The wonders of research
Tell us cats and dogs are color-blind.
But don't be sad,
They've given us
Something to aspire to.

Defrosting the freezers
  are far from ****
Nonetheless
They're on the rise

Caps are melting
Shelves are falling
Glaciers are passing ships
  in the traffic lane
They're on the move

This is no song & dance
The poles are looking for
  new real estate and
They're coming soon
  to a neighborhood near you

When it comes to time,
many of us are fair-weathered friends.

In one brief moment we can save it
then turn right around and **** it.

Still, time is a thief,
so I guess we're even.

We now return
to your regularly scheduled dream.
Do the math: ducks in the pond
swim upstream to spawn supreme.

Then pay it forward
as a string of numbers.
Continuous in series,
strung out and unencumbered.

There's some **** saxophones
lifting off in tune to the rhythm method.
Save the soft jazz for when you're really in the mood, and read a bedtime story instead.

Vision begins when the lids
are closed and threading the daisy chain.
This is where we
place the refrain:

Caution--unstable, but microwavable.

The lines blur
where the vertical and horizontal collide.
Can't stand the swimming in the head,
yet enjoy the peripheral ride.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure,
even as far deep down as this chasmic seabed. Living with technophobia,
But married to sensory overload instead.

Making new babies in safe mode.
We lose sight when plugged too long into this hub. Just another anxiety in need of a pill
--join the club.

We meet where there's free Wi-Fi
so battery life doesn't drain.
This is where we
repeat the refrain:

Caution--unstable, but microwavable.

Adrift
Bereft
I'm shipwrecked without you

Broken and foundering
Can't let go
I won't let go

What remains is more
Than a keepsake
It's a lifetime together

Treasures that sparkle
Like the sunbeams
At noontide

Where children and dreams
Befriended
Splash and play

The boat to shore is slipping
From its mooring and I'm
But one grasp away from losing it

I must first breathe
Then summon a strength
To sail on

Such departure is agony
An anguish rending
My heart in two

I can give nothing but words
You can no longer hear
A touch you cannot feel

But I offer them
Without reserve
A declaration of love

A betiding of elegies that somehow
Must suffice as
Our ill-timed parting

A remnant of us
An ember of this love
Will burn

Like flares
And light up the sky
Into the unknown

For now I must go
My pilgrimage for shore
In pieces and alone

Remembering I've only
Lost you to your rest
Until a morning awakening

Oh, what solace
Adieu, my love
Sleep well

I.
She waits in the shade
Of a best-loved oak,
Where he once carved their names inside a heart:
"This means forever."

II.
The heart needs tending
--she visits from year-to-year.
Her security, a vow.
His constraint, a contract.
She made to open the door but he detained her,
A perjury.
Pruning stems, branching
--cognitively speaking--
Dead or alive.

III.
The landscape has changed:
This place no longer holds water.
Listen now for love's addendum,
Measured in the signal-to-noise ratio.
(You'll hear it all the time).

IV.
Oh, painfully leafless gray meadow.
Sufferance is a viable timekeeper,
When it storms the weak run for shelter.

Reach out and touch
The reflective surface,
Nearly-perfect, infinite.
She's an unbreakable object held
Within stasis,
A long-durational sleeper,
Motionless in her far-off stare.

Time dilation may be absolute,
But there's no denial
Of a sundry smile
And questioning brow.

Glass divides she
From true self,
Kept in the hold
As priceless cargo
That once inspired the likes
Of da Vinci.

Thus Snow White wasn't quite dead
When the trap was sprung,
Her day lay in wait
For a kiss of life:
An event horizon.

Lift the lid
It did,
And with a centuries-old yawn,
She fixed her face upon
Her growing public,
And broke through
Hibernation,
To give birth to a star.

Waves of broken sleep
numb the day and
put the night in a coma,
like empty tunnels
they mined the hell out of
a century ago.
Turn back the clock
and strand me in this time change,
then full scream ahead
until I'm buried
in the same pettifogging
I was once sustained by.
Waves of plaintive water
support the loneliest creatures
that will soon fly overhead,
like hollow words,
hoping to rain on this parade
and make me cry
for abandoned impulses
closer than they appear.
If I cave to the pressure,
I'll rise from head to toe
in a swelter,
a diver with the bends
riding on high
until the hammered blow
--up and down
this elevator moves,
closing to present ritual
then opening to past stimulus
I'm far too afraid
to open my eyes to,
even if it's only
that one all too familiar
surprise...

