Ah
to be your
spider
all webs
and legs
and tasty things
in the parlor
and then when
the eggs
hatch away
it's curtains for
you and me

The swing
The spinning top
The doll
Wooden horses
Battledore and shuttlecock
Trumpet and drum
Soap bubbles
**** in the corner
Blind man's buff
Leap-frog
Little husband, little wife
The ball

Please let me return
To my childhood ways
And the happy games
We played

made by human hands/from elements of the ground/and from afar/silver gold and star/burning without memory/or clear trajectory/in a ritual of prayer/and smoke-filled arena air/the only thing that shines forth/the peril and glory/an endlessly rewritten story/of their own sudden demise

Here comes Mr. Chemtrail--
Pretty jets
Stream across the sky
By day, at night
They're tucked into cushy
Launching pads;
To sleep like us
Underneath the stars,
Drooling like a baby;
The rains of which wash away
Our Happy Tomorrow sign,
Written in sand
Across a hiraeth seashore;
With bountiful aura,
Everything is smelling like roses
Kept in the fuselage,
Waiting for a turn
To shine, perhaps ignite,
In all the glamour of
A shooting star:
Great godless geyser;
A prism of colors
Rain-bowing
Electively over funeral flowers,
This death was always meant
To be a friend with benefits,
Allowing us one last
Glorious ride into the heavens,
Before overtaken
By the undertaker;
The sky's the limit,
Steely-eyed missile man;
We're terminal now
And on final approach,
Bleed for us once more...

On a dead of winter day
our footsteps in the snow
melt too quickly
for anyone to follow

In drops of steady rain
we picnic beside the lake
and watch fireworks
fizzle out with summer

Riding the crest of fall
but stalked by spring
and so, in the throes
of such invisible connections
we're preserved

And sitting on a shelf
awaiting our turn
to be pried open
and spread like jam
for someone to consume...

Once upon a time
in a tiny kingdom
called Beautiful Water
there lived a silly faux monarch and his fair maiden
in their castle aka duplex

No mote, no portcullis
but one groovy fence about a humble abode
littered with rooms
ill-appointed and dingy
but with affectionate wainscoting in spades

Nonetheless, they would often rue
the lack of spoil within those walls
'twas an age of shoddy floor-space
like a page with no margins
hence, the royal bedchamber was more a sleep shed

Trips out of town, no doubt
called for something fancy
a room with a view
a bed fit for a king
to stretch out without bother

But a funny thing happened on the way
to forming a quorum
they both pined
for the cramped quarters
left behind

The little bumps
and rubs in the night
came to be a comfort
a way of saying
"Hello, I know you're there and I like it that way"

She enters the gratification car
With Victorian lace choker
Porcelain décolletage
And phasers on stun
Don't worry lovergirl
You can't hold a candle to her
But you'll burn your fingers trying
Look at the front of her dress
Look at her passport
Look at how the aisleway clears
She's enroute to a foreign
Meet and greet
Tracking approval
With the shape
Of her sitzfleisch
The conductor has
No need of compass
For her ******* point the way
Once derailed
You can mock and stomp
'Til kingdom come
Until then save your pandering
For trips to the loo
You'll enjoy the ride
Far better if you pretend
She's your sister
And not the woman
Who gave birth to you...

I'm too poor to afford
A clean bill of health

You or me

You then me

But never
You and me?

The more we walk together
The less we know one another

Mastermind
Before their time
Or so their bio's show
They paint like
Picasso for a day
By numbers the rest of the year
Billboards say "This way"
But the intellectual vibe
Is the yellow brick road
To never, neverland
They speak rousingly clear
Talk of big plans
But fail to execute on game day
They critique us
Repeatedly so, only
Because they wish they were us
Their belief in nothing
But themselves is undeniably
The fatal flaw

The best tea parties
in the whole wide world
are hosted, not by queens,
but by little five-year-old girls:

They're major dress-up,
with a who's who guest list
that includes
teddy bears, Barbie dolls,
and sock puppets.

They must always have
a special theme,
be it the family pet's birthday
or in honor of a favorite
cartoon character.

What she serves
is anybody's guess,
and indeed,
the menu will vary
for it's all make believe,
but her imagination
is quite real,
and a big part of the charm.

Count your lucky stars if invited.

School teachers
deserve hazard pay

uyeasound
cloudberry
batholith
dreamville
inner places of bijou

stone and mortar
of the exiguous me
wants the sweetest suspire
the complete rapture
to be within the maze
of you

Encircle or recycle
the elastic of her *******,
for they're a bit worn and showing,
proving the theory of gravity.
But his hands still
lustfully reach for them.

