at the furthest
                        reach from me,

somewhere on the other side
                        of these lucid hills,

a box of sun has been
                        opened,

cut into manageable
                        pieces,

and given to all the young
                        dreaming denizens,

to blow with all
                         they have

inside their strong little
                         lungs--
                               ­     up,
                                          up,
                                                upward
into the sky,

circulating light
                          until it dawns as us all.

~
Hark!
He knocks.
Time, it's time,
the Kuroi Jukai within me.

Finding an unordinary
drifting off to sleep point,
a hollowed-out spot,
where I can let
God dream for me.

Whistles in the wind,
in lullaby the sky and sea
seem to trade places,
bending around me
as vertical blanketed surges.

My carcass is a colonization (of bones)
for my dearly departed ones,
forbearers of migration,
seeking endless sea,
until like them,
I settle upon
their ancestral shore.
~

~
It began at sea

this music box

playing your calliope

fingers churning

like a paddlewheel
~

~
Pristine upturned mouth
charitable sanguineous lips
****** only when they sound as a heart murmur
filtering through dark canticle streams
to the bottom of a kalonoù pond
no more...
~

Not to string you along, my dear

but we cannot simply cut ties with the past

even the inconsequential have its consequences

You might outlive regret, but that doesn't mean all is forgiven

~
The arithmetic of murky waters
Is not so clear

Neither are my chances of survival

Here is me
Face down in urgent sea

My wave
My grave
My gateway, perhaps

Whatever the consequence
Suffering is the new salvation

It all adds up
Sum how?
Sum way?

And if I was your ship
Destined to flounder
In the wide open drink

You'd re-enter the equation
And find a way to pull me through

Just so we could once more
Make the hurting count
~

~
abruptly waking to discover
the sempiternal daylight of herself
in a small silent village in Brussels

the sky's a cloudless blue
and she needs the sun
like children need two parents

sunglasses conceal bedroom eyes
smiles hide like inverted *******
clothed in peekaboo milieu

a highly individual creature
in an era of the exaggerated curve
she's an amnesiac

doodle-dawdling in the altogether
wrapping herself around
mise-en-scène

it's breakfast with Mr. Svengali
then unacquainted foothills
and undergrowth
in the flaring of conjugal
light and shadow

hum
thrum
'n strum
she's got the whole wide world
in her hands

her simple slantwise silhouette
declivitous neck
inclining embonpoint
summoning him

no clock, no watch
the keeping of time
is served by rapping
her crown upon the headboard
at regular intervals

her open-tempered sighs
closing with the heaviness
of a sleepy hush

until the echoing of church bells
announce the footfalls
of tomorrow-come-looking
~

~
I cast my net
                  into the tributary

and release into you, a seasonal swim,

I give to you a mother's color,
        as you recite
        infant hymns,

                    you're a bleeder
on the days sunfire meters out its origin,
                    you're my river

free and clear from the grip

      of anchorage,

                         my river,

drifted on to wherever
                       moon wishes glister
~

~
Memphis
and the King,
plagued up
to his neck
in denial,

turning remote
controls
into staffs,
staffs into snakes,
jackals,
and hounds,

shaking the sistrum,
singing gospels
full of mystery
to a god,
a girl,
and state of mind
he will never solve,

asking skies
of transulent
orange,
from the far corners
of his world,
for pharmacopia,

then granting
Moses
his freedom
in exchange
for a box
of hot glazed
doughnuts,

and always
his little
wild petunia,
painted face
and percolating
body,
skin smooth
as the eastern Delta,

her weighted down heart,
his tyranny,

his self-destructive tongue,
her asp
~

I.
Fireman, censor of literature and destroyer of knowledge, with his mighty flamethrower. He loves his work. He loves trouble and strife. He loves fascination with the people next door. Mostly, he loves his hammock. But sleep will be his final unrest.

