Poetry is like sushi.
Sushi contains
Rice & goodies  
Wrapped in nori.
Both are combined rolled
Into cylinders
Then cut
Into rolls.

Poetry
Is sounds  &  tropes
Rolled into images
Each poem
A unique
Experience.

When you
Eat Sushi
With chopsticks
You are too  eat
the rolls
with just  one bite
Sampling the wholeness
of the taste
and presentation.


May you
Devour
This poem
On the chopsticks
Of your feelings
And sample
The flavor
In the ink.

No matter how
You may attempt
To grow out
The container
Of your life
Which was provided for you.

There are others
Who weigh you down?
With the weight
Of their ideas.

Empty the bowl
Continue to reach
Through your roots depthless
In the soil of your speaking
And then from your hand.
May sprout the words
With green leaf script
Growing up the scansion
Of the stars.

For in the gleaning
Of bonsai
The tiny and insignificant
Are magnified
For burden’s elegance

Is Refinement
The smoothness of the soul.
For what is compact
Is always whole.

For those we love
we daily bless
with the gift of simpleness.

i daily weave
your importance like a wreath.
Hang it on
the door of my ribs.
Sweep the worn
boundaries of my limitations.

For in my veins
your lips touching
floods like cranes
in the empty skies
turning back toward
their homes
as raindrops erupt
the pools
with the
eruptions of rings
and patterns.

For if the world
is a bell
ringing
in the emptiness
of a letter.

Words
Are the
rinds of
otherworldly fruit
swollen
in my throat.

Then what
creature, sprite
or, phantom?
rings the doorbell
and is gone.

when  i come
to scribble
the crumbs
of poems
upon an
empty porch
drinking moonlight.

does everyone
know you
are a swine?
she sweetly asked.

no i oinked at her
keep my secret safe

my wings
confuse her
as
i flew
away
like a weightless
poem
with a simple ring
of humbleness
secured

on  the snout of my nose.

sometimes its hard
to know
where to push
your head through
the illusion of this world.

what is outside
the portals of one's own eyes
as you pass through
the curtain of pleasant shadows

for the head may lead
as your hair tingles on the edges
and the heart chooses to remain
in the nest
it has made
in this current world.

as words flow
through the boundaries
of space and time
past where
the stars and moon
dreams of a richer
geometry .

For the smallest world
May be folded
Safe inside
Imaginations notebook.

Brevity is the soul  of wit
parody is the spirit of zombie
or the lack thereof--
as they scratch through the scansion.

Parody arise from
its grave hungry
stalking  through  the letters of  trees
until it comes
to cabin isolated in the backwoods.

Batter through the three doors
of the stanza
and then eat the children
of another’s poem.

If any item
should retain
eldritch  potency
in this present age.

It would be
bacon.
wild magik
is released  
by the fat
contained
within its
thick sliced rind.

Glamor can be
released
in simple
domestic rituals.

All you need
is a pan
& a heat source.


Many magi
have reported
in secret books
about bacon’s aid
in seeing
the future.

When bacon cooks
within a  simple pan.
It sizzles
prophetic quatrains
of coming days,
and often is served
with well-cooked omens.

Seers
have reported
the auspicious energies
properly displayed
when bacon power
is properly
presented.

When the curl
of bacon
properly
interweaves
the tips of tongue…

For in
the   tingle
the taste bud
apprehends
the shape
of  infinite spaces;
where the future
is foretold
within
the chew
of inward knowledge.

Some say
That unicorn free fountains
May be the product
Of an ancient code
Hidden in the runes
Of our ribs.

Sometimes after
Being bitten
Letters appear
On the gnarled
Wood bark of tree,
Or the plump
Roundness of fruit.

Speak on
The corners
Of your skin
As your fingers
Blink dark ink.

Often
At midnight
Have you felt
The horn
Grow
In the moonlight
As you caper?

Whinny and canter  
At the quarter
Past midnight,
And find the trails
of your alphabets.



A map to a place
Where your unconscious fountains
May run deep
Prance in **** truth
Much like stars
Skinny dipping
In dark
Familiar ponds.

