I blinked, but beheld it,
the marching of warships,
the broken caskets
at the feet where bishops
of Brixen worshipped,
and the agonizing steps to the castle
-- a spiritual climb --
gifts and prayers in each one's pocket,
(you've got yours, I've got mine).

And there it was opening in the sky:
a woman, in between cycles,
clothed with the sun;
her groom carries her up those steps,
they ring the bell,
and make a wish
for their love to flow against
the current like sea flowers
in the spring.

I blinked, but beheld it,
there was smoke,
there was wind,
there was nothing
but the warm scent of potica,
and pletna aplenty,
their upright oarsmen rowing
through the bloodstream.

They row for the stillborn
who never see the sun.

But there is freewill, and there is sin.

Our kingdom rise.
Our kingdom fall.

Forgive us first, Father,
(our blood shall feed the earth).

"I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor.
That's my dream. It's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering,
along the edge of a straight razor … and surviving."
–  Col. Kurtz, Apocalypse Now
~

Remember
the golden age, Wally ***?
And the songs
my mother taught me?

We sang about what was.
Or might never be.

Like permanency.
Distinction comes
out of stiff and frozen silences.
Take it with
a spoonful of disdain.
Take it in the eye.
Actors are like breakfast cereals.
They're obvious
and according to taste.
I stopped needing them
long ago.

Beautiful
Tallulah.
Beautiful,
"less to this than
meets the eye"
Tallulah,
dismiss me,
that I may be free
to find Tennessee.

Open windows
and closing doors.
Always a breeze,
but never a way out.
Right on cue
the cards shuffle.

Butter and cotton *****,
tricks of the trade.
I mumble to be heard.
I am legend
to disciples
of the Method.

I wear my friends to bed,
burn them like newspaper.
They call me "Bud"
—cigarettes at dawn
after devouring the night.
And now my song ebbs,
as the stylus hits the leadout groove.

Tomorrow, I'll be better.
Today, I'm just me.

~
Enchantment under the sea
noted places that used to be

Someone turned on the tap
now every couple years
the kids must learn
a new map

So wholly and completely
was the ice caps evaporation
these cities current address
is at the bottom of the ocean
with Atlantis:

There's London
Lisbon
Venice
and Dublin

There's Singapore
Sydney
Montreal
and Tripoli

There's New Orleans
Rio de Janeiro
Cape Town
and Cairo

Don't live in fear, children
but bring your scuba gear

Can't stop the melting spree
we all surrender to the sea
~

Timeworn,
"she was weeping, banally, in the moonlight"

We, in some strange power’s employ, move on a rigorous line

Our thoughts broadcast in reverse of linear time

Laying down fresh electric cable so our minds can again spin webs and half-eaten threads

To stand ready for launch from
Cape Canaveral

Young astronauts, and cultural fallout, spun in exhilarating swirl of places and vividly half-described incidents

Experiments explored in zero gravity

Starlight, starbright
first time I apogee tonight

Impaled upon the high temples of Min
flowered in the sun

A collective come undone

Circumferencing quicksand
as worlds tilting badly off-center

In the death ovens  
they go spiraling down into driftglass

~
Hand and needle,
weapons of mass protection.
Mending day called solace,
bitterness in every stitch.
When all guides disappear
the hand begins to tremble,
that is the material point.
Listen to the water,
the sea is full of memories.
It knows everything,
it feels nothing.

A rage is building.
The sails unfurl,
the wind follows.
A hundred years of
traversing the deep
on a ship full of opiates
and other distant mermaids.
This blood vessel,
cresting the heart of the wave,
you will never completely cross
this body of water
until you learn to trust
the hands that hold back
death and it's squall.

