You can see the moon
as well as I
from where you are.

Perhaps I can stretch my arm
up to the wandering crescent
and grasp it firmly
to swing myself
across the meager gulf.

I'll lightly drop
into the lap of your land,
before the moonlit vision
of your loveliness.

At once he feels the magnetic tug upon
His bones muscles nerves & fingertips.

Aflame she glows, her ice blue eyes ablaze
Amid the fire of her hair & lips.

Proximity mere bends space-time & light --
Captivated, into orbit he slips.

I may be just a partying sort of guy,
But that’s the sort of guy I wanna be.
I intend to go down laughing when I die.

I like the ladies, that I won’t deny.
I give them what they want, and they like me
Because I’m such a partying sort of guy.

I make love, sleep, wake up, and then get high.
My days and nights are filled with revelry.
I know I’ll go down laughing when I die.

I wear the finest clothing I can buy
And drive the fastest car you’ve ever seen
To prove I’m quite a partying sort of guy.

I never get depressed, I never cry,
But those who do have all my sympathy.
I’d rather go down laughing when I die.

So why are some committed to the lie
That life is hard? They must love misery.
Myself, I’ll be a partying sort of guy
Until I go down laughing, when I die.

He too saw the promise of a distant light,
but unlike him he renounced the gold hat,
and unlike her she did not renounce him.
His parties were simpler, but she was content
with what he could offer: a romantic
readiness, just like his; a gift for hope
for a life together; a capacity
for wonder at the promise of a dream.

Even now he remembered the sad thing
that happened to them -- the deprivation
and the foul dust that floated in their wakes.
But through the smoke he peered into her eyes
and saw the light there, green as ever,
and knew they’d turn out all right at the end.

Terror evolves in the pure open space,
where sparked by the doubt of one who resents
the consequence of living and knowing
nothing of the terrible, terrible
confrontation, it propounds incessant
problems of being and ceasing until
entangled Reason entangles itself
in implications of implications,

confounding the space, conceiving a place
of refuge bounding Nowhere’s edge,
where ponderous dreams of life without care
augment the power and anger and dread
of Terror itself, thickening like air,
glutting the infinite heart of the head.

He sat in silence as she talked,
but didn't really hear her.

Actually, he preferred to walk
alone down frigid suburb streets,
where polished cars along the curb
slept like private birds and beasts.

So freshful was the cold night air;
so peacely was the starless sky.
He wandered far, content to be
a maginary man alive.

She sat in silence as he walked,
but didn't feely real him.

The snapshot of Now
folds in the middle:
me on one side,
kids on the other.

The snapshot of Then
split in the end --
me torn apart,
them with their mother.

Every morning at six-thirty I sit
at that table by the window and drink
my coffee. No, I’m retired. As you see,
I can see that corner, and most days the kids
come there to wait for the bus to take them to
the high school. Two boys and a girl, usually.
No, I don’t know them or their names, but I’d
recognize them. So, they stand there talking
and smoking -- whether cigarettes or something
else, I don’t know, but sometimes they shared it.
And I’m thinking the boys shared the girl too,
because one day one’s kissing her, the next day
he doesn’t show and she’s kissing the other.
That was yesterday. Then, today, the first boy
walks up and bang! bang! -- he shoots them both,
the girl and the boy, point blank in the head, like
Pacino in Scarface. Yes, I’ll testify.
But please catch the little ******* before
he finds out I’m a witness and pops me too.

The husband of the mother is presumed
          to be the father of the child.
We think it best that one man should be doomed
          to bear the risk the seed is wild.

I think I know what life is for,
and yet I cannot live for that.
I'm forced to wear a different hat
when weather changes are extreme;
otherwise, I'd grow too poor
to realize a distant dream.

The dream is of a frozen sea
that suddenly begins to melt —
violent tremors soon are felt
by starving souls aboard a ship,
who gasp in wonder when they see
an island grow beneath the ship.