On strange days
like these
baking cookies
is an arcane art.
For it is winter outside
how we transform
the inside
into mystic summer.

For i know the golden ratio.
i have surrounded
myself with graduated cylinders
that recall the lore
of  cups and ounces.

Retorts of  pots and pans
where i can observe
the powers of this world
returning and combining
into simmer.

Such smells
waft from the oven
as ginger swirls
and cinnamon sworls
like molten mountains jumble.

As the elements combine
eggs and butter
await their transformation.
Some believe that
transmuting baser  metals
into gold somehow proves their worth
but they have never
crafted cookies.

At my round
small wooden  table
my imaginary children enjoy
the coming holiday of doughy
spell-making.

They beam at me
with their gumdrop eyes
and jelly bean smiles
and write Latin script
with licorice and raisins
on their raiment.

As the homunculus
i have constructed
out of hen’s teeth
and oatmeal.
with a retro fish tank.
skips like calendar with
an extra leap year.
hiccupping time.
Mice in the wainscot
squeak as Saturn
rises auspicious
in their whiskers.

As my roller
impresses and passes
i fill the silver trays
the cuckoo clock strikes thirteen.

While i  in a black forest script  
write of spells
of life and  death
and of the perfect
distillation of a sugar cookie
in baker notation
Sprinkles on the flour
that has spilled upon my table
from the shifter….

Geese are
Not gifted
Spellers.

They write
Poems
In their eggs.

The letters
Cannot
Be separated
From their yokes.

In the court
Of the Blue King
Atrocious spelling
Is called “Goose-spelling.”

Turn of phrases
That cannot
Be separated
From its image.

Conversely Wicked spelling
Is known as Dragon-spelling.
Where quatrains
May spontaneously combust
Burning the finger
Of luckless scribes.

In the house of death the old ones chant
strange couplets & mysterious narratives-
that like the tumble-weeds wisp through the picket fence....
& flows, sweeping down the dark byways & pathways.....
echoing out over the empty lawns-
they hold sway, beckoning otherworldly beings.

& on the porch my girlfriend sits
swinging on the lover’s seat
with her long glimmering hair radiant
more luminous than fireflies a glorious raiment-
& as she swings the floorboards creak their own riddle.

A unicorn from the world next-door prances up the gravel road.....
& places his soft enigmatic head upon her lap...
& as she strokes the snow-white curls of his mane.
carresing his horn with her long fingers.
The unicorn closes his eyes & falls asleep-
Trusting in their affinity........

The elms & chestnuts sing
as the stars & moon skinny-dip.
In the throats of their branches
the limbs of the trees begin to leaf....
Surly the world is coming to an end.....

As the huntresses pull up
in the driveway in their pickup trucks.
Humming with their sharp spears:
“so many unicorns from the world next door
are eating up the antique roses of civilization
in the flower beds of providence
Unicorns are emptying our dying fountains.”.
They whisper through the spaces of their teeth....

& as the sky unfolds with alien constellations.
the brook behind the house cries itself bitter-
the bulrushes & the tangleberies,
the rumpleleworte & rhubarb wither
next to the apiary of treachery
& then our the fountains die.....

candle -
burning ends
ever flicker and
beautiful
torch

words
have no commotion
unless they
are used
like rags.

To find like the
wind
the emptiness
under
the loan of a door.

Moon sparrow flies far in the calligraphy of night.
Little fellow find your wild winds in shimmering ink.
Your wings are well-spoken in the sequences of open spaces.
Write your poems in the corners of your eyes

Little fellow find your winds in shimming ink.
Far from the fields you trend.
You tend the trees of speaking
Offer the fruit of images within the words.

far from the fields you trend.
for those that grow not letters in their pots.
offer the fruit of images  within the words,
You write in the simple penmanship of soul

It hard to know
Why i was expelled
From the fundamentals of poetry.

Each day
Like a loyal monk
i played my flute
With the basket
Over my head.
As the lemmings
Passed
In quadrangles of co-eds.
For everything i must remember
Something must be forgotten.

