In a land on the southern tip so diverse
where two great oceans meet
and braid their tempers
in white spray on pristine shores,
where mountains lift their flat palms
to hold the last gold of day,
I saw her, just a moment’s glance.
Fynbos breathed its resinous hymn,
sugarcane whispered along the stretching coast,
and red earth lay on valley and hill,
keeping the memory of heat
like a pulse beneath naked skin.
She moved through protea fields and wind,
more beautiful than summer light,
with something of the huntress in her
not pursuit, but knowing
a gaze that measured distance
as easily as the horizon measures us.
Above her, the southern sky tilted,
clouds scattering in gentle embrace:
the long rivers of stars,
the steadfast Southern Cross,
Orion claiming the dark,
the Three Sisters burning clear,
and that quiet pole of night
once guiding sailors past the Cape of Storms.
Even they seemed to falter,
their cold geometry undone,
as if heaven itself
consulted its fixed lights
and questioned where to anchor
in the presence of her fire.
And from that moment
poetry began walking barefoot
over sand, stone, and jagged rock,
trying to find her soul
and failing
to name her.
Mar 8
Mar 8, 2026 at 4:25 PM UTC
welcome, autmn wind,
fiercly blowing out of time -
I gather the leaves
Mar 7
Mar 7, 2026 at 11:40 PM UTC
your bitter-sweet scent drifting
in through the window --
a kamikaze blossom
Mar 6
Mar 6, 2026 at 12:39 PM UTC
It's still dark outside when I wake up
every morning, five a.m.
The light in the kitchen is always on though -
a beacon to scurry home to
late night after church meetings
or in the wee hours
after serving customers drinks and dinner.
I smack a cockroach -
take the small, black, non-stick frying pan
off its nail in the wall,
and I wonder
if
the new moon ever
sets like this
against the milkyway...
Gaseous spikes spring up the sides of the concave dome,
as I **** in my breath and hold it, I turn down the heat,
swirl in a tiny bit of oil...
And I crack the eggs - split them open - two yolks
slipping into a sea of glossy albumen, drifting
on tectonic Teflon - anointed.
I toss out the eggshells,
usher in a dash or two of milk -
and I scramble everything,
break it all open, beat it up, air it fluffy -
pale-yellow and slightly sulphurous...
I listen for when you turn off the shower,
and I wonder: will it rain today?
I hear your brother snore up thunder,
but, will it rain today?
You shut off the water.
I arrange two slices of toast on a white platter
spread with mashed and mutated sunflowers -
equal mounds of xanthous-cumulus topping each other.
And I lay it all before you.
God forbid I eat before the the sun rises.
*******************
Jul 18, 2025
Jul 18, 2025 at 1:04 PM UTC
I know a man
who wakes up
every morning, goes out of
his way to preach love to others
and at the end of the night , he has
no one to hold , no one to love him
I know a man
Who goes out of his way
to preach peace to every child
in the neighborhood and at
the end of the night , he Cannot
find peace within himself
He lives in darkness
I know a man
who goes out of his way
to feed the beautiful birds
at his favorite park, and at the end
of the night he has nothing to eat
he goes to bed hungry
I know a man
who goes out of his way
to give his all to everyone
and at the end of the night
all he owns is the clothes
on his back
I know a man
Who served his country
Fought for freedom
For civil rights
So all of us can sleep well
At night , and at
the end of night
He has no home to go to
He sleeps on a bench
at his favorite park
I know a man
who goes out his way
to do everything right
even when nothing is
going right in his own life
I know that man
and I can only pray
that one day I can be
half of the man that he is
NOW
—————-
Who
saves the savers ?
Who
gives the givers ?
Who
heals the healers ?
Who
loves the Lover’s ?
Where
do you put your hurts
when your hands are full ?
TIME TO SAVE THE WORLD!
Nov 21, 2018
Nov 21, 2018 at 6:30 AM UTC
I was her boredom
As the monster cut up the city
We ordered food. and sat to wait out our imminent destruction
Disassembling art installations that had grown out of my hair
Going to and from.
There will be no Magical girl transformation sequence .
There will be no battle. And triumph
I was the summer.