Even now they drop anchor, singing
into the starry sky:

"Gather ye fishermen's wives
As thy men roll out to sea
Pray one and all
Thy sails hold strong this day..."
~

Nice try,
My didactic friend.
Only the foolhardy would use
A can opener
To pry back the lid to their soul.
If even such a thing were viable,
Which, for the record, no es posible.
But let's say it was,
In a fluffy, touchy-feely kind of way.
Performing surgery
On the immaterial
Makes as much sense
As being a ghostwriter for
A blind man's alphabet soup.
Id doesn't make sense.
Could be the hemlock
Is talking back now.
So drop the act, you gadfly,
And take up cycling.
You might as well enjoy
The scenery along your mind trip,
Sharp turns and all.
Your over-the-counter philosophy
Is quaint, but comes with a price:
Fisher Price.

~
So where did you go?
Where in daydream tarnation are we?
     If only you could see my exodus
     and relent

Where are you now?
Matters of blood and connection
forming at the mouth
we are the fabrication
      --an image apart from ourselves

To break is something sacred
in the Morse code of brake lights
     through time stained windows
     through a thousand contractions
the dead are getting younger

If only you could see me
walk into the blackness
not to build a fire
       but melt, wander, disappear
       and relent
       relent
       relent
~

Rose was a Red
Dodgers are blue
We're stealing signs
How 'bout you?

Cheat like this
Not like that
One's okay
The other picked at

Keep to tradition
Not technology
Yeah it's confusing
So is most any ideology

Distance
Coddled me into believing
Each step forward was the same,
Measure for measure.

Detachment
Led me to reason
Every unguarded move was safe,
So new, so pure.

Then all at once,
So Thirty Years' War,
Out the window
I was thrown.

~
Sleep, sweet darling
Sleep

Remember drowsy
blue waters
heal and swoon
the ennui haze

In softly pillowed oblivion
where even your
little toes and feet
touch bottom

Beloved dreamer
in tempera obscurity
there will be no memory
of the procession
ferrying our kipped-down family

They will dance
widdershins around us
with fluttered eyelids
and reclining hearts

But whether an
allegory of the cave or
an analogy of the sun toward
some dividing line between
~either way~

Sleep, sweet darling
Sleep
~

Sixty-three...
Sixty three days
you went missing.

Nine...
Nine weeks
a candle burned in your window.

The same window
you were taken from.

Petaluma, outraged and determined,
became a colony of ants.

Ground searches to mass mailings,
they never gave up hope
and soldiered on.

In a high-tech dragnet
you became the first internet child.

Your anxious mother
fretted over every detail
concerning you:

"I have a daughter out there--without shoes."

You would always be your parents
beloved little girl.

You were laid to rest
the day after the butterflies flew away,
migrating to a warmer climate
where they could play in safety

--the life we wish for all children.

Twenty-five...
Twenty-five years ago
you went away.

A remembrance
that is felt everyday.

Dear Mrs. Timetable,

I'm writing you
From the bargain bin
Of a local bookstore,
Eating a peanut butter then jelly
Sandwich.
...
I must admit
It tastes pretty good.
...
How about we go out
For ice cream this evening?
...
We'll put on clothes,
And our best designer mask,
And head over to 31 flavors.
...
So long as it's chocolate, of course...

It's a small world
for some girls. They live

in shadow
of the Himalayas,
and other assorted mountainous
peaks. They daydream

of being followed
by the camera eye,
adored for the top heavy
weight they carry with
a grinning bounce. They want

to be a cruise ship,
stacked to the deck.
They want to be
fashioned with torpedoes,
a bombshell to
reckon with. And so they lie

on a table
to become a sculpture in plastic
for a renowned
architect. A mad scientist
in his own right,
experimenting with his creations
on fragile psyches, banking

on insecurities,
giving them a deflated hope
that what God didn't
bless them with,
his derangement will.

It's a mind game.

A mantra to "she who sends up gifts":
if you feel as good as you look,
all is well.

There's no harm in that, right?
Let's ask Pandora...