The cinch of her waist,
no longer tailor made,
has inched itself out a little too far.
But he thinks it just right
in placing his arms around.

The sculpture of her ***
not quite cut from stone.
But he still daydreams about
how on fleek her cheeks.

The added width to her hips
the result of two full terms
and one premature.
But they do somehow
remarkably sway him.

Descending silver streams upon her belly,
those tributaries leading
to her Garden of Eden,
evidence of their past work
in the practice room.

Here she smiles,
blushes even at such retrospect.
He is so passionate about those lines
and the gifts they've brought.
Alas! He's more a madman
than ever for her fruit
and it's heady aroma.

Resistance is futile.
Acceptance is freedom.
She makes up her mind to be
comfortable in her own skin.

A woman's life
is a series of alterations,
some less prepared for
than others.
But there is little denying
her body is a temple
that continues to be worshipped.

A new blade of grass sprouts
among the snarl of weeds
—widow's weeds.
This mourning is young and soft.
Years will come
to make it old and brittle
—like wind against argil.
For now it's a tender creation,
open and pink.
Even the children
do not play as they once did
—no blowing big bubbles
or laughter filling the sky;
—no catching fun in a bottle
or chasing after the butterflies.
An infant shoot this is
—the fragile tendril of
what came before.
In the evening it bows its head,
screen of darkness
a consolation.
Daylight is far more dangerous,
for the cicatrix is stark, unguarded.
All alone it will linger
a naked residual,
a lament to the dagger, Quietus.

I love the little girl
Inside the woman
So I always come bearing
Gifts for each

Between the envelope and gondola I'm lighter-than-air. Montgolfier-style? Not really. I ascend as a prayer with his eyes wide shut, timid in the feel for heaven. Speaking of heaven, some say it's no longer a gated community, but the association fees have doubled. Really I float like a Yost, flaming onboard for the photo shoot. The morning pass is for the kids with spending power. The noon move, and media darling, catches the Comic-Con crowd just stumbling out of a parent's basement. The night drift, drink in hand, mimics the trigger man who got his days confused from too much killjoy. Laissez-passer both giveth and taketh away -- there is no immunity in the sky, no amnesty to assign my crimes to. I'm just your smiley actor on the Netflix trail. You love me for a season or until my balloon gets popped. Whichever comes first.

In statistics
A population
Is a set of similar events
Which pertain
To a question

Life is not so random
The question is often when (?)
Once the box is open
Stem-and-leaf scatter

Snowflakes
Assume symmetry
Burn eyes, connections
Melt skin, memory

Pollution distribution
The outlier
Survives but one day more
The median is simply
Outnumbered

Variance is valueless
Unbecoming
To a populace
Up in smoke

Count your blessings
Night comes quickly
Hard rain
Kills softly

Supplicate heaven
The top of the box
Stays hermetically
Sealed
Forever

(And a day)

Harvest be gone
Welcome to starvation
Ruins of Babylon
Maypole rivets for fangs
Parse the tricky argot, Mr. Bugbear
You speak such pretty thangs
Adagio for strings
Cry me a mare
Thundering rockets of pain
Life is a factory of scares

"X"
doesn't necessarily
mark the spot

sometimes
"G"
does

if you can find it...

Gelid

Sequela

Hearts melted as candles

Congeal into isolated connections

Pressed upon the lips of urgent ice

And both of these shall ever be

Till the gods to destruction go

Interestingly enough

Pale skin women

Who go Brazilian

And love to suntan in the buff

Better not fall asleep

On their backs

Or they'll be called 'hot stuff'

For all the wrong reasons

When did you become
A somnambulist, my dear?
Where the disconnect?
About the time your ache
For outlying places began to moon-wake?
I get the sense
You knew long before me
Our days of limerance had culminated.
As if something remote
Had stolen you away.
Do you remember the twinkle
Of twilight in each other's arms
Or was this phosphene?
What then was love? Cafuné?
It's no matter.
The sweet smell of rain
In the air now tells me
Something's brewing, and
You won't be happy
Until what was "us" has been
Washed away.

You can discover more
About a person
In rush hour traffic
Than in a year of conversation.

Autumn bluebell,
From a seaside meadow
I first picked you,
Or is it, you chose me?
Lost to twinkling fascination
I vaguely remember.

But I vividly recall
How shy you were
When your clothes fell away
On that sandy shoreline.
Then again, how remarkably
Bold your declaration:

This is me, as you can see
My individual parts quite ordinary
But all together lovely
Don't you think?

A shepherd moon
Was herding the sea that evening,
Where we raced to meet the foam
As skinny-dippers, you and me.

Appreciating the gift of you
Is so much more about
What's within, than
What I can see on
The surface of your skin.

Though that's pretty good too...