Within the nook of a dell,
a good distance
from obloquy
and inhibition,
floating on water,
listening to birdsong
descend down
the stream
of a musical scale.
Don’t need to believe
or even consent to
any critique,
any look-see,
you are free and light
on the surface,
buoyant and supple
beneath.

Languid movements,
reminiscent
of a weir,
cascade
and trickle,
springing forth
to orchestrate an overture.
This feeling is
beatific,
euphoric,
the moment one of
nonpareil,
bijou,
objet d’art,
and these transports
are yours only
to involuntarily
succumb to and relive:

Rhythmic waves
quivering
upon your shore,
as your limbs and spine camber.
It’s no wonder
you often lift
your voice in song.

Alcohol is my friend,
it makes me cool.
Gives me the feeling
I’m all grown up
and ready to rule.
It brings class to my photos
on Instagram,
makes me feel carefree
on those days I can’t quite
get with the program.
It whispers sweet nothings
in my ear at night,
changes in the morning
to leech off me like some parasite.
I keep it at bay
by giving it more,
I’m mostly happy in knowing
it’s me he adores.
This dance is out of this world,
it’s a gas when your head twirls off,
not so much when your stomach's unfurled.
But so what! I’m no amateur,
I’ve heard how the bottle can turn saboteur.
A crutch to lean on, I’m told,
even so, the rhetoric just gets old.
Hey, I’m just fine!
I don’t need a helping hand,
bottom line!

You won't remember all the fuss you
cause, my precious microcosm

This strange bewildering exhausting
global economy you dwell in

Apparently the lease expired and your time has come

Driven by grievance more than strategy

It sets the stage for fireworks and confusion

In one dizzying morning into afternoon

I'm searching for who to blame

Histories on the episode may well spend a chapter on
your mother's unhinged notions née crazy talk

It becomes clear in real time how the risks
of an escalating trade war

give a centimeter, take a centimeter

And the fraying of longstanding ties

Could quickly outpace the ability to evict you

As your mother, the normal first responder
to your distress, I can do

Absolutely nothing about it but push

In what seems a shoot-first approach to such
a delicate moment

The escalation, the unpredictability, the erratic
nature of developments

Is central to what is going on

Something is breaking

That something is me!

Our world is on edge

Looking for a sign of what to do next

The labor market drops and you're crowned
a royal pain

Peace is found, it's proportional

And by all measures you're quite hale
quite beautiful!

This offsets the damage of a messy exit

The disconnect I incessantly prayed for offers
melancholy over relief

In our opening act you're already moving
away from me

While the female body is a powerful tool

It cannot provide a settled rule book for
such internal battle

Still, this adventure, scary and catastrophic as
it was, is well-suited to the wonders that I am

For that I'm grateful to my Creator

The lesson of the last several hours is that forces are unfolding
that we can't do much to contain

We're merely nesting passengers en route to
a foreign destination

Dreaming of the never mind
--the burden of proof my thoughts struggle
over if it was even such a thought.

It's in my nature
--the uncertainty
--the clutter of an empty space begging
for stronger remembrance:

like signal to noise.

Even in the harsh light
it casts unknown shadows

causing me to turn to something more tangible
--people, places, and things:

the ones I can criticize
or stylize, hold in my hand,
crush with my fist, kiss with my lips
--honing it down until a kernel
of something remotely mine.

Then I smile
at being a tourist in my own mind:

Paris syndrome: litmus test:
that disconnect between fantasy and reality,
fragment and rumination

--It's right there now
on the tip of my tongue.

Grace under pressure

She is pyrotechnics, feux d'artifice

Her northern light due south
Where the wind dies

There's trouble then

She swings in
Emotive orbit

Her hang time sabotaged
By lack of resistance

She is free-fall

Every last documented entry
Every bit of her composition
--The fabric of her

They fall from Grace
And onto the floor of new imaginings

What used to fit
Neatly into a box
Is presently a bitter pill to swallow

Down the hyperventilation
Shaft she goes

Where she lands nobody knows

Ashes of my son
in this bottle
wash ashore
to remind us the years are fragile
and too quickly they're no more

Strands of my daughter
on this brush
remain a lovely brunette
and a none-too-kind truism:
we begin to die from the very outset

A stone's throw is all we have