II.
A gift for the darkness: reading from the forbidden kept hidden in the air-conditioning duct. The walls within turn on and off like Cora Pearl. His wife listens to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. They walk on as an extinguished connection. In the flickering of his eyeballs, he dreams of driving recklessly to Dover Beach and drowning her.

III.
Burning bright. He is burning so brightly. In the factory of mirrors, he takes a hard look. He's a flammable book. And it's a pleasure to burn. "What are you doing?" She asks. "Putting one foot in front of another." He answers.

~
Here is an assertion
and showiness
in the expanse
of white skin – from her
high forehead,
down her graceful neck,
shoulders, and arms.
Although the black
of her dress is bold,
it is also deep, recessive,
and mysterious.

He stalks her
as one does a deer,
his palette composed of
lead white, rose madder,
vermilion, viridian,
and bone black.
A dash of light rose
over the former
gloomy background,
you see, and
the élancée figure
shows to much
greater advantage.

Her body boldly
faces forward while
her head is turned in profile.
A profile of both
assertion and retreat.
The table provides support,
and echoes her
curves and stance.
One strap of her gown
has fallen down
her right shoulder,
suggesting the possibility
of further revelation;
one more struggle
and the lady will be free.

Everything converges to
imply a distant sexuality
under the professional
control of the sitter,
rather than offered for
the viewer's delectation.
Her untamed wilderness
remains unseen.
~

a falling boy's
measured out footprint,
slipping in vain search
for a breadcrumb of solace

lost is spring, and green,
and bird nesting,
lost is his mother's smile,
he breathes in deeply

a memory of trees,
an afternoon sun
emptied of fertility:
a high wood on its last, teetering legs

urban air is everywhere
and wishes to be free,
but we are all carbon emissions,
separate living-dying pieces

polluted hieroglyphics
with nothing to convey,
fragments of a prayer
with nothing left to say

~
When Pharaoh
checked out at the Red Sea,
odd circumstance made a grab for his vacant scepter,

and kingdom collided
with plague to paint a mural
on the palace wall (or maybe, it was the hotel lobby),

of a dreamer's garden,
his wife in veils, her dance a cordial
invitation to a great many unmentionable things,

the feral sky had blown
itself out, and in muted candle
nightshade, the mistress of war disembarked,

and so somewhere
in those upper rooms, ruler
and consort, hearing the sound of running water,

mystified their carnal
senses by infusing themselves
with a little vigorous morphine of the soul
~

~
Holy smoke!

This is a drag.

Nevertheless,
I've come to depend upon it.
~

~
...of wine and mirth
and holy birth,

of flowers and promise
and braided calmness,

of hummingbird and dragonfly
and their descending sky,

of porpoise and whale
and us as wind against the sail,

of grown wishes and sadness
in the flat fields under duress,

of sugar-filled cocoons and syrup
and sweetest honeymoon trip,

of dimples of Venus
and smiles from Adonis,

of thin walls about her room
in hopes to visit soon,

of all things made and said
and each time we shared a bed...
~

~
Wake, no wake

He dreams of obituaries
And toe tagging

Exhuming dearly departed dollars
And biting the nails
Of his cadavers

Forensically speaking
He can talk of the dead

He's one lucky stiff

Pushing up daisies
All over the yard
Of his rose cottage

This life at rainbow's end
Each day mortiferously expires

It's all there in the brochure
~

~
connected particles settling

as evidence

of the blissful graze

the brush with chemistry

the aftersome

and there the flashover

reframing time

by the warm places

one isolated touch sends you to
~

his hobbies include
                          invisible girls
                     bubble wrapped
              shielding their eyes from the sun
                        up the side of his mountain
holding fast to the cable
                                  and the eventual terror of drawing
                     paper moons
                         framed a bit too
                                                   insular
                                                   binocular
                                                   funicular
                                                   vermicular
                         these out of sightlines
                                    opaque and cobwebbed
                               screening off
                       his ***** little secrets

She likes toy soldiers with mustaches
and rolling camels from newspapers
(that way she has something to read when she smokes)

She likes spin the bottle at recycling centers
and starting arguments over produce
(she prefers steamed vegetables, you see)

She adores staycations in someone else's house
and dinner theatre for breakfast
(a little Hamlet and eggs)

She likes every other Tuesday
and clocks with only minute hands
(it's more her speed)

She likes hunting for change in penny arcades
and five & dimes
(but not dollar stores...go figure)

She likes soda crackers (but not soda)
She likes beer nuts (but not beer)
She likes wine cozies (well, you know the rest)

~
I hold still,

let him finish stabbing me

                                                 — I count six,

let him believe me dead,

he moves on to Cecelia.