Often the days
Of learning
Have attempted to remove
Both the marrow and my intuition
From my bones.

Learning is to suppress
Creativity within
Like a poor mouse
Dreams of cheese.

In the first graduation
A woman matriculated
From Adam’s rib.

Into my textbook
i stuffed the snowflakes
i have cut craftiness
With my artless intellect.


Learning
Is ego
And i am
Priest of nothingness.

Some times
The best koans
Make ice-cream cones.

i step among
    the stone gnomes
    and cement toadstools.
    Footsteps my
    only eloquence.

    Not for tomorrow
    For the frozen moons
    in the stables
    of my imaginary calendar.

    Not for
    yesterday.
    Where the leaves swirl
    In the currents
    Of memories.

    But for
    this present
    moment.
    frolic anonymous
    in my insignificance.

    The fruit of joy
    ripe
    at this moment
    in the silence
    of my simple tongue.

    Echoing out
    into
    the blessing
    of being forgotten
    as moths like time clocks
    keep
    precise the
    pacing of stars.

Empty cars drive down
the roads of my soul.
While rain falls and collects into pools
of lost memories.

That sing in a half remembered language,
images that flow into forms,
as strange lizards crawl out from under
their polished runes at the curbs.
To swim down the lanes of the road
cuneiform between phantasmal tires and chimerical highways.

As the fishtails of the jalopies,
wiggle as they echo down the byways.
Past luminous sunflowers the size of small cities.
While beautiful women with long damp hair,
weave wild flowers from the empty fields,
and place them on their brows    and between the shells of their ears,
and ignore my phantom passing with their mysterious labors.

My teeth morph into typewriter keys
i slowly pull a sheet of simple paper
across my cold metal spindle  
and with my dreaming eyes:
watch the chrome unicorn on the front of my automobile,
strain the sky tears as the raindrops loft down,
like liquid diamonds,
and splash against the glass panes of the wind shield.
This silent single horned hood ornament
is like a weather vane pointing
to otherworldly horizons
hope shimmers in the liquid deluge.

i punk the bones
of dead poets.
thier words
burn
in the flames
of inward illumination.

The leaves of their
speaking
is so dry

They stain me  with
dreams of
the locus eaters.

i a prophet
a locust eater
rearrang ing
all
the letters in the room


i walk
through
the sounds
of their stopping minds
moths
flapping from
my nose
just like alien characters
that flicker
like
a smile
on the west
face
of a great pyramid.

In the lore of leaves always Woman
Moon light  & sorcery combs
Mysterious desire
As transparent cities in my ribs make roots
Scrimshaw jumble the sky and earth with mysterious kiss
Ah, the self-fulfilling prophecy of griffon.

Often i have felt griffon
Within me as i read the curves of Woman
Chanting spells and writing the stars within my kiss
my lips form  letters on your corners and combs
the dark roster of remainder roots
Within the potent growth of uncontainable desire.

Dark is the unspoken desire
That within me shapes  a griffon
Talons and the roar uniform of its roots
Weird talents of Woman
Release the door closed in me as you comb
the tresses & the navel that moon envy in its monthly  kiss

Delicious kiss
Stir desire
Release the magic fur with combs
Transform the inward griffon
Come closer Woman
The tree must spread its roots
Dark are omens of  roots
Within the bedchamber there is only kiss
luminous nefarious Woman
i am appalling in my desire
Transforms me into monstrous word, griffon
no flesh but shadows within  the combs

Unfathomable combs
Intoxicating roots
the midnight eruption of griffon
my beak  kiss
with hybrid desire
such monstrous cage is the comely love of   Woman


She combs and  polymorphs  with a  kiss
now only roots the  shapely diagrams of desire
as a griffon sprouts  feathers   is bound to charms of  sky clad Woman

How often
Have they tried
To make up
Our minds?

Ironed our options
Steamed our opinions
And sewed on
A few missing buttons
Onto our threadbare perceptions.

Some of us
have escaped
Their tender mercies.
By taking on the vocation
Of an under- stuffed  scarecrows.

What do we know
About The mechanics
The inerrancies of  glitter .
The creaky sanction
Below our thoughts.