Burning other people. while we stayed inside
For most of it
Nov 21, 2018
Nov 21, 2018 at 6:28 AM UTC
and she spoke,
and her lips were myth;
her tongue, song:
forehead scar shone
lodes of rune
re-membered ember
of yesteraeon soot cooked
sitting fire in ashen ire re-sired
without him
her self
felt, *********
clod alive
tooth of skull
culled forth
bone spoken
tomes uttered
and i felt her light enter
this dilating space
of ebb and ruin and alone
stile of mine
thresheld, again
footfall of wynd,
blown open
into dope field sprung swim
Nov 13, 2017
Nov 13, 2017 at 3:56 PM UTC
He carved her bones out of the soft spots of time
and the fires of eternity
and cooled and smoothed them in the rivers
that ran down from the mountains
where the old gods were rumored
to have gone mad and fallen asleep
beyond the knowledge and prayers
of all things that breathed and lived
and loved and hoped
He started with the caves that would form the pools
in which her eyes would sleep
and dream and wonder
and then shaped her skull around them
leaving out no detail or necessity
making each curve and line as important as the last
With her head complete he moved to each bone
that would be her spine with the same delicate care for perfection
and from her spine he then formed her ribs
making sure to reinforce each one
yet leave them flexible as it would be their function
to protect her heart and give it room to bloom and grow
He formed a bone of intricate nature
in the center and front of her
for the ribs to attach themselves to
and placed two bones along her collar
and blades on the left and right of her back
from which her arms would sway and swing
and hold things close
and then moved down and began
to chisel out the hills and arcs of her hips
where her legs would hang and twirl and spin
and then chipped away at time and eternity
to fashion every tiny bone of her feet
on which she would walk and run
and leap and dance upon
With the rest of her bones complete
he began to tenderly shape
and cut and sculpt each bone in her hand
making sure they would be pliable and limber
with a touch of delicacy and strength
for with her hands she would weave
dreams and life and love
With the last of her fingertips carved
and cooled and smoothed
and pulled from the river
he laid her bones out carefully one by one
on a blanket that he had stolen
from the robes of death
from the time before gods and men
and stars and trees and language
the time that only spirits and animals
moved through the velvet indigo
of the night sky
and prowled the cosmos alone
to their own songs and laws
He pulled thread from light not yet born
and the black from shadows yet to be cast
and twisted them together
and slowly began to pull her bones into place
and braid and twine her flesh and skin
and hair and eyes
and as her body and shape were completed
he started to weave and sculpt
and form her heart
with the most urgent of care
and within he hid the secrets
of colors to be unseen
and an endless spool of fire
and silk and blood
and the importance of kindness
and compassion
With the last stitch pulled through
and tied and knotted and cut
he had worked himself down
to nothing more than a grain of sand
and dust and wind and he smiled
a tired and worn and complete smile
She was the envy and birth of beauty
and the jealousy and creation of desire
and the first of all dreams and things to come
With her flesh and her limbs and body
and heart complete and whole
and his worn out to near nothing
they made love without their lips touching
or kissing or sighing or moaning
or making any noise at all
and without their hands sliding
or gliding or holding
or their limbs twisting or tangling
or bending or contorting
they plunged through love
and fell into the river
and walked over the mountains
and tip toed past the sleeping gods
of old and forgotten lore
and danced and slept
in the fires of eternity
until she had dreamt of making him
and he had forgotten of making her
and both stories were true
and both only a dream
and some where in the distance of the past
where the time before once lived
and death and dream and love
once fought and lost and won
the wars and battles of long ago
something smiled and then vanished
Sep 5, 2017
Sep 5, 2017 at 12:38 AM UTC
And the emptiness now
lets the memory howl
and bang its head
off the sheer walls of never—
Engulfed in consequence as it rolls in
fog or smoke?
In any case—
lonely
looks like this--
numb and cool and slow-moving
grayish-white fingers
reaching for molecules of air
while the reign of suffering comes like fine drizzle
over
springtime over....
Desire perishing in a crisis of will
In the thickets of panic—
bronchial spasms expand seconds
at an open window
Choking, congestive, failure of heart!
in the face of what it means to be...
not being
...as I came into this world
breach and not breathing
to my mother’s horror!
Alone
Scrapping, gasping, grappling for breath
I love life
I LOVE-- life!
Love—
inexpressible, inessential fool of a child
Love ripped apart at the v
Apr 18, 2017
Apr 18, 2017 at 10:22 AM UTC
it's cold in this motel
all the paisley carpet in the world
won't make the halls warm
a faux fire is burning in the lobby
the clerk is long numb to it, and to the rest of the world
it appears--no guest has disturbed him for hours
I don't want to go upstairs, to a room
where my only daughter waits, curled in the covers
like chrysalis in cocoon
eyes dried from crying all the tears
eyes can make--still she dry sobs--still she aches
for a mother she believes abandoned her, in a motel,
like this one, a lifetime ago
we will attend the service early today--too late
for a reconciliation between mother and daughter
the tether torn a decade past
I will hold my daughter close;
her eyes will dart around the room,
wondering who the mourners are, how they knew
the mother she did not
until then, I will sit a while longer
by this timid flicker of light, before I don the black suit,
before I knot my tie in the mirror and see the face of the man
who could not forgive a transgression, a human misstep
and robbed a girl of her mother, until today,
when words will spill from strangers' mouths,
the only biography my daughter will ever have of her
and I will wish for short epitaphs, a quick return to the earth
while those words and truths haunt my soul
Dec 11, 2016
Dec 11, 2016 at 12:38 PM UTC