So while I'm freezing I must eat
and wear the hat that warms my head.
I must commit my days to bread
to keep my strength, my vision clear
upon the ground below my feet,
which may be far, or may be near.

The apple rumbled down the aisle
          and stopped beside a boot.
The groom beheld its crimson glow
          and stooped to get the fruit.

The bride could not resist a bite
          when tempted by the groom.
The juice ran down her comely face
          like nectar on a bloom.

The groom ate of the fruit as well
          in solidarity
with her with whom he vowed to share
          the knowledge from the tree.

The guests did cheer but did not hear
          the serpent's sneering hiss.
The apple soon would take its toll
          beginning with a kiss.

That I can blame ice for freezing my fire,
night for eclipsing my day,
wind for eroding my mountain,
or worms for eating my leaves,
I don’t suppose.

That I’m frozen, dark, flat, and barren,
I won’t deny.

That I can hope for a sudden spark,
a ray of dawn,
an eruption,
or a sprout
is all I ask.

You may be forty-five today,
          But still look twenty-one;
And even when you’re eighty-five,
          You’ll be the only one.

I live my life to hear your laugh
          And see your smiling eyes;
If I could gift wrap happiness,
          You’d get a big surprise.

Each day and week and month and year,
          My love for you goes on;
And it won’t stop no matter what,
          Not even when I’m gone.

One windless evening the bass started biting
just before sunset as I glided along
the bayou in a pirogue with a ******
of the paddle here and there for direction.

I was casting a topwater up against
the bank among the cypress trunks and stumps
and overhanging limbs and shrubs and twitching
and popping the bait until the fish struck.

To see and hear and feel the violent burst
of each strike and to set the hook firmly
in each jaw and each battle kept me out
until the mosquitoes and the gator came.

At first a bumpy head at least a foot wide
and three feet long with big shiny black eyes
inched toward the pirogue and me as if we
were just what he had in mind for dinner.

I dropped my rod and thought I’d better paddle
fast and hard before Wally got too close
but Wally sensed panic and to my horror
I saw the swish of his tail fifteen feet back.

The gator accelerated smooth and quick
and locked its gaze upon the very spot
the paddle broke water to push me away
as the jaws snapped shut and cracked it in half.

I slid away watching as the gator shook
its monstrous head free of the broken splinter
and I realized now he’d be coming again
for me down the bayou with half a paddle.

The pirogue rocked on the wave Wally made
during all the commotion and sure enough
he came again stalking the little boat
now stalled and adrift so I had to act fast.

I untied and lifted my stringer of bass
gasping and wet like a shiny green fleece
and hefted and hurled it aiming precisely
at the slashing jaws of the reptile beast.

The gator struck at the fish with a splash
of his big toothy head and chomped down on three
huge bass and swallowed them whole in one gulp
then snapped up three more that were still on the string.

So Wally was happy for now as the sun
went down and I wondered how to get back
to the dock half a mile away in the dark
with Wally nearby and perhaps hungry yet.

Then I got an idea and picked up my rod
and cast the old topwater past Wally’s head
and chugged it back popping in front of his face
where soon he attacked it and hooked himself good.

Wally went down with a **** and a swirl
and made such a wave I grabbed the boat rail
with one hand while holding onto the rod
which bent almost double as the line stretched tight.

The pirogue took off like a rocket boat
as Wally swam up the bayou to flee
the pressure and drag and the alien hook
underwater and then on top with me.

In no time I neared the dock in the dark
and slackened the line until Wally shook free
then glided right up to the dock and *******
and got out fishless but at least in one piece.

A pitiful wretch inhabits my brain;
In a boiling cauldron he writhes in pain.
When I perceive beauty or feel desire,
On impulse the cognizance feeds the fire.

The prisoner screams, he blisters and burns;
He suffers and dies, and then he returns.
As long as I love, he'll never rest;
The hug of a child puts him to the test.

Nothing will comfort this inmate of life
But hunger and cold, aloneness and strife.
He'd pluck out my eyes, cut out my tongue,
And make me a bed out of thorns and dung.