But whatever
Dark  ceremonies
They plan
With the diagrams
Of dances
On hearth of our stone hearts.

The chicken , the robot
The winter dragon boogie…

They may miss
Subtracting the soul
From the bell curve.
Their imagination is understaffed
And the augury of their footsteps
Need a certain dark polish.

No matter our the spelling
Of our zany  misshapen alphabets.
There are  always a few
Crows to stalk the stanzas
The script of the Fields
We guard in our slumber
As our garments
Burn
In sun’s morning duty.

Adversaries ready to steal
With dark feathers
The plump opportunities
The fruit from
The green leafy lines
Of our unicorn free fountains.

An imbecile
Knows their limitations
Often
As a cantor
Of the ancient rites.

i have
Released
No spells
In the measures
And cuffs
Of my simple suppleness.

Once  i whispered a chant
And as a result
A family
Of sparrows took
Up a  nest
In my unartful throat.

Throat singing--
My ears
No longer hear
The notes
Of the stars.
Only
My heart
Is luminous
With the beats
With the chirps
Of those beings
Who disturb our sleep
With simple sublimity,
Of inward infinities
Of words.

i must remain hidden
in the corners of classroom
As equations and sentence fragments
Complete their long war
Drawing borders on chalkboards..

Me and deformity
the deepest of companions.
The world has twisted
And i bend from the ankles
And i just continue
With
A small world
Hidden in my throat
Mark its boundaries
with a dreaming tongue…
i an unlikely guardian
i whisper it new words…

And when the school girl laughs
it is not at me
as i trip
Sprawling on tables and books
Releasing flocks of paper
In echoing celebration to the ceiling.

It is because
No sparrow has nested
in the desert of her heart
so i water her mirth
with an unassuming smile
careful that my
feathers are hidden
deep in the shiver
of my body …

for i long
to be scissors.
silver cutting
a snowflake
out of the depths
of your bible.

fold and cut
and new
scripture
flow
from old.

for i long
to be scissors
through
my
shadow
remains
a stone.

Wind always knows
it limitation
as it writes its swirling
scripts upon threadbare roof.
Lamentations for the
fields of empty prairies
as the dry leaves rustle
in strings of grass…

i do not know
my boundaries
the geographical shapes
of my darkness
for life
has been left empty
with only a puppy
of narrowness
to feed
scraps of plain verse too.
How the tail wagged for years
as empty …

i light candles
like images on the window
of my smile
for the sputter of light
is much more reassuring
than the breathless darkness.

i recite my own alphabets
that i have
hidden in the mysteries of my throat
and marvel as the moonlight passes
through the simple words
the trellises of upper
and lower case

Shades i have formed
with my craftless hands
and letters
speak upon the glass
of outside
like frost
for i have found my true words
and they fit my squalor
with a strength of calmness
for darkness cannot
abide in smallness
so it leaves me
as the darkest raven
ever imagined…

The shadow
will never
stop following
you

no matter how cold
it presence
as it embraces you
one hand on
your abdomen
it slows the flesh
with inward stillness.

it shares
an eye with you
like greek witch
from a story.
a kiss within a cup
a vision splashes from
the eyelid.

So you can see
in the shade
of its presence...
clinging on
my poor shadow
afraid
of my
friendship with the sun.
shadow
do not fear
love is not forgotten
no matter the depths and shades
of darkness may surround.

For their always
is a comfortable dark and room
in the humbleness
of my sewn
mismatched pockets
that i unworthy offer…

Over the mountains
of the man’s  echoing story

i found the children
of the story huddled;
as commas blew like blizzards
on the crags of plot –
against  the  verbs of sky.

All i could do
was whisper.
“i do not understand you…”
but  still,  the words were beautiful
in the  reflection  of my  eyes
images i would carry like buckets
frozen in the vines of mind.

who shall
loan
a bird
to me.

for i am
small
i am
farther
than
the  blank
expanse
between
word and speaking.

who shall
loan
a bird
to me.

For the worn
blanket
of my being
does not call me
mighty.

