We are two times, yours and mine.
We touch to make our times the same.

I glance up and see hovering
one moment, darting elsewhere
then back, a haphazard discovering
of the next right place aloft to be
totally unaware of me and my delight
at such an unexpected sight!
Iridescently graceful. The sunlight on its wings sufficient magic for  such effortless
flight.

At once I sense the slight shift in my perspective: that reality distorted by my ceaseless resurgent recollection and rampant speculation both articulating each next moment.

I struggle with the illusion of free will; supposing mastery of the calculus of human destiny; when all I truly do is engage in all variety of fight or flight; or suppose that God might barter faith for favor.

How human to imagine my mind sufficient to know the next right place aloft to be when in fact I could never know what choice of mine might influence me to lift my eyes to see a red dragonfly!

Is it a mere insect? A mere bug all a flutter? Or does it bode good fortune and vitality or is it a harbinger of death and transformation? It could matter, and secretly I wish it to transform my fate, making me special, gobsmacked by the hint of the mysterious and sublime.

But it's not that. Not really. It's no more than the intersection of gratitude and faith - the former arising from the moment past and the latter from the unknowable moment next.

cl - 2022

I cast a shadow most clearly
In the light.
Better though this shadow
Then hiding in the night.


(C) - 2003

Fate, your ice is hard and cold
But thinner in the end I'm told.

You may choose;
But your choice is one harmonica
In a marching band.

You witness dereliction,
Obtuse public officials,
You are enraged.

Around you, idiots refuse to speak up.
Laryngitis afflicts the voice of the people.
And you are the croaking,
The strained exasperation.

Hear the band? Hear the different drums?

Now listen.

Truth is a snow cone still melting and trampled.
Integrity is a little flag on a little stick,
Justice is a Cadillac and good folks waving.
The law is a thousand empty peanut shells
Exploded underfoot

And see that balloon, way up, up, up, gone?

That is the spirit of America.

– 1980 –  Denver

Maybe I’m wasted, a bit
out of mind, and my
mainspring is busted
and now I won’t wind.

Maybe you’re laughing.
Now, maybe you’re sad,
or dancing, or sitting,
or simply gone mad.

I won’t tell the time to you,
I won’t sing a song,
I won’t chime to you
Rhyme to you
Ding! Ding! ****!
For you. Not even
For your asking.

No, time has stopped for now.
And until you notice how,

There is no now.

No, now I won’t wind.

Denver - 1978

What holds my face
and my mouth twisting
my eyes blaring
my skin transparent
yellow-grey
my teeth gnashing
my nostrils pumping
my lips vibrant cracking?

What waking; or sleep so sound
and body split from soul
holds my face as others see it?

Then what sleep release
this phantom man – this mad
and haunting me?

I dreamt I awoke
almost, and lethargic –
but compelled stand up
(it wasn’t standing really)
a wind-up toy unwinding
winding down, urgent
to sleep, but unable.

Then to face that face –
myself in the mirror –
a snarled smirking face!

I dreamt that I was dreaming
and dreamt I woke
and knowing great fear
woke again holding my face,
then slept an instant later
unaltered through the night.

– 1983  Denver