--

It does not go as well for her

as she continues to writhe and scream

and carry on,

not well at all
                                             
               ­                              — I count eight,

                                                                nine,

                                                                ten...
~

He trails.

He turns.

He falls behind.

But always discerns.

Fortunately our tastes for this
sort of life coincide,
except in the matter of sunrise,
which he likes to see up and dressed,
and I from my bed.

~
Lost inside a labyrinth

Tight-lipped tinkerer
open-mouthed cynosure

Pressing matters completing their circuit
all things said, but not spoken

Osculated locution, succinct phrasing
released, but not heard

The human element imparting
seminal spark
—together felt and touched

A tingling syntax
owing to its art
becoming its nucleus
~

Dangerman
—a buyer and seller
of mostly himself

Petticoat
—a ***** on the take
and about to slip

Each made promises to the other
but both loved journeys
and valleys
and limericks
and turntables
and spirits
and skirt-raising
and slowdives
and lip-biting
and come-hither
more than their here-and-now vow

Trigger-happy begetter
with an ax to grind
killing captives slowly
with jagged little things
it's the strangest sound
in spite of the plight of
the ringing in his ears
it never fades away

I reckon numbers and lead are arbitrary
to a button man
whose wheels turn circles
mainly in his skull
revolving/rouletting
as infinite go-around

Never mind though, the time must be now
for a show of hands

Motherhood waited in the ship's hold
until the treasure hunt
brought her to this final island
a choice between gold
and the aging ******

The young who suckle at her breast
might one day run mum through
with the sword at Payback
—that unsteady little homestead
where profit and loss
share the same face

Never mind though, the moment must be now
to ring the bell

And raise redemption
like a burning flag of regret

Come rhyme with me
In a bit of
Harmony
But suppose
We juxtapose:

Lemon drop
Bitter
Tear drop
Bawl
Sundrop
Flitter
Raindrop
Fall
Duck
Duck
Goose
A­ little heaven on earth
Before all hell breaks
Loose
~

~
Step into the moment
with bated breath,
There will come
the beguilement
and whispered shadows at play,
they seem to congeal around
conflagration of wills
and spirits considered outré.

And if it should rain
within these walls,
we'll advance south and sneak
under cover.
Fingers will find,
lips will linger and remind.
It will be a slow
recovery this time.

The places we travel go beyond
the arms reach,
they war for supremacy,
they alter and spasm,
they're random, but hover
between us in unity.

This dance we make
is an intimate ballet,
this push and pull
a blissful menagerie,
a wrinkle in time
we call ecstasy.
In kisses christened as luminaries,
appointing our own ceiling
— a mural painted in the keen
colors of craving.

The years of such sweet communion
have built this shelter, this nest,
and here together we rest.
And we are no less surrendering
to them than straddling the heavens
— the gauze of time,
timber and tranquility enmeshed,
and wishing it never ends.
~

Born with flesh and blood, but heart sold separately. Bird way up high, falling from the sky. The raining aftermath is the common denominator. When it shockwaves from ground zero, it leaves an atomic shadow—fatal impressions where a living, breathing thing once stood...

~
atop the Manhattan skyline
her similitude descends as rain
we see her wonderwork
we see her water-standing
her very abandonment of draperies
unassuming and artless
where the heedless moths settle
with bodies of mystic warmth
colored with rose and a dash of flame
~
– for Audrey Munson