The Knees
never forget
the prayers
at the stairs
of memory.

In the afterlife
an erstwhile
lover
flys forever
like a crane
in the limited spaces
of my heart.

i klump in mod galoshes
among the enigma of raindrops
and catch metaphors
on the tip of my tongue.

Swallow into my soul
the beautiful unaccented verbiage.
as fragments of poems
wash down from the sky
in streams of kaleidoscopic complications.

As i tromp in puddles of letters
as i run down the wet serendipitous streets
of visionary realms...

Griffens hide under the umbrales
of trees glowering for they do
not like to be pelted
with the symbologies of deluges.

This make griffons mystifying
glowing leaves flutter chanting,
and skinny dip in the trellises of rain drops.
And at the end of all spelling.

i romp among the rays of the rainbows
that spring down the corridors of clouds
as unnamed poems stir & grow
up into the  clouds
and wait for the storm of creativity
to begin again in a paper sky.
and wait for the storms
of creativity to begin
and dispense  gems
to hide in heads
of uncanny eerie children
that greetings
fold space into verses

My cat
Though small
Is a
Mighty hunter.

Often trophies
She left
On my door
From her nightly stalking.

A robin that
Will never fly
Trilling couplets
In cloud stained skies.

A mouse that will
Never scurry
In the wood-grain walls.
Chanting lays
About the stacking of
Heroic cheese.

On a dark night
When i heard
My cat’s claws
Scratching entry upon
The rude squared door.

“Let me in…”
The claws implored
“To the stone
Hewn hearth
Where the wisp
Of a flame does crackle.
Where a bowl
Of warm milk
Waits for me
To pay for my cat chores…”

“Enough my cat”
i am simple
Imagine my surprise
As i open my door.
To find the moon
Shriveled on my
Porches threshold.

The moon
With two
Auspicious bite marks
on it corners.

The moon
Belongs to everyone
Luckily i had
Some bandages
And dandelion oil
To clean and wrap
The poor moon wounds.

The moon sang to me
In this blessed fortnight
Of times in deep history
Before the bards.
When she shinned
Above the lands of man.
Like ghostly jewel among the stars.

Before the woods
Had written elegies
in leaf of their limbs.  
Before fire deluge
Burned cracks in the walls
Leaving kiln marks
Upon the mountain castles
In the kingdoms of forgotten kings
And unknown peoples.

i nursed the moon
With tea of thousand wild flowers
And the dew that dripped
Upon the crimson skin
Of gleaming strawberries.
How the petals floated
On surface of my teacup.

Such Fruit
is according
to its season

To Early
the fruit
drags on
the lower branches
as the stars reflect
on its waxy rind.

To Late
the remaining fruit
resides to high
in the upper branches.
Winter is coming
and only
the high flying birds
can drink
from the saucers
of the moon.

The Secret
to eating its fruit
at its proper season
as it grows on limbs of the tree
and deploy your talents
and you may
as you consume
and receive the gift
too eat from the tree.

Words
always bother poets.
Especially at
night if
the dictionary
is not been shut
locked up tight
under the discipline
of a silver key.


The words
slip from
the interior  pages
like trout
through
the grasp
of a poet’s
bear fever dreams.

They hollow
outside
the stanzas
the poet
has built
as a small shelter
on the paper white prairies.


There is a  hollowness
in the beehives
beyond
the measure of winds.
Even the moon  must rise
and roll out of clumsy stanza.

Hungry words
with their gleaming ribs
and shallow flesh
mourning that they have escaped
the poet
foreseeing in some future day
will place them
in the proper  chambers
crannies and corners
of his misshapen barrels
and the river
of his awkward speech
may never flow
past
the castles
of elves
that sing
flying fish
in lush ink
in the depth
by the barrel.

“i shall  humbly spell
the letters
of my darkness”

not so much
to stain the world
with sameness.