Yet I’ve known those who were quite insane
Because no wretch lived in their brain.
I hope until the moment I die,
My head resounds with that sobering cry.

This nameless potted specimen
          appears about to die.
Perhaps the wilted, browning stem
          (thank God it cannot cry)

is starving for a richer soil,
          or just a larger ***.
(A plant needs little room to toil,
          but even less to rot.)

Perhaps the shriveled leaves need light
          uncut by mini-blinds,
or air that’s not conditioned quite
          so centrally by minds

averse to nature’s crude extremes
          (the spice of a plant’s life).
And what bird’s song, like human screams,
          cuts through roots like a knife?

Relationships of divers nations
          crystallize in Terrible Times:
alliances divide along
          Terror/Anti-Terror lines.

The paradigm is surgical:
          eradicate the cancerous cells.
So privy nations operate
          on Terror's malignant network of Hells.

The human species balances
          upon the precipice of Fate:
voices clamor on Freedom's side;
          dogma grips the side of Hate.

And one God watches, knowing They
          have and will defeat the Beast.
But who's the Beast? "It's them!" points each.
          May the best team win, the other cease.

I apologize
For making half-rhymes
It’s a habit I can’t break no matter how I tries

Hope you pardon me
When you hear me sing
Like a scratchy vinyl record or a gagging geek

I’m so sorry for
How I play guitar
Got no rhythm when I strum and fingers fumble chords

All apologies
For my deficiencies
Please excuse me while I flush my latest masterpiece

And if the seed should take, what then?
Two souls would replicate, but one
would find itself, the other lose
itself in mystic legacy.

Old man of the new South,
champion of losers,
poet of prose,
one hundred candles are not enough.

On this date born
before Adam fell,
you saw the serpent
and lived to tell.

You tell it so well
even the ding-**** bell
won’t silence your still-talking
ever-prevailing inexhaustible voice,*

as doom itself is drowned
by the sound of a civilization
gathering round
the only candle worthy of your day:

the sun.

Love is in the smoke
of this motel room,
never in the air.

Even the lewd life-
like performances
on the screen, where johns

turn for role models,
are cabled in through
insulated wires.

She makes a point of
smoking cigarettes
before and after

every breathless trick --
to pollute the air.
Johns never object.

We cannot create
heaven or earth —
nor must we,
for these are given.

But waters encroach,
fish float,
beasts perish,
and humans fall prey
to darkness.

So we must write,
must write just
to let there be,
let there be light!

I must be nuts to be sitting here
at one o’clock in the morning
when I have to get up at six,
when I have to put on a tie
at seven and walk in that door
at eight with a smile on my face.

But I’ve had such a normal day --
made a sale, ate lunch, made a sale;
made a ham sandwich for dinner;
ate it; ate a bowl of ice cream
between sitcom reruns and game shows --
that I had to wake up at least once before bed.

A house is never cleaner
than when unoccupied,

with tables, couches, beds
removed and all inside
accessible to brush,
broom, mop, and vacuum
cleaner.

               No resident
had known a cleaner
room.

I wish I could teach you
a thing or two
but I ain’t got
a single clue
much less two.

And I wish you could teach me
to let it be
but if you do
I won’t be me
so let me be.

And I wish time would teach us
to get along
so let’s agree
that time is wrong
to take so long.

They struck at all the world
expecting it to cringe
in fear of purest hatred
wrought in a name: Allah.

But Allah loves the world
and favors many names,
so Jihad She declared
on jihad in Her name.

We’re tired of reaching for the tempered dream,
of stretching days and getting squeezed by years,
and bored with the swaggers, the pushes and shoves
of people in rushes to get somewhere,
like hogs in a slaughterhouse hoping to eat.

We’d sooner starve alone in the lively air
than follow billions to a frigid doom.
Why chase the wind when we can turn and face it?
Why measure time by the mirror in our room,
when we can follow earth, sun, stars and moon?

