as the sun filters through the trees & I whip past them, eyes closed but still seeing; flashing kaleidoscope fractals, alternating milliseconds of red & yellow & blacks & white. swirling oval ripples; am I looking up at or down upon the surface? checkerboards & squiggling bubble worms. between the seizure warnings & REM flickers, there is this unblinking eye, staring me down. my dad thinks I'm a seer. I see this cemetery, a church to the left. rolling fields of blueberries redwhiteblacknyellow a white cross, an arrow on the eastern arm. I stare down at my feet in the water. so I'm above the surface then - wait, those aren't my feet; they're much too slender. a close up: the southern corner of the cemetery. I have never been here before. a giant, passionate waterfall healthy forest surrounding it. My dad thinks I've dropped acid. a close up: the church. I have never been here before. how am I seeing this? swirls. ripples. checker boards. puzzle pieces. blueberry hills. trees trees trees churches cemeteries & those long slender white feet.

where the hell am I?

Speed on the
Mirror highway
Lanes and lines
One after no where
On and off-ramp
Stuck in traffic
Lucid acid
Flaccid masses
Classes filled
With stupid *****
Crooked cops
And ******* crashes
Head-on collision
Illusive vision
Elusive division
Intrusive mission
Through a tube
And up your nose
****, who knows
Where nowhere goes
How to get there,
Why I'm going,
What I'm doing,
Who'll be there.
I have no plan,
Nothing is written
In stone.
I'll
Figure something out.
Of sight and in
My mind.  I'm coming
Short of coherency.  Free
Writing poetry never works
In my favor.  I'm just drifting
Away into the
End of the dark sideline.
Through a tube, spiraling,
Stumbling mumbling,
Blundering blindly and
Mindfully striding
Across infinite tiles
Endless, black and white,
Checkerboards.  I am the
Grey area.

Night of copious moonlight ,
of star shine , of clapping
pines , of Perseus shooting
arrows over Alabama , of a thousand
jet planes approaching Atlanta
Silver highways and moonlit tracks ,
big cities and rural shacks , cattle ponds
and flickering streams , front porches
with checkerboards , maple rockers and
jiggers of good Jim Beam* ....

red checkerboards collect dust and fade but brown eyes are steadfast

unravel strings of my soul
static newscasters float through the floor like pennsylvania snow into the soil
it is easy to say your soul will rest there but to do so is to forget.
as surely as coffee came with every meal i can say that a soul with roots so deep and leaves so broad never rests
as wisely as a principal gives his life for a child's i know that such a soul's essence does not dissipate beneath the force of mourning
as purely as minted coins glistened in your young palms i can feel that a soul like yours never ceases to grow.
you have forgotten more than i will ever learn. you have given more than i will live to take.
for now solace comes in a full man's full life
shine on me until we meet again

Pascal could never more than hedge
and Albert's hard eight
spooked the witnesses.
It's Dostoevski in the pits
confessing to the fallen,
Jack London counting cards,
Melville with his checkerboards
and Emily, tilting
like the woeful knight,
who lift me when the obvious
shoots daggers from the looking glass.