For within
a luminous sparrow
hides and in the penmanship
of tomorrow
it shall fly
across the  dark
ink-stained clouds
on the corners of my eyes.
Trill in the merest  comma splice
or dangling modifier,
sing among the thrill of  ampersands .

i shall chant the long history
of diagramming  my  unimportance
then i  like a  monk shall scribe:
“i shall humbly  spell
the letters
of my darkness”

first you
            must imagine
                                  a shiny poem
           new born
           printed
like moses  between
          two-pages
          of bulrushes.

Somewhere in a chapbook,
peruse the scattered leaves
in some independent book seller.
Where they treated their books like
prospero’s books at the end of The Tempest.

You will find –
only the young
buy from amazon
the old
    long addicted
           to poetry’s  
   chimera-hallucinogenic-elements
          of ink and paper
must touch the chapbook;
        Run down the isles
        with their finds
careful not to make the gaze
        of all the unread
                                  poetry books.



How dreadful
       the unspoken wail of unread poetry
they snort like chained dragons
       speaking fiery sonnets.

If you  should  go that route
       be careful never gaze directly
into their  burning  orbs
        of controlling  metaphors.
Then the poet
        in you will turn to stone
like the gaze  of basilisk.

Claim you treason-treasure
wrap it in your burlap bag
and juggle it home
not stopping
at a kansas city fountain
to  eat a couple pages--
how crisp is the book
in your messager bag.
for poetry is
a fix for   lotus-eaters
that graze between the stanzas
and  when you get home
you climb
into your bed
and take  that mysterious chapbook
and hold it  
tenderly as the moon arises
in the window
of your apartment
and  read deep
as all your candles
recede toward their bases
                           descending
           as the flickering of flame
                            and wax
                        begin to pool on   candle stands.
still you read
as metaphors  kiss you
like boundless winds
for the poem unfolds
                      before you  all
                                    its tropes
                                    sing-like sparrows
                       and  then its images  
                       build new stairs
                                                  in your inward mind
                                                                ­                    as lines proceed  
                                                       ­                                                   up the  sky-stained                          sky of infinity…
..and still the words speak
                                       and you must obey
                                                            ­        and follow
                                                          ­             until
                                                           the last page turns
     and luminous  ink letters
         emerge
                                     from all your
pores.

Imagine
        A poem

                Is a small room

                       With words

                                 Walking in,

                                               And out the doors.



Periods are door knobs,

And symbols closing doors.  

Stanzas balance beneath

the blank expanses
In cycles.



The unites

compacts & splashes



cascading

Into the

pond of

consciousness

    at the end.



The goal

Is to

reach homeostasis

Of the heart

  & the inward eye.



For Imagination is  inking

a strange cosmos

one letter

& blank space

   at a time.



Poem makes

It home among words

    that It nests in.



What is,

              Is spoken

                     Upon the paper

                                 Of poets.

often
various punctuation,
leave their strange hats
in the small
humbleness
of my cloak room.

usually i have
a small
folding table
in the kitchen
set up for thirteen.

they each sit
& drink
from the
cuppletts of sound.

their plates
are heaped  with
the dumplings of symbols.

punctuation
always waits for
the final image
to come hot
from the oven.

Often the punctuation
coughs & complains
that the turkey
is too dry.

Diamonds originate
In the thoughts
Of poets.

(What jewels form
In the patterns
Of stanzas?)

When your
Soul’s Breath
Crystallizes
Against
The pressure
Of cold paper
And warm heart.

It hard to say
Giddy up
to a flying pig.

his snout
is never
within the pull of earth.

a thousand
feet in the sky
a pink snozzle in muddled clouds.

his oink
& corkscrew tail
the only thing;

except your
weightless imagination
keeping such a sight afloat up there.

In narrow ways
i sit  threadbare and uncombed
my mouth shares bread
with a small soul mouse-like
and paper thin ribs
of concepts.
as pages flap
as auspicious  creatures…

must i speak
the most basic words
for my thoughts are small
run away words
through
bare windows
into fog and mist
rearrange your meanings
like mysterious sparrows
combine in the spirit of feathers…

familiar letters made alien
in your curios spelling
in ways outside my  throat
return
and i shall not
recognize you
mysterious lady
or the language
you have wrapped
in ceremony submerge the moonlight…

no matter how the wax
of my understanding recedes
falls as the candle merges
with an empty glass
for the words
seem to gleam
as they pass
through the rags of my soul
for a mouse only knows
when the trap springs
the solitary need to shiver…

The world combines
and also scatters
as leaves blow
and flowers wither.
The road
descends into countless paths
all leading to the same proverbial city.

what roads
and who walks on them?
The stone are ancient
and their cyphers
echoe at the press of footsteps.

