The black night’s silence
is loud, so loud
And you must bend your heart to hear
so loud
Dried oak leaf flutters through the darkness and caresses earth with a rattled kiss
so loud
Pulse beats slowly for nothing excites
so loud
Calm night a spring compressed but still
so still
Muffled bent wing of an insect darting on its errand harvest
so loud
Stars bright and bold twinkle, crackling with emotion
so loud
My mother passed and I thought of my dead father
so loud, so very loud
Memories in the black night
should end forever  but never are lost
so loud, so loud.

Climbing the hill
Keenly aware of
Wind groomed grasses
Here
Where the sun may rise tomorrow
Here
Where the moon may vanish to the carnivore Night

The hill, preened and regal
Where
I, the unkempt interloper sit
Here
Amid company far more revered
With grand mien - brother goldenrod, sister milk **** and patrician purple top
Here
They sway to a higher power, to a greater joy than this pauper commands
Here
They observe me
And I too myself

Transfixed I consume  the grand community and the stranger
Outward and inward
Light and spirit seen
Until
The day’s end
Quits the commune
Now
the grasses tossed by a gentle breeze
Now
Brushed spectacular hues
Teased grass follicles
My sister, my brother and my Lord
Visually on fire from sun’s final fare-thee-well
Occasional flashes of dirge, shades of blue

The earth does not rumble
Yet time does
Twilight the great equalizer
I sway down the hill
Grateful that I rise

I saw a dance today
That whirled and jumped and laughed on its feet.
An old folk dance
Kalidescopic roiling upon a cool breath
Of autumn’s excitement of being alive
A dance observed by a reflective summer
Gamboling leaves of red, orange, ambers and browns
Phrenetic leaping twirling jumping flipping
And landing with glee

I saw a dance today
Whose steely precision punctured the earth
An operatic ending
Piling blue-ice masses on frost annealed soil
Of winter’s excitement on being, of existence
Impervious to life, alive with death
Hard percusive articulation, blunt statement
Tap, tap, beat and pound
Thud and thrum with efficient punctuated finesse

I did a dance today
Tears and sorrow and sonorous wings flailing
Old and intimate
Terminus found rhythm stand still, now done
Of winter no more, and blindness onset, for the morrow
Moves stopped but not so its ripples
Wave celerity, an expanding profound smile
Leg, arm and head pause
While all effects and causes silently, strongly take wing
Take wing
A cacaophonic stirring, but quiet and motionless and brimming with void
Except in spirt where muscle and wings and winds alight anew.
I did a final dance today, spirit born and coda bent.

The clouds huddled on
Nervous horizon
Fearful of trespass
To the blue sky blest

“Fear not givers of rain
My garden yearns
Your corruption too
For tis kind to be cruel
Come on
Join the coterie
Our collective brutality
A positive cause”

The sunburst blazed
Unforgiving intent
Owning all in radiant range
Blue sky passive observer


“Fear never shadows on your glaze
My garden yearns
Your corruption too
For tis kind to be cruel
Come on
Join the coterie
Our collective brutality
A positive cause”

Older than the seasons start
I strove with tentativeness and tenacity
Strides ebulient and sorrowed
Sun paved path undertaken

Today I picked a red ripe tomato
Beautiful, perfection and pure
Wrought of the unforgiving sun
Beaten by bullets of rain
Whipped by winds untethered.
I sit with my garden, both of us spent
I eat the warm fruit and dig my toes into earth sanguine.
We both shall turn to start anew
With friends who seem not

In the woods
Trees Skyward aspiring, firmament obsessed, extend to Him.
Shade whispers buoyant dapplings, raining down and about
wraith controlled
the gentle urging
Of the soaring blue sky, unseen,
in the woods

Hope and sun Not reaching The clinging fern,
humus married to prayers that leaves long claimed,
but faith blessed orison bed, compost made

In the woods
I consign my advance towards Heaven,
Though strongly held, embraced
By inclusive apologetic branches and my own buried faith.
I am lifted by earth’s tender preparation
And fly and sink, both, at once
Drawn to the inevitable.