Why does a hummingbird hum,
        And a butterfly fly?
Why do they only come
        When flowers are nearby?
        And why do flowers die?

And why does a river flow
        Into the distant sea?
Is that where people go
        When nature sets them free?
        Will you go there with me?

Our only happy sun
        Goes away at night.
But what if there were none
        To make the daytime bright?
        Where would we find light?

The sun must cast a ray
        To make new flowers grow.
Forever and today,
        The water’s constant flow
        Is all there is to know.

And as for you and I,
        Our love is always new.
Whatever the reason why,
        That’s why I love you,
        And why the butterfly flew.

There's something square about a city block
that boxes the mind in concrete, brick, steel,
iron, wood, and stone, as if one could not
look in or out, or dream or dare to live
upon a liquid sphere of blue and green.

I could sell water purifiers
and do some people good
by straining out carcinogens
that might get in their blood.

I could sell encyclopedias
and help nice families out
with everything they need to know
or care to learn about.

I could sell fancy automobiles
to people moving up
so they can ride in luxury
and never have to stop.

Or I could give away these lines
to children yet unborn,
who may or may not give a ****,*
whom I will not have known.

through an icy windshield white panoramas,
cubic landscapes witH crystalline fractures
breaking off revealing blackness and rude
eyes glEaming lustily in the darkness.

whining in the windows, crying in the wind
when you roll the window down, whEel bearings
wailing like prometheus enduring
somehow the uneNdurable.

the cold
smell of unfamiliar territory.
the taste of carbon monoxiDe and fear.

          wheels locking -- steel
          crunching -- lungs
          releasing one last
          breath --

Along the path I heard the badger squeal,
stopping me in my tracks, reminding me
of an innocent time when once I rushed
to rescue this weasel from the ragged jaws
of a dogged wolf, swinging my stick, striking
the biter only to be bitten by
the badger I’d just saved from *******,
as if I were his enemy as well.

Now pain remembered engendered new fear
of the badger’s bite as I slowly drew near
the perilous piercing squeals. Then I saw him —
his paw in a trap, the trap on a chain — grim
prospect even for one so fierce and mean.
But do I dare to hope to set him free?
Or stifle mercy for security?

They abound where we loathe:
in impassable bogs,
chronic shadows, lingering fogs,
and matter decayed.

Others thrive where we live:
on our lawns and our pets,
in our homes — our food gets
eaten, but not missed.

Some infect our machines:
our programs and apps;
our code and mind maps;
our digital dreams.

And sometimes they grow in our heads:
in electrical nests,
sticky webs, hot threads,
and muffled echoes.

Aldous the cockatiel lives in a cage,
and loves it -- he’s comfortable there, and vague
enough to sleep while a man would linger

nearby, free, uneasy, watching the fingers
enwrap themselves in invisible knots,
tighter, tighter, with every sweep of the clock.

I notice trees
along the highway and beyond,
tempted as I drive
to ponder each design,
to estimate its weight
in life’s green scheme,

but each lone specimen
evades me as I speed
toward unknown peripheries
of darker and darker groves
and forests and jungles,
implicating blackness
in the blur of green until,
impatiently,
I change the station
and just watch the road.

        It’s a short cut and nothing but.
        It’s nothing but a short cut.

In the tangled humps
of exposed roots I walk
among in preference to the flat
meander of concrete sidewalks,
no subtle clues
of something to do with souls
impress me now,
no metaphoric mazes come to mind
to puzzle me with riddles
of the meaning of roots,
nor do ideas or images
or intimations of immortality
surprise me with the force of things
unknown or new.

I walk among the tangled roots
only because the way is straight
and short.

        It’s just a short cut and nothing but.
        It's nothing but a short cut.

To say “I love you” is equivalent
to saying I breathe air.

                                         Such sustenance
as I derive from oxygen devolves
so liberally, so reflexively upon me,
yet, were I deprived of atmosphere,
the words “I breathe” would not avail to fill
my lungs with what they need, nor would the words
“I am a fish” convert my lungs to gills.

