shape shifting furniture
carouses with crisping
wallpaper, peeling away
as it  turns a shade of jade

its deafening roar of tussle
echoes in this hollowing
out of a cranial chamber

while across misty chasm
a light beams steadily, from
that gap under your door

surely disintegrating, the
now useless horse blinkers
that kept this ageing eye
on a once consuming goal*




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•

Two billion years ago
the river we call Colorado
opened a **** in the Kaibab Plateau

sculpting sandstone, granite, and limestone spectra
on the rugged canyon walls -
reflecting the seering Arizona sun.

Millennial torrents scoured the surface.
Juniper and Aspen, torn from the expanding banks,
****** into the river's red-stained vortex.

All the while the restless Colorado,
obedient to gravity's law,
scoured its bed a mile below the rim.
The last dinosaur perished - choked by volcanic soot.

Pangaea rumbled, groaned and split
and an eye-blink ago our African parents
stood to take their first faltering steps.

Their progeny crossed the Bering bridge
roaming south to build stone shelters
tucked against these canyon walls.

Did the Havasupai huddle in fright
of the jagged firelight searing the skies -
pounding the air across the hollows?

And emerging at storm’s end
did they gaze at the rainbow mist
spread over the buttes and valleys?

After dusk, with fires withering to embers,
did they rest supine,
heads pillowed on their arms,
pondering the jewel case universe above?

*November, 2006

It must be the
pull of the moon
that lulls me
to sleep

like a walking silence
she steps into a lion's den
of sound

its the aroma that pulls you, radiating from your own hoodie.
its second hand to her.. but on her body it is absolute.

beneath the drab bar room lights, her rose lipstick still luminous.
her smile brings contentment, her chuckle brings you excitement.

yet there is still a covert intrigue to her, theres still so much to learn.
elated, melancholy, enraged, blissful, absurd, whimsical, you feel it all..

you look at her and smile bashful…put on your jacket.. and you step out into the night with a sense of wonder..

again you start to trust the process... this particular process requires trust.

A small skiff drifted in the harbor
guided by the eazy oars of a fisherman
standing in the hull to better view
the shimmering reflection
of the orange circle hovering overhead-
dancing with the gentle waves
in the morning mist.

Monet had to name it something
so he called it what it was:

          "Impression, soleil levant."

A critic, wanting poison for his pen,
seized Monet's title to squeeze
a lethal dose into the radical veins
of the artist and his fellows of the gallery

          (Renoir, Pissarro, Cezanne).

With scathing indignation
he dubbed the lot of them,

           "Mere Impressionists."

The label endures (minus one word)
but how many recall or care to know
the righteous critic's name?

*November, 2011

empty bottle filled
sun-dapple prisms through glass
light as air to breathe*




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