seeds sprout sow
the very unhappy
love lost
the un-kempt
un-fertilized
loneliness of
sodden rows planted carefully
that fail to burst no matter the care
tended
tendrils  from the next
row
creep  in
to loose upon the soils
a magnum opus somehow someday
becomes roots
becomes the next day's soil
the next world's
good  
a next field
open

The bronze-scorched mud knobbed unhinged sculpture grows
Cinderella down to root knots, ground is grubbed

chapped hats of acorns hit porticoes before snows
honeybees cake their hives closed and wax hubbed

humiliation hardens as color dapples
swelling seed-commas split beneath the frost

piety’s ignored until next year’s apples
night sky is grape-leafed, blackberry sauced

ineffable brutes grow cold to the pinnacle
rhetorical dross groundswells legislations

the long-legged wind tramples our spectacle
rains mock each leaf into pickled munitions

rocks are nothing but hermitages sent by the moon
prescient hardness sets its chin to the ground

hankering for battle, totalitarianism thrives by noon
each soldered twig unloomed, unraveled, uncrowned

we have severed ties to reason’s substantial contents
in the muddle it’s not the empowerment you had

democracy dies bewildered blind with miscontents
unhinged, unconcerned to find the hanging chad

we’re scissored down to our primary chaos all
paralogisms who dwell in a dream that justifies our fall.

Ragged clothes on the sidewalk, toddlers murmur and cry
cold morning air where abandoned row houses
smell of whiskey, sage, and molded cotton

diesel exhaust belches into light breezes
forests of burning coffee beans mingle
into their hearth, the children, this is their nostalgia

everywhere leavings of life scatter driven by wind
cover unhoused, distressed, makeshift families
they stand shoeless as fortunate people drive past

Glut of humanity smells of wet newspaper
grey gulls picking at grimy cellophane
cardboard litters muddy sidewalks
above the billboard the wealthy jeer at them

sitting by a liquor store with bars on the windows
shut out of row houses with black wrought iron gates
basement stairwells filled with trash

men in alligator boots ready to lunge
into the lives of slick, bright, vacant women
this is the fate of feminine mother love

Thriving in dead landscapes
growing lost opportunity
under skyscrapers where it is always
almost dusk

I have two angels
Taking me to the moon and
back , singing me songs

Somewhere just to the right
of that second star
in the sky

there's a black hole
******* the joy
out of life

Maybe I'll wave at the moon
as I fly by sometime soon

I'm tired of life's knife
skinning and carving,
notching it's time
on my bones

I'll decide the when
and the how, the hour
of flight

somewhere just to the right
of that second star
in the sky

where morning hides
like a thief in the night
biding her time

slowly waiting for the light
to leave these tired dark eyes

But not tonight, for tomorrow
there's still much to do.

Picking a row o' peppers taught me not to rub your eyes
Picking my own switch taught me not to lie
Planting corn by hand taught diligence and volition
Papa's razor strap instilled the wages of a poor-
decision* ...