~
Dressed for purgatory
But early to the party
So many bodies in the house next door
A living dance upon dead minds

A grocery store sunset
Thru the windshield of an SUV
Gets you distorted colors in
Gasoline rainbows
From those precise lines
Of the turning lane
Love ends at a traffic light

We do this to ourselves
All in the pursuit of happiness

Church of questionable things
Descending like vultures
Where idols once stood
For individual suffering

A pageantry of jackals
Quiet like sirens
Picking at parts of bad contestants
Playing a game called 'poisoned trees'
Fallen soldiers in strange negotiations
With meantime brides
Riding on the train of irresponsibility
For no apparent reason

We do this to ourselves
All in the pursuit of happiness
~

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.

~
You are
the river that runs
beneath this city.

You lend
the beautiful but empty
buildings a beating heart.

And the buildings were essential.

They were a part
of the lives unfolding
in their shadows.

Sometimes it
almost seems like
they are listening.

I'm sinking inside them.

Tell me a story
about an outgoing road,
the house where you grew up
near the Sea of Azov.

I think
I flew there once.

The birds
that perch inside my chest
sing loud, sing soft.

Maybe they
will sing again for us
tomorrow.
~

I remember when I first saw you
in such a state,
shifting with the direction of light,
viola shaped,
the boudoir door slightly ajar.

Rings exchanged,
veil removed,
the bells had chimed for us,
and then for
ships in safe harbor.

The pitter patter of
surf cascading in
from an open window,
otherwise hushed,
turnt and *****,
dimples showing
whether you smiled or not.

Turnabout was fair play
--azure hues in moonlit pastel
caressing the folds and ties
around midnight’s chemise
--the lure of velveteen
and vast soft canvas of pearl
--areolae circles and quaint triangles
in the thick of things,
gift-wrapped in elegant fur.

Belle-chose, under
the waxing, waning crescent
of dainty omphalos, yawning in chiaroscuro,
red-faced and piqued,
quite shy coming out of the shadows.

The batting of lashes,
the lingering scent of bouquet
--like the seduction of flute song,
I followed and followed
until thoroughly lost within you.

~
Then I was a coronagraph

Assuredly shielding the moon

Remembering the solar prominence

Putting those days to bed

Before airing grievances asterisk the universe

Rayleigh scattering overpowers me

Beaches sleep here

Mists inhabit this place

Today my mind has no light, is not part of the saros

I've called off the search, I know exactly where I am

I thought that I was caught by hope and dreams

Then realized I was only passing between them
~

Bunk beds are fun

and dandy.

When hiding from chores

they are ever so handy.

But not so much

when my kid brother

falls asleep on top with

a bag full of candy.

I begin anew
I begin with you

You are my isthmus
You are my tombolo

You connect me
You ground me

To this place
To this duration

One heart
One love

I.

This, a final offering,
before the clipping of wings.
A love like blood,
oh anathema.
A grey declined to black,
oh herem.

It means salvation
knelt with darkness.


II.

So it be!
So it be!
So it be!

Ring the bell,
close the book,
blow out the candle.

Douse the sacred sun
and find belief caught in fishermen's nets.


III.

In silence of angels,
climbing broken ladders,
no ascent, no longer.

Salvation has
knelt with darkness.

A promise is a promise.
Only a lie can be made
with an expiration date in mind.

You and I
are the sand and sea,
we will always keep coming
back to one other.

You and I
are the trees of eternal spring,
we shall never leave.

Not every day is remembered
as special or significant,
not every word spoken between us
is Hallmark worthy.
But love is never absent
and what is shared
never forgotten.

Alone we are
merely ordinary,
together we are considerable,
whether it’s sharing ice cream
or each other’s
aches and pains.

The road we traverse,
hand-in-hand,
may be covered with obstacles & illusions,
but the horizon
is hardly false.

For look!
God himself smiles upon us.
These vows are indeed
of an endless variety...

~
We don't need
Other worlds
We need mirrors

We need thin waists
And a hysteresis curve
To the hips

Let us drink in the sea
And laugh as our number
Comes up

Let us commit
To be noncommittal
And talk nary a word

On age and death
Over afternoon tea
In the bright withered garden

Where the goodness of man
Longed to be more
Than its darkling reflection
~