In the woods
I am sanctified, supinely aware
I Search
For the only place. The one place. The lonely place.
The sun sets, the dew nestles, moss mounds comfort
The silver Stars reach deep,
stolen, silver is forged and hammered
(are we not all smithies, anvil corrupt?)
By His design, by avarice?

Stars reach deep
In the woods
As do I.

Dawn is an eclipse
Yawning from deep repose.

Light coughed up, a shimmer and a burp
Then a glister, a small belch
Followed by a hurricane, a furnace glow
Escalated to a simoom, a sunscaped lightning struck optical blast.

Occultation sun shine blindness
To darknesss hidden.

Dawn unleashed is an eclipse to darknesss looming
Until evening’s return
Stygian kisses quell,
Regenerate sleep and dreams, mending ways
Windless gloaming waxes.

Night is an eclipse
Awakening from thin poise.

The neon sign spills its gawdy giggle
Into the city’s dark inclination,
piercing sometimes but more often creating
rainbow shadows hiding and highlighting the ***** street.
casting an embrace on dross strewn
of the day’s measure ended,
a smirk, a smile, a guffaw.
The ***** of the city’s life, residuals cast, spent
Nursed by the light’s smile
The ***** street humors, suckled
Tis morrows sunrise’s offerings.

Some important Omens
Spill
From open mouths
And open souls.
Portents splayed.
Not from animal viscera
Nor rolled bones,
Neither from celestial maps
Nor Tarot.
Some important Omens
Spill
Like waterfalls
From cascading eyes
Tear-tethered heart
Searching the vitals
Of love drawn.

Splashing water upon my face
in the early morning’s rise,
A mirror’s espy laps into gaze.
Gurgling down the drain, spent cleaning and awakenings
Left me not wise, but shortly exposed.
Looking into the mirror, Reflective wonts return the perceived,
I just, just supposed.

Now awakened flesh and soul
(eclispe) bright heart trumps dark hope,
Thoughts transformed into welkin roar.
Furnaced lit splendor raze sullen dreams and blacken thoughts
sunder lope light’s birth disclosed.
Beaming from the mirror, the torch igniting the sleepy,
Now dawn light transposed.

Towel freeing face-flung water
Cotton flailing clouds not veiled
lifted faith emancipated by kind hopes
so longingly gleaned. Morning struck its anvil - Awake!
A morning’s blessing not failed, and soundly reposed
Soft cloth quells the torch, mirror signing a start
Night rightly interposed.

The water laps the dock
Giving sweet nose, bay redolence flown by the cracking whips of tuffed air,
Listen to the roiling and embrace the soaring perfume
Drumming the song of the deep against the old trees, now pilings
Old trees now legs
That want to kick and splash and enjoy their  ***** neighbor
And run into the depths
But are sadly anchored .
Hear the tern’s silence broken
while the fish break chains of water entrapment
Breaking surface, momentarily flying and shattering back home.
Splash, they all splash.
Splash the tree, splash the silence, splash the sky
Splash is the serenity
Splash is the soothing commotion of the dock.

I walked into a room
Peopled
Their confluence a paisley print
Impeccably placed
Cheek to cheek
Eye to *****.

Auras pulled and taught,
Twisted,
Moored and strained,
Frayed on the brink -
Begging, pleading to sail,
To be borne onto nature’s ways.

I walked into a room
Vacant of life
Shoulder to breast creatures
Spoke to No One and, only
Thought of distant barren shores.
Trill and fussy, surrendered
Invincibility was ripped asunder.
The waves licked the rocks
While singing of
Disasters looming.

My basket beaming
of harvests
from sun scorned labor
I sit
in the shade
thinking of Spring’s
soft caresses,
of Spring’s potential, complete.
My timepiece,
the dried and splintered
wheat fields
swaying to the iambic
emphasis of Summer lost.
Teeth sink into the last ripened apple
and I savor this year’s
last whift of honeysuckle
and clover.
As the winter’s seed is sown
I sit
in the shade
nodding at life’s labors
unfolding.