The scruples
in my shoe
hurt as each foot
places itself before other
The way commodious
but the same direction.

the cobblestones
with cliqued mortar
for we believe
in our personnel goodness.


For the lamp
of your words do not
surround me
and in the darkness
my feet will stumble
my ways confuse themselves
in speaking.

No cup or sword
is given
though they are suggested
in the tongue.
Either a floating city
or a place i have dug
of endless passages
in dark labors
with the hands of my limitations
endless without exit
my thumbs pickle
for i am
a lost pilgrim
seeking providence.

as i pass
a red rose luminous
at the crossroads
may i like a prophet
find shelter in your petals
or solace
in your thorns.

I am too sophisticated
for such a plant
for I am not
a lotus  eater.

Dim and dreary
a proverb is written
on the chalkboard of my eyes
“Do not mock for as you are
so shall you walk.”

I sing
some broken poems
then simply
return to the journey.

An angel
in the dark corners
of my imagination,
said unto me "childheart,
take these wings of schemes
which  i have fashion for you."

"i am sorry ancient one..." said i,
" ...but i am  foolish ."
But in truth i was allergic ,
to the parasitic letters,
hidden within the feathers,
of the offered wings.

the city
filled in
the small
pond
in the middle
of my tiny
poem.

all the ducks
came to
my door
and complained
i am
simple
i agree
in the meekest
of language.

that they
have been
unhomed.

it is
my duty
they tell
me as a poet
to open
the  door
of my
small poem
and let
them swim
in my bathtub.

i agree
it is tough
to be unhomed
there should
be plenty of room
in my weensy poem
for such
a small flock
of fluffy ducks.

the  periods
are silent
because
they must know
something.


the ducks
fill up my
bathtub
as they quack
double sestina
to the pond
that has been
filled  by those
unfeeling humans!

it is
hard to work
in such cacophony
such repetitive
quacking repetition
words
like floating wood
float to the surface
of my eye-ear
in spades.

often i type
my meager haikus
on my typewriter
with missing
chrome keys:

typewriter  chrome keys flutter cure
clear water within  pond flows pure
ducks like ink letters rise into line.


no
says my
inward-sparrow:
“that is an englyn milwr
not   a haiku”


bless
you sparrow
i tried again:

typewriter keys clatter
rises like letters in moonlight
ducks swim on round poem.

Then the tiny bell
vibes
as my typewriter
comes to the margins
and quacking subsides.  

The ducks come
to my study
and complain
that my typing
is quite distracting
to their
swimming.

The periods
can only  chuckle
like crickets.

be careful
when you
invite new
metaphors
into your
fresh built
box of a poem.

a small
house is
perfect
or a poet
that has
few silver
words left  
in their
pocket.

lower case
               is  cheaper
                            than uppercase.

as you nail
penny-nails
with your
wobbling
flat head
hammer;
simpleness
into
all your
lines.

be careful
metaphors
can act
like
miniature
tigers.

some
of the  
metaphors
want to start
problems
to scratch  
at your
floorboard
& swing from
your curtains
with their
sharp
retractable claws
& climb
on  your
window panes
& leave
their nose-prints
impressed
on each
window
in each
of your
stanzas.

take the
broom
& chase
the  troublesome
ones out
past the door jams
of your poem.

keep the
few
metaphors
that  are
asleep
at the
hearth.


the similes
you scattered
as a homecoming
blessing
turn into
see-through
butterflies
& flap
their wings
in symmetry
of beats
up the
wainscot

the sparrow
of your
voice
awakes on
the swinging
perch of
your small simple
birdcage
          & begins
                     to chirp
& the
symbols
hiding in
the nooks
& crannies
come to your
table to steal
crumbs & slices
of green cheese
that you
have sliced
quietly
from
the moonrise
slowly
forming
like onion skin
in the
lightbulb
you keep
dutifully hidden
in your head.

