With a hint of death
mingling in the air,
the nocturnal snapdragon is
digging wells,
not just for water,
but also as final resting
places for friends back home,
in the garden,
deep within the soil.

Callous hands and feet
speak of insufficiency
and misery under the sun,
the one lone solace comes
with night,
and the partaking of
her body's delicacies,
bringing her innumerably
to the helve,
as she sings heavenly things
about the architecture
we creatures fall
so easily from.

4.
Patterns of sugarless fairytales:
Field of reeds
Beckoning strings,
Robots in the garden,
Theory of the crows
Favorite lunch spot
Right in front of the window
Where we sit and drool
Our later years away.

24.
Amusement parks on fire,
The new improved hypocrisy.
Amusement parks on fire,
The science of imaginary solutions.
Amusement parks on fire,
The masses in line for the ride.

Penny, Kaiser Permanente
Diana, Blue Shield
Brenda, UnitedHealthcare

But no longer Karen,
She's now unemployed

~
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
~

Equations
in the sand

Laid out
and toweling off

Curvatures to
algebraic form

They define her lines
shape her axis

My island of
expectation

Amid summer's long
subterfuge

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.

If the earth is flat as a pancake,
how come the sun and moon, and pretty much every other celestial body, are round like a Belgium waffle?

If the moon landing is some giant hoax of trick photography,
who did it? and how?
I mean, Industrial Light & Magic didn't get it's start until nearly a decade later!

Come on!

The space between.

A time to sell yourself.

A time for passing.

Sometimes I touch the right.

Too much, the wrong.

Resplendent deterioration
we live by.

With casuistic slogans
and closing doors.

D'you know disembarkment
leads to land sickness?

It does.

And who can then make
heads or tails out of
the qualms of tolerance
and his cousin, ignorance?

Oatmeal star

Is that your hand
in the cookie jar?

Go for burn
where chocolate heavens
meet that interstellar souffle

There we'll melt together
as the dark side
of the Milky Way

~
in limbo, paralyzed by inaction
and unsure of how to move forward
moodier and more menacing than ever before
a delicate state of mind is explored
all about seeing the beauty
in the darkness of futility
digging wells and all to happy
to throw us all down there
as images painted on an ancient vase, exploring
what it means to be frozen
in a moment of time for all eternity
~

Tonight, let's take a respite from the kids, get all dressed up, and head for the local grocery store.

We can even wear matching masks, take turns pushing the cart, and steal Kisses from the candy aisle.

You're on top of my shopping list, little lady, along with the melons and a case of toilet paper.

It may not be dinner or a movie, but it has its own romantic aura of about six feet in diameter.

Take my gloved hand & let's dance away at the checkout line, mask-to-mask. It's love in the time of COVID-19.

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.

Searching for Galileo,
    the race to be first home,

In a sea of patients
    we climb the probability tree,
    walk upon the shore collecting
      memory shells,

We win the little wars,
     lose the big fight,

These windows are breathing apparatus,
     this ceiling, a blur of tungsten sky,
     rain, tears, weep,

To rest near to you,
     the technicolor sleep,
     and I died with you,

All farewells are sudden.

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)

In theory, the sky is falling,

Showering particles of merry madness and homespun delirium,

As we sleep in the formerly sealed
containers that kept us fresh,

But now leave us active:

Radioactive.

Actually though, this is more a soulless, weather modified masquerade,

Where we dance at funerals, drink to cloud seeding,

And play 'Guess Who?' retributions,

While locked in the closet with flight attendants left for kindling...

Bleed a cold,
Starve a fever,
Pray the plague don't come
Looking for you, unbeliever.

Don't sneeze at disease,
Or stick yourself with an arrow,
Just stack your dead
In the wheelbarrow.

~
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

A couple jogging in the park
Can't seem to schedule in ***,
They pass the plight
Of an overwhelmed trashcan
With indifference.
Some have too much,
Others not enough.

A young mom
Pushing the pram,
A young snail
Pulling its shell,
A bird on a wire
Watching both intently,
The call of his stomach
Shall prevail.

Love and doubt,
Apathy and duty.
A checklist of options
Lost in the quicksands of time.
Pick one to share,
As if metering off infinity
With a yardstick.
******* the hour.
Confuse the day.
Create exotica by building
Interest in offshore drilling.

The well run dry,
What's left to strike
Rests inside the mind.
The second hand cannot remember why
She must constantly move like a shark,
And so she settles to sleep,
Forgetting who she is.

The couple in the park may run
home to make love in the shower.
The trashcan may finally
Be relieved of its anxiety.
And young mom, snail and bird
May find continued purpose.
But when asked what time it is,
The clocks with amnesia
Will only be able to say,
"I don't know."

I can no longer see past the smoke.
Life is a heartbeat
Inside a cage of fear.
What we don't know is terrifying.
What we do know is even more so.

~
Bergamot morning

the astronauts are sleeping

and she dreams like a mannequin

ceiling stars abound

like hummingbirds in celestial flight

about the nectar of

young bodies, young machines

we drew a map together

from burst to bloom

from fever to neckline

from scale to mirror

pretty scar, a thing of awe

when the curious girl

realized she was under glass

raining in time lapse

she traversed me ad rem

with might and main

I didn't have the heart

to wake us from

her brainchild's motif
~

You can't take it with you,
But many die trying.

How did things ever get so far?
It's curtains for you, Sonny!

Big
Blue
Bedroom curtains
With a ship and anchor pattern

And

Fancy
Frilly
Yellow ones
For your mama's kitchen

It's not personal, Sonny
It's strictly business...