Ethereal by nature, not by choice,
I’m bound to love you notwithstanding my voice.

Her eyes would never look at mine,
But I could never look away.
My love became too strong to hide,
And still I love her more today.

The seed we planted barely took;
It never reached the sunlight.
Then a rainstorm washed it up
To fertile soil rich and bright.

I didn't think the seed would grow
Until I saw a new green stem.
When I saw a leaf unfold,
I had to have her back again.

Finally, she looked at me —
A flower burst in love's blind view.
Though it took a while to see,
I knew then that she loved me too.

It’s hard to define the word love,
But it’s easy to know when you’re in it.
I’ve got a feeling higher than the heavens above,
And I swear babe it’s growing every minute.

I’m longing to be with you day and night
With a longing that’s different and new.
It’s getting so strong, it’s blinding my sight
Because all I can see now is you.

Abounding in beauty within and without,
You’re a goddess of goodness and grace.
If I was a baby, I’d cry and I’d pout
Till I rested my eyes on your face.

I’m unworthy of you, but lucky for me,
You picked me instead of another.
I am what I am, but with you there may be
A better me to discover.

And best of all, you’re a truehearted friend;
What more could a boy ever need?
My love for you will never end,
But will grow like a flowering seed.

There’s no way to say everything I’m feeling,
But I just thought I’d give you a clue
About one little fact I find hard concealing —
I’m in love, so in love, with you.

So I’ll say it again and again, I’m in love;
I’m in love, so in love, with you.
With you I’m in love, so in love, I’m in love;
I’m in love, so in love, with you.

He stirs,
discerns a thought and
flinches,
wrenches to see
the clock-
face

throbs
with gaping charges --
he crumples,
shivers,
swears
beneath a breath.

Then,
in time,
he concedes his plight,
sheds his cover,
and ventures into a universe
of blindness and numbness and
music

resounds
with singing forces --
and he rests there
and beholds
the harmony

fades
into the noise
of missing class.

The salesman at the door
is looking for a need;
if he doesn't find one,
he weaponizes greed.

No need to be rude
to this simple working man
who satisfies desires
in everyone he can.

Just let him know you're happy
with everything you've got,
and he'll be on his way
to someone who is not.

The children's photographs hang statically
from mobile threads training in the wind
of time and memory, flashing faces

smiling frozen in the blink of the eye
of mind as it focused at a time within
memory, impelling eternity

toward me now as spaces stretch between
the real trees grass sand and gulf
and places where the real faces move.

Melville's voyages among the South Seas
truly commenced with his treatment by pen
of those friendly tribes he cherished no less
than the not less primitive hordes at home.

But those who embarked on his ship of the sea
repudiated his ship of the mind
as it sailed for frontiers never beheld
in pursuit of the whale and immortal time.

I'm planning on plotting a novel about
A ravishing beauty, a former boy scout,
Her longing for him, his passion for her,
And the love they made forever and ever.

Or how about a detective, jaded
By betrayal, loneliness, and faded
Memories of something about a woman
And a time when he’d felt almost human?

Or what if I write about damsels and knights,
Or giants and dwarves and elves in fights
With assorted villains and torturers,
Like dragons, magicians, and sorcerers?

Or maybe the world would relish a tale
Of invasions on a galactic scale
That threaten the earth with annihilation
Till superheroes deliver salvation.

But whether the myriad books I might write
Would even be read or might kindle delight
Is academic, unless I proceed,
From start to finish, to do the deed.

It all looked unfamiliar
and felt the same,
as if a veil had dropped
or had been raised.

Inside utter darkness
brightly shone
on rows of blank spaces
and beds of bone.

With so much of nothing
everywhere,
an air of emptiness
filled the air.

He peeked out through the mouth
(it had no eyes),
but shrinking at the sight
of two skies,

he stumbled back inside
and slept once more,
dreaming he was alive
forevermore.