symbols squeak
and the metaphors
dream
of goldfish
swimming
in the periods
the little bowls
you
place
in kindness
at the  ends
of your stanzas.

often poets
have their choice of images
turkey,
duck,
goose,
or chicken.

language is
cooking
each poem
has its own
smell

as the flavors
and sounds boil
reduce
into an incense.

people
are often
surprised
when they  visit
the i
at my poem desk.


why do
i wear an apron
and a chef’s hat ?

the pockets
you see
are  perfect to hold pens
and 3 by 5 cards  aplenty
and a  metal ladle
to stir
faithful
the sauce
of my compositions.

I think that I shall never see
A sight as strange as a flying pig .

A winged pig that snout is sky-wised pushed
Against the earth’ fantastic slopping roundness

A winged pig who may fly all day,
And lifts whimsicality toward higher climes;

A pig that flutters in the icy air
A flap of wings and oinking there ;

Upon whose flight our imagination ascend
Our imitations in inward horizon up-sweeps logic .

Fall guys like me write poems,
But only metaphors like flying pigs

Can rise in ink stained skies and barnstorm
the very gates of eternity with winged couplets.

poems
should not have
bullet points.
• why not?
• because textbooks
say so…

• Just because
• the herd needs
• a period
• not to test
• the great
• expanse
• of blank page
• --below --
• The hooves of their conformity

so do

• i not
• require
• the use
• of bullets
• between symbols
• and words
• that i
• drip
• sound though .

to splash…
for poets
often
delude
themselves
in their
poems.

...It always seems...
            that we come to
               beginning at the end…


I disagree
              we are at a table.

Technically at a table
      but more al fresco
                              than inside...

I do not  agree  
                      with your
                                   misuse  of metaphor.

What a surprise...
                       To  understand inside
                                                       on must understand outside...


No you miss-understand!
          Please stop drinking
          you are a waterfall in reverse
pouring liqueur down
          the pettiness of your throat.
Oh! you spilled again…..

… Gin...i think its more
           likely libation
than your crocodile tears
           splashing like thorns on our salty dinner table...

You treat our wedlock
like pinata
and keep on swinging  

<lifting a glass of sherry>
...the mermaids are singing
the crickets are  chirping
can i  join in the luminous tunes
under moonscape & street lamps...
  i  am not sure if the
narrator or the voice
  of our disconnect,
is just a  ***** or an effaced  harpy ...

Monologuing  are we?

    That was always your problem….

No i was hoping for a liqueur
& well-lit soliloquy
unfortunately
you hearing is
too good & your plates is
too clean.
Never trust a skinny noun
for a lover...

                                              Your using the wrong fork….

No fears,
           as my empty
            overturned glasses
                               tremble around us
                               like our nonexistent children.
          Impossibilities
                 that  haunt the spaces of our words
                 like overcooked spaghetti  
...here too our invisible similes
at our
        evening repast...

                                        No worries
                                                        I was written that way
                                                                                         and you are a miserable lush.

indeed….
not on the menu
but our relationship
is a taco
with not enough lettuce…



I would say there are
                              losts of green words
                              missing  between us
                                                 and echo of your ego
                                                  swims in the whiskey.

the beauty of a glass  
             is its final emptiness;
the difference between          
lust and lush is just  one letter.
              you my dear  
             never lets the letters
            of your alphabets
free to flap

to the porch lights
                  
              except for a price...


It   might  just be the
                             spaces between
                                                   stars and ignorance of moths.
Your ignorance
                        always steals the narrative
                                                                  in my fortune cookie.


  no desert tonight i guess.
i hate this  mistaken table …..

Misspoken...you mean
miserable table!!!

your reflection my dear
will always reflect
            in waxy wood rings….
           returning to where
we first met
making one
            want to drink
            deeply the forgetful draught
                                          from the Styx
                                          my cold little-sphinx.