with Lotuses
the streets with motives
sidewalk votives to patron

saints remind patriarchs
of their mortality
their morbid idolatry

in the shadow of the statue
of José Martí, Cubans hold
festivals honoring the man

in the shadow of Hollywood
studios, silent comedies
stooges and chaplin

on the eve of Halloween
when addiction dried
a river to ashes on dust

at the back of a bar
where actors, guitarists,
bassists, all vipers

premature stars of the screen
and of the street meet,
pupils dilated and bleat

living for the fleeting
moment just before sunset
as a monarch flutters by

migrating south with a migrane
higher than a kite, stumbling,
his whole life ahead over heels,

bumbling that life like a bee--
stung, strung-out, pronounced
D.O.A. like so many films

straight to video, appealing
to the basest of motives,
that need for youth to cheat death.

In the early morning

In the early morning
when men scrape dew
from crusty eyes

and flowers hang heavy
from last night's brew
tapped from oaken casks

the broken tasks
of what we're asked
to do but fail

in a hazy daze
and crawl into a cave
an escape from a maze of days

and nights that run on
until dawn, sentences
fifteen to life

unless amidst all the strife
we can pick up the fife
and summon a wife

to shield us from the blast
yielding to no outside mask
but, of course, bring new tasks.

War Pups

The world's doors have squeaked open
while we slept in our offices
as the evening crept across the sky

mergers and takeovers in the shadow
of emerging markets uniting like musketeers
one for all and all for one profit

as the owners at the top with their cigars
fancy cars, drink at expensive bars,
bleed the world with their consumption

we're waiting their tables, waiting our
turns, turning ourselves into the same
vain, lustful, greedy s.o.b.s,

then, aimless and frustrated
immobilized on the couch
like some sad sob story on the t.v.

we can no longer sneak in the dark
no longer walk in the park --
Only run and tumble and bark.

This is a prison

This is a prison
overrun
with inmates

from all backgrounds
from small towns
with big dreams

where children
are playing
"Marco... Polo"

and running through fields
trimmed
by farmers' goats

and come in when called
to dinner by
their mothers

from all backgorunds
from large cities
with small-time crime

where children
play hoops in the street
one on one

and men sit on stoops
framed by
delivery trucks

and run away when told
to freeze by
police officers

pacing the dusty
courtyard
in search of some

escape from the same
empty prison
we've always known.

There is this feeling

There is this feeling
a sense of disgust
in the chilly evening

when people walk by
in quatrains and couplets
complaining about

too many people sitting
in the restaurant
occupying their space

when men, women,
parents and children
sit on the curb homeless

dour faces frowning
as hour by hour
their hunger grows.

In these moments
among the overindulgents
I lose my appetite.

Attention! (to Details)

After forty years
of service
to the country

my father was cremated
and in the urn
overheard the ceremony

in the year 2001
just three months
before the nation

which until then
was concerned only
with itself

investing, consuming
under purple mountains
travesty

unaware of a growing
threat less deadly
than cigarettes

unaware of a growing
tumor more deadly
than terrorists

for such pageantry there is no apology --
the chaplain forgot to read the eulogy.

Adrift in an urban sea

A plastic bag
an unfurled sail
large enough for

2 cartons of milk
a can of yams
floats in the

wind & tumbles
end over end
in the gusts

close to the ground
& around cars
buses and businessmen

then up and over
signs & signals
alone singley

soars into the waiting
arms of the branches
of a wilting tree.

The Mind Telescopic

There is this time
in the late night
or in the early morning
beyond distant early warning

when the human mind
becomes as narrowly focused
as lenses on a parabolic reflector
gazing in harmony at a star.

In these expectant hours
when the night is darkest
and the stars shine brightest
when we see right through to Heaven,

when men and women
cast off verbal complexities,
agendas and antennae,
and slip into a mindset

a little more comfortable,
in native, indigenous tongues,
sit in dishabille and converse
telegraphing galaxies in verse.

When our eyes see two

Your age is
about half of
what you think,
a pack of coyotes
set out across
barren desert
beyond the lavender haze
of distant mountains,
howling from failing
on their hunt,
led off course
by a mid-winter storm.
Harsh elements
conflate Nature,
complicate our snowy
relationship,
tempered by anger,
by the shrill wind
of our raised voices.
If only we'd see
the impressions we leave
behind, backtrack,
and compromise.

Service in Silence

Tuned in to the mission,
he filters out the falling rain
pooling in the paddies, with
cupped phones over his head,
cigarette in hand
the notes already scribbled.
Interference distorts the signal
oscillating in the atmosphere.
All around, the enemy
creeps ever near over
soggy ground soaked
by September showers
drowning out the sound so that
he could not hear the shots
down in the village.
Crounched under
the canvas awning
listens the anonymous,
silent analyst.

This

is the screaming loneliness
when old home is deathly silent
in the overcast afternoon.

As the setting year is blown forth
with a chill that even the sun
cannot bear for more than a few hours

family's ever distant, the moments scant,
and friends can't reconnect, recant
the dots and lines in our faces.

The dials on clocks spinning
wheel within wheel in seeming perpetual
motion while the quiet commotion

in the room removes our awareness
of each other's place, each other's pace
of love, life, and fateful loneliness.

I forgot my phone

I forgot my phone
yet again

having plugged it in
in order to charge

it's in the back room
behind a door

beyond the cortex
of my brain

and that's why I
haven't called.

Stalling in the public restroom

Stalling in the public restroom
where I take my morning poo,
reflect upon the upcoming day
forecast, schedule, review,

then emerge, renewed,
the warmth of water extrudes,
then brush off the coffee'd patina
and return to the machine.

Between these moments, between
these serene moments to piddle,
like a poem that peters out midstream
in the middle

Departure

And in sorrow's hazy morning,
I found solace in the wrinkles in
his skin
in a dim hospital room
helping him over to his water,
because taking it to him would deny
him the accomplishment.
The drained vessel as in his arms,
drawn in to his bones
like the bag of saline
hanging over his head.

Some Other Day

I have walked
by you
a thousand times
in our house

and though
you were probably
awaiting
a sweet kiss

Forgive me
I was delirious
so young
and so old.

The Ghost

The ghost glides
spiritually,
split off from
her human form

she has arms
that flail
about as she wails,
assailed

from the back
of her spectral
eminence,
resistant to earthly

desire and will.
in some future
tense, exists
perpetually

chapter nine,
everafter
a vision in
someone's mind.

Family Reunion

smokestacks
arranged as an
upturned chair
four storeys

a leg for each
working shift
the tales to tell
the working stiffs

of labor unions
tough as steel
men standing
heel-to-heel

though smoke blew
in their crippled faces
from suits crouched
behind smokestacks

now dormant.

This gift i give

This gift I give was once a thought,
Birthed from another mum
Frozen last winter;
Rain by day and ice by night
Bent the trees into arbors, laid tropicals down.

Then in spring's slumber the sun's lungs
Rescuscitated one evening ths seedling,
And then in summer's spring
Sun stopped the rain of seasonal will,
Another mother nursed the bud with chlorophyll.

This kiss you give, this love you let
Take root in your garden,
Raised in another country
Under a foreign philosophy
With no vase, no base, no bed to call home.