Before choir practice
before entering
the vestry door
you and Judith

stayed behind
and waited until
the others
had gone inside

and Judith said
look at those stars
and how dark blue
the sky is

you gazed up
at the evening spread
of dark blue
and stars

and moon
to one side
and you put
your hand

around her waist
and drew her close
and she lay
against you

and you said
I read some place
that some
of those distant stars

burned out
centuries ago
and what we see
is the ghostly glow

of dead stars
and she turned your head
towards her
and kissed you

and the pressing
of her lips on yours
and her hands
on your waist

and her 13 year old
******* pushing
against your
14 year old chest

and the sound
of the choir starting up
in practice in the church
and the flight of bats

across
the evening sky
and she holding you near
and the lips engaged

and the eyes closed
and the breathing
taken in
coming up for air

and behind you
the aging graves
the tombstones
with moss

and half lit
by moonlight
and star’s glow
and you held her

in place face to face
with your hands
upon the cheeks
of her behind

eyes still closed
in the land
of the love ******
blind.

George Johannesen isn’t dead
though the State claims he’s expired.
His driver’s License they cancelled
though he still had four good tires.
George, at first, thought to complain
about this twist of fate.
Then he came to realize that
Death is a tax free state.
Five hundred thousand dollars
Were paid out to his “next of kin”
Paid to one with the same name
Who looked a lot like him.
He accepted philosophically
the wage of sin is death.
If the alternative is taxes,
he assumed its for the best.
George enjoys the “afterlife”
on the Island of Majorca.
Where he chases younger women
And he doesn’t need a walker.
Only George, of all his friends,
has managed to retire.
He enjoys his afterlife
While the state thinks he’s expired.

snappy synapses predict the end of the world
and i am growing tired of growing older
while the year without a summer continues plummeting
toward my house in time
and we bide our time on our backs
smearing the yellow pixie dust of sunflowers on our eyes
because at least the yellow makes us smile
asking can the moon tire of orbiting the earth
and break away like a rubber band on its last snap
triumphantly spitting into the windless night
until our lips are dry as oxygen-starved mountain air
but I know better now
than to judge a night by its morning
because the truest words have always been written
on the bitter parchment skin of almonds
masking the cherry-sweetness of the flesh
and the artist may be starving but she is never starved
if she can learn to feed on pits and branches
for the flesh of the fruit is never quite as sweet
and in a dewy stupor we raise our faces to a dawn
that shatters the illusion that we are encased in a racing darkness
that slides under our feet with the slippery stealth
of the thin layer of water evaporating off the top of the ocean
to join the ranks of droplets that gather in the sky
hanging enviously above the surface of the earth
but always in danger of slipping back down
and splashing into the great blue depths again

And their feet move
rhythmically, as tender
feet of Cretan girls
danced once around an

altar of love, crushing
a circle in the soft
smooth flowering grass

What babe.
The babe with the power.
What power?
The power of voodoo.
Who do?
You do!
You remind me of the babe!