Out in the desert there is silence --
The mountains blinding ambivalence  
As white as the bones within.  
Slipping out the rocks, more rocks
Come the unbending tongues of time, satisfying
The antemortem joy once again.
The sun holds the sky, the whitest wing
The earth holds the rest, all of your thoughts
And the rain.

I’m finally waking up here is my mind--
A scattering of dreams, confusion.
The desert spread out, in soft clouds
I am awake here is my heart, the horizon
The only thing I can understand, now.
Pain is pain, be gone.
The smattering trail of mesquite smoke
The rising star
The thinning sound of thunder;
The sudden certain mountains
In the early morning rain.

And then the synthesizer made a come back
And then a supernova. And then anxiety.
Cam over.
I’m out in the desert, studying the meaning
Of rain in the human brain. I’m learning
More about myself that is. How the blood
Talks. How the shade relieves itself.
I’m offering you sunsets. Roots set.
The lonely land and sky

When the last vision is lost
And the moon rises over the red mountains
Does the soul crawl forth and walk again?
The only angels, buzzards riding on thermals
Greet the flesh with hunger. And what
heart opens to see the beauty of love
Of compassion? The perpetual expanse
Of stars above, the great unfolding.

In the gray fog I wake
Beneath the green pines
Out along the penisula
High above the sea wave
With an empty feeling
A heavy hollow pull.

Through the windows
Of the mind memories
Come and go like
Deer in the tall ferns
Moss on the old stones
Transparent and cold.

Soon it will be time to go
Down along the new coast
Out past the gray pines
To watch the sun set
Hear the waves crash
The deep earth moan.

No love’s a fern that
Cannot grow no
Heart’s a when rain
Is snow alone no
Moon’s a shoe no time’s
Time no time some

No fern's a love that
Cannot grow

August is the bird’s nest a
Broom that falls in the spider’s web when
The toad’s wet toes are the **** yo
                    Questions but but black
holes

The hydrangea leaves, lime green
No purple flowers yet, weave up and down
In the afternoon storm, rain rain
Like fingers caressing piano keys
In the back of my mind.
The song of spring! Beautiful and chaotic;
Brings the tears from within me, out.

Summer is a snake
Crossing the smoldering road
Stretched out like an
Exclamation of death!
This moment gone forever
Screaming out onto the horizon;
The old windswept mountains
Like broken waves, frozen
In the boat shaped mirror.
All is green, and all is forsaken
Driving down this path of light.

My eyes, grey blue, have changed
And my vision, deep grey, has
Changed, much like the trees
On the mountainside have changed, much like the way the
Night fades into morning.  And
My mind has changed, has become a well tended garden.
And my tears, well they fall
As soft as the rain tonight, this
First day of October.

Sun setting over
Swamp causes deep orange emotions
On the brim of thought.

The desert is no place for poems,
Poems need rain. I've been smiling lately
walking more. Thinking about the horizon
and it's voluptuous curves. How the sun
Snakes, how the moon breaks how the stars
are born and die.
. I've never stood
In one place long enough like you have
Old mountain, on crooked knees.

I rearranged my room but I could
Not rearrange the stars I bought a blue
Towel for the bathroom and I tried to
Forget about you but I could not.
I am more snipe when I drink
This is not a drunk poem…lies and lies
And lies. I rearranged my room but I could
Not rearrange you.

The multiverse, full of possibilities
Crumbles before me, like snow
Falling in the dark, cold night. We
Experience time because we can
Not help but be Conscious. I am
A black hole filled with sorrow
--There is no escaping.
Mountains of sea. Emerging.
In front of me. Through the
Out into the dark, cold night I go.

Not far from now, nothingness
Does not rattle on nothingness.
The final mountain trembles
In the blackening rain.  It opens
To close, deceiving perception.
I sleep, I wake and not by decision
Through the woods in the dawn I go because it is not the only option.

Out of these desert hills
In washes beneath my feet
The red heart of the mountain
Licks the dry, smoky air.

Above a golden eagle glides
Like a loosened dream above
A sapphire spire, dipping
In and out of view.

Below the rocks desire
Rain, embers of thunder
Thigh to thigh the caverns
Devour existence slowly.

Between me and the moon
The mountain, and beyond that
The owl's hidden perch, a vast
Meadow of occult stars.

I'm not pretty
Barely alive but
I felt the sunset and
Kissed your eyes. Mountains, aspen
Desert and sky, I heard the day
Go beneath your mind. Quiet and
Inconsequential. You went to bed
In the tent and I stayed out in the
Black rain beside the black lake.
I was beside the pines and estimated
The thunder go through me like stone,
And I could not leave, could not stay.

My re
Fridge ger
Rator has been out for years
The light that is and if
I wasn't to say anythin
G to anybody for years
No one would notice after

What is truth?
A gnarled old tree
No wind can rustle
Even death
Is nothing but stars.
What is love?
But the way of water
(the way of the ancient ones)
The gentle erosion of stone.
The mountain looms
On the purple horizon;
Dusk is startled and the animals
Emerge from their caves.

repeat swamp, desert
same thing to this
damp mind. cold
soul. Sold
a long time ago
searching for my poems
in drawers
in deserts too
no more shores even

I was moon walking in the desert
Chasing the memory of rain
Down some dried washes, choked
Full of sand and silver. I was
Following the way of water
Tracing sideways into dead
End hills of Bentonite, purple
And grey I was moving in
And out of shadow like a
Fish in deeper eddies, laying
Down silently beneath the
Weeds and waves.

A dream remembered
A billion year old smile;
The river snakes on.

You can see the lights form anywhere
I you didn’t know how to say when then
Theres. Said the city when you get drunk
If
When where Iraq vet couldn’t but be there
Yet said sorry head down bobbing b
***** b ***** road road the once liner
C snitch couldn’t quite catch when
They said only see snitch said if
Rich r say r can not be but r sway
Couldn’t say but if are we went
R own way then then only say
What you wand and the love though
Keep strong thought though through
Window with smile then bile but
D gone and dez gone said when wrong but
no **** and no wrong zebra is but gone and
**** game when no name is sure game but slay
nah nah if you laugh in cough cough "
parade say sa yong man
young man man you gone to far
blat vblaat

Ahead of me
In the woods
At dusk like
A big cat
With big eyes,
The future turns
Away and runs
Up the switchbacks
Without a sound
Each paw pressed
Into the spine
Of my anxiousness.

The entropy
Of this
Evening is
Expanding.
All the flowers
Find the moth.
Thee clouds few
Are covered
In a
Haze. Two. Moon
I walk
And want to become
something more
Or less. I kiss
A black hole
And become none.
==then

How your face can be so taunted
Your smile so serene. Said if it wasn’t
For tomorrow never would have been
Ever, fish and things. This pyramid
Is a black man shot dead. Take off
The cuffs take off cuffs. So much
Freshwater birds say when. Why/
So much death and death through
Throat pronounced words like air
And when. Snipers don’t choose
Race been banging bullets long
Before then, let me say alligators
Would eat your throat again
And again. Less gun

It was the whisky
eventually drove the eye
Wall to destruction.

Overwhelming, you breathe in thoughtfully
The vastness of the outside of -you-
Where the horizon is a three hundred and sixty
Degree monotony of flatness, a rusty dream
A contrast to the dark blue of the afternoon
An endless prairie, a sweeping emotion
Of swaying saw grass, a waltz of simplicity
Dancing across a thin layer of water
A river! A thin layer of transparent sky fallen
In some rude manner during a summer storm
A dark blue blanket of infinity and the boom
Of thunder and the white flash of lightening
Between thin sheets of atmosphere but now
All is a translucent glide, a glade of reflection
An indulgent movement of enormous propensity
So silent the pensive egrets above make not even a sound
The white of their feathers like angels plunging from
Heaven, the hallucination of snow fall
Disappearing into the dark green jungle altogether
Vanishing into the tantalizing domain of sameness
So vast your knees may buckle underneath you
Your bones may become separated and
Your flesh may dilute into a million beads of
Silver floating softly through the multitude
Cutting even the droplets of -you- in half
So you may start your journey to the ocean
Through the boundless glades of saw grass
And open into the peculiar embrace of mangroves
The pulsating vein of the earth
The bulging vein of implication, re-claiming
Slowly, patiently until at last you open your eyes to
A moment of surrealism, dream-like
A blurring of orange then red then purple
A bleeding sunset of color enough to draw tears
From your ethereal spring of consciousness
But then you realize you are still standing straight
You are still alive, in a sense
Your head peaking over the grass like a deer
Frightened by the crack of a stick
Trembling inside immensely
As the day turns to night and the prairie
Is slowly shadowed by the flood of the universe
A billion distant fires blazing with such soft wind
Gleaming in the river of the vast sleeping saw grass now.

Excuse me for my brunt ******
Of sunset said the desert horizon
Purple with desire and shame.
The apathetic ending of the turning and
The more expressionless thoughts.
Sorry for the stars, said the night
Not necessarily apologizing but merely conceding to
The infiniteness of ending (all the way). The owl
In a canyon on a cactus, on a cold winter
Night, in a dark deep winter night. Even this
The sunset understands, the dawn
Like knives to the spine, digs in. Said
The punitive earth, here I am for you to explore
Open my oceans, abuse my stones.

I'm at the end of life here
On the end of the train
California is truely
A flower in the fog.
Stop your sorry branching
You silly cloud
Stop all that smilin;
There's a certain smell to aging
The sea breeze

These days they are the crimpled up
Wings of moth nights, warm moon
Flowers of valley, mesa and mountains
Through layers and layers of soil no
Wonder they are attracted to
That eternal flame of desire, trembling
So far away.

We are becoming trees /// frozen in
The basement of December. Horizons
Of naked limbs, chattering like teeth +++
On grey air. A piano plays some
Blurred memory 1, silvering the
Dusk to sleep. Snow falls from the
Dark like stars but it is nothing that
We can keep. Out of a stump ()
stumbles the red fox. On and off
He goes all night >< >< >< ><

After rain when dusk is just
Distant owl call moon
Stone is wet white soon
Stars dull slip
                          through.

Uninspiringly a soft black snake slips across the path
Flicks its pink forked tongue in the damp Florida air
And disappears into the myriad of green ferns
As if you to say “Your existence is inconsequential”
And perhaps footsteps in the mud is all the hammock
Will remember of us (like memories of the dead).

So the zebra long-wing floats on an embankment of breeze
Stops to rest on an orchid high atop an oak tree
Covered in a vague blanket of whiskery purple plants
Hanging over the reflection of a speechless sinkhole
The gaping mouth of death where an alligator basks lazily
Stirring centuries in the silver swirl of his tail
Echoes outward from the beginning of time.

And your eyes begin to open widely
(Before now you have just been sleepwalking)
To the soft reflection of white wispy clouds
To the unbounded blue black of time, the sky
To the slow bend of emerald palms in the breeze
To the white flutter of egret wings rising up and over
Disappearing into the opacity of the jungle.

So the afternoon wanes in overwhelming branches
Colors blending delicately into mountains of azure
Lilac, plum, auburn, cherry, salmon
Whispering to you “Hold on to this moment”
Reverberating in the smooth glaze of reflections
(The first colors you have ever truly seen)
Dripping from the dusky tropical Florida sky
Melting into the expanding darkness of the night.

Still the chicken coop
At the end of childhood still
The first snow fall soft as
Still the endless summer
Your emerald eyes, far out
At sea. And time. Leaves us
On the vine withered/broken;
Still your kisses in those misses
Out into the air off into the forest.

Maybe these feelings of the past
Which we say then cannot last can
In the dreams of dead "said"
They will come ofcourse

The air was thin and blue
When I saw you, down by the shore
Out among the dunes. The summer
Dream was all but dead, and all the
Foolish knew that love was all but over.
Yet I found you, scattered like the
Shells, smitten with rage. Those
Green eyes, those sad inlets, ebbing
And flowing like breath. The rest
My dear forget about soon,
the wind will be sour, the waves
Strong. We have only
The dark pine left to hide.

Down by the ruffled river in the
Heart of the skeletal canyon
The cold stones begin to wake
As Hercules aims his arrow at the
Half-moon, misses wide, come those
Thirsty shadows with stretched necks
Dip their dry dusty lips into the
Silty water, ahhhh! Emerge the
People of clay, crude and
Broken apart like a mirror that has
Been dropped, shattered reflections
Of the earth, born, learning first how
To climb, and then how to walk.

And in the silent moments before the storm
--All bleached and prayer spoken-- clean
Out from the hushed juniper boughs
Spilled the song of the phoebe, shattering
The frozen apprehension of the air into
A million broken pieces of hurry! hurry!
Or wait.

Back by the fax machine
Say in summer when the
Clouds are rolling in like
A head of cauliflower; I know
Whose prayer we dance to
By the refrigerator
God of history
And laughter whom chews
On the benevolence of sadness;
Plants hands with seeds says
The story of rain with
Out a word believes in more or
Less the scrutiny of an infinity of
memories, just the satellites
Of death all primrose at dusk
        and paper cut dancing
In his mind the plaza.

Down by the waves where my thoughts go ahead
There goes my brain again, down by the shells
When the tide goes out and all the earth
Holds its breath, again sweeping and sweeping
All night the moon sinks slinks against dawn.

Down by the waves a piano plays; smooth
Wind blows midnight against palms quiet
Almost holding its breath crawling forth
The souls leaps the edge, grabs your hand
Ten thousand lights lay asleep.

I took my time getting here the desert
That is. Crossed the horizon once or twice
Four years of feeling bones, cold and quiet saw
Slipped a fox down the sandstone gone very little
Rain and a few tears. (Just one desert sunset can
change me)

When the last light crawls through the opened broken winter clouds
Like that to touch the back-bone spine of the Zuni Mountains would think
A cross should be erected as a sign to the sun shuttering like the snow
Between your hair and ears which so soft sticks like stars between the
Void of you and me falls from this inconceivable sky which flutter small
Final birds from juniper bough to juniper bough. Between broken mesa’s  
Earth edge is closed sharp! As I fall down near the sandstone body of

                     you

On wings of dusk emerge the dead
That tie the day with night in thread
As tight as when the stars were one
Before the weaver's web was spun;
I watch with blinking eye to see
Horizons which unbind from me.

Tell me what is it a hole into infinity the
Moon is but a moth wing rising above
The mesa.
         And all my anxiety is false
So even the desert primrose opens under
The milky moon light.

And loneliness too a coyote cry through
An ocean of juniper. They saw the same
          Moