~ inspired by, & for Sally~

the modern internal combustion engine
is a series of controlled explosions, a spark
ignites the flammable gasoline, the pistons
moving, dispensing energy to turn our
wheels so we may voyage as a pair, to
there, and to here:

our very hearts, the original model of
this energetic blood disbursement of
oxygen ignited by electric pulsations,

one contemplates
at this late hour, at this late date, when the
moving parts, obedient servants,
collectively concur
that the use-by-date has nearly arrived and
we must soon take a sabbatical to the whereafter

what two, surely not three, digits will complete the right side of our hyphen,
our from~ to, as if that were an achievement,
more than merely, an identifying bracelet

think upon it, thousand of explosions,
millions of sparkings electric, we have been
engineering our reactors to go to over 100%,
until we cry out
how long you gonna run that body down,
and when the answer is ascertained,
we now done and undone,

we
no longer care, that last datum,
we are, of it, unconscious,
the date prior inscribed in flesh,
its mate, its uncomplimentary
complement,
can be only scribed in
Vermont granite,
as a warning
to any passerby
that yet harbors
the illusory that
the future can
be foretold

Part of a person is what is inside,
Build in your children character and discipline,
So that wherever they go they leave their mark.
22/11/2024

The poor thing got
lost in the escape.
And she was still hungover
from the childhood terror.
Her personality was
ruined--redolent with
the first flowers of
madness.

She made a pretend
world, full of delusions.
A house of cards that
was laden with
lunacy, her insanity
became safe and dependent
on her never taking
responsibility for her
actions--she was a
pawn for the adage,
Hurt people Hurt people,
like Blanche from
A Streetcar Named Desire,
and
Don Quixote,
Her world crumbled and she climbed
into the abyss,
when she looked
deeply into the
mirror of reality.

standing in the middle of some vast, empty space—the kind of ocean or plain where you can see the edge of a dream in all directions

and it opens to you, and you let it in—womblike—everything around you is meaningful, whether it’s beautiful or horrible or sublime

it must be written above and left to fall as the wettest raindrop, tempting fate, and fate retaliated—again there was light, and again there was darkness, a new day

~
I cast my net
                  into the tributary

and release into you, a seasonal swim,

I give to you a mother's color,
        as you recite
        infant hymns,

                    you're a bleeder
on the days sunfire meters out its origin,
                    you're my river

free and clear from the grip

      of anchorage,

                         my river,

drifted on to wherever
                       moon wishes glister
~