Ah, only to be an artic squirrel,
To sleep till the cold sword past,
Dreaming of green--
Below that cold artic slash.

Only rousing self when the sword hits my sleep,
It pierces my burrow,
Slaying the colors and the maiden,
With its merciless degree.

Ah, to awake to darkness, but with light coming from the door,
The cold sword is sheathed,
And my dreams are restored.

A man adrift out at sea.
A plan to drift to the shipping lane,
hoping to be the merchant's gain,
He speared a dorado with his gaff,
broke and stuck in ,she almost sliced his raft in half.
The solar stills not working, dehydration pain,
now have to keep pumping up raft, 30 days insane.
Almost to the shipping lane.

Patch the raft, just in time,
at night it is a waterbed of prodding sharks,
the rubber rubs your wounds with added salt.
You fall asleep then are rammed in the dark.
Looking to "throw a brick at the temple"*,
But there is no brick, night ocean resembles,
And there is no Diane on the moon in wane,
Only drifting to the shipping lane.

Sun and storm, random waves,
Reptilian blinking, forty days.
You have reached the shipping lane,
your flare goes out, their massive hulls cruise by,
accepting death with the starry sky,
Seeing lost souls in moonlit streaks,
wrecked catamarans, submarines, and fishing fleets.

Drift and drift, days and days,
Like Homer Winslow's '"Turtle Pond"
"Hey Mon"
You have found the colors of the Caribbean.
A young poor fisherman's face--
and though you have nothing valuable to trade--
saved by a small poor boat outside the shipping lane.

Now it is just this old house and I,
for the most part, we see eye to eye,
I keep the house spare and tidy,
and the hallways perhaps are clear,
I still set her plate,
as when we had our first dinner here,
it was a summer night,
and she made my favorite in the Navy,
cranberry, meatloaf and gravy.

I need to pack, only a week's worth,
sitting on the floor,
because my knees begin to hurt,
I can reach a bottom draw,
long forgotten it was there,
but as I begin to search,
some crickets loudly chirp.
I am sitting on the kitchen tile,
on the stove's metal I don't recognize my face,
my panic subsides to sorrow,
as I see her empty plate.

The hallways are spare,
and no photos on the wall,
paint or wallpaper I am unaware,
and in the staircase I can never recall.

They are picking me up 0700,
it is a calm cool night,
all is quiet on the street,
all the kids are out of sight,
I cannot get this hose on this rusty spigot,
the night produces a lonely cricket,
her garden is fallow,
and rotting from last year,
she is gone,
the cricket chorus is all I hear.

I fold my clothes nice and tight,
my thin bones in slim Navy whites,
chirping coming from the draw,
a knock at the front door,
" We found him folded
over his suitcase on the bedroom floor."

They are defeated, crushed in a rout,
But let them not die out,
Let us lift this quarantine,
So this sad looking boy will dream,
For when the girls dance to the new moon,
Let them jump out and capture wives,
For who will we rule when the moon resumes?
Depressed lads?
Warriors remembering the killing fields?
lying about as if carried home on shields.

Let the men see the maidens dance,
caressing the night with their hands,
barefoot over calm cool dirt,
swirling their home spun skirt,
singing in octaves we have not,
commemorating how hard we fought.

But Sir, the boy won't go,
His father vanished before the war took hold,
His mother lost her beauty from a soul ice cold,
She dances alone and only to revenge,
In her eyes are the killing fields of men.

Nay, you princes in charge of this city--
Apprentice the lad close to our maidens!
Let him see the beauty of our ladies-in-waiting,
And let the most beautiful young girl see--
How this lad does in order taking,
For I think she will be well pleased,
and he with her.

Sir we have done as you commanded,
Our defeated foes are happy and candid,
And the boy's countenance has changed,
Nervous aloofness  is all it contains.

Very good, he has seen her--
The fellow orphan I presume,
Who amongst dancing
Somberly walks to the new moon.
It is good, for she is tough,
And has seen he is not rude.

Sir, tis the night,
All the men but the boy--
Look forward to this fight,
For the girl and boy are of the same size,
And to carry her off will be a feat of might.

Nonsense, my paige carries double his weight,
As long as one carries love and faith.

Look! the maidens are arm and arm,
The girl walks alone,
Look, the boy has seen how the moonlight on her face has shown,
All have lustrous sheen with olive oil,
But her natural brown hair is his native soil.

Blow the trump, let the men surprise their wives,
But let us watch the lad, he is smitten
Even though she is wan,
All dance barefoot, she trods on.

The men run off under the moon and in laugh,
While the women either laugh or slap.

The boy approaches, the maiden awaits,
Then she grabs him by the throat and kisses his face,
He tries to carry her
Fumblin with nervous touching,
In pale moonlight highly blushing,
He tries to carry her, she tries to carry him,
They fall down a hill when the moon goes dim,

Dedication from him, laughter from her,
Cheers from the knights, " Well done Sir."

This prison is mighty, and mightily made,
Not even a wave of light is allowed,
Nor can the inmates have sound,
And a telescope is too close to this place.

But here is a man of science,
  A safe distance he thinks he is relying,
But no data is allowed from this prison,
Soon as he stepped close an inmate went missing,
Like being ankle deep in a pre- tsunami sea,
Immobilized,
One step, two step, three,
Too bad, the shore is so close,
With all the people he knows,
Pure pity in their eyes,
Even if he could escape the prison
his own newborn babe would slay him at range.
Now the descent,
Locomotive strength drawn into a drain,
Like a towering tidal wave of oblivion-
the door to this prison.

The tide slowly recedes,
shore running away fast,
The sound of a scream
ripped into the doom
and broke apart like glass.

I wouldn't resist the tide,
Nor close the eyes,
Give respect to the Mighty One,
Who made the prison and the inmates inside.

Darling global warming is true of course,
Just read the graphs and watch the tv reports,
Honey you are acting strange?
Stay home today and we'll go to the firing range.

Darling, darling, you have depression,
Look at the snowflake that you are clutching,
Sweden's snow disappearing down to nothing,
honey, your nervous twitching unrelenting,
Look! a dark eyed Junco, fleeing, flitting,
No need to fly south and so is sitting,
and not to mention--
They robbed you dear, of your youthful spring,
And so the junco in your winter will not sing,
Honey, hurry, watch this news,
Melting slurry during the winter moon.

"You robbed me of my youth."
Oh how the winter's cruel,
Honey, its true of course--
Look! a summer hawk in winter's morph.
Look, honey!  all the people are in flames,
spinning like the weather-vanes.

The utmost beauty, I ever espied,
a river ******* overtaken by a saltwater tide.

The sun bleached pebbles "Ka-ching"
Climbing down an ocean wall of railroad ties,
I see the ******* from this L-shaped cove,
I do not tarry for my burning soles,
the cooling sand then ankle cold.

My foot feels the soft murky grass,
A crab's tickles across my foot,
then I trip over line of a derelict trap,
I quickly recover after chilling splash,
And search a more clear and sandy path,

The horseshoe crab retreating to waist high deep,
Where forlorn buoys and rowboats rock to sleep,
Like a helmet with many mechanical legs,
She disappears into the darkness with her eggs,
I turn to look back at the cottage I left behind,
Like a cat o' nine-tail the flag whips the sky.

I reach the clean and purest sand,
Of this island not made by man,
My steps bring me up amidst this river,
unlike the coming current that makes me shiver,
the water is in no rush, so a nice warming touch,
I find a hollow and recline as if in a tub,
and watch the seagulls battle the wind above,
The cottages looks so distant fleeting,
The air above shingles distorted from super heating.

The wind intercepts all shouts from shore,
like an osprey swooping down then back to soar,
It is alittle lonely, and beyond the ******* scares me,
I think a jellyfish--
when my foot touches something hairy,
Things cruise by in the current,
Then I start to notice my ******* fading,
I must leave or soon be wading.

Back at the cottage,
With childrens laughing, calling, sand castle making,
Through itchy dune grass and hot sand traipsing,
I look back at the river in full high tide,
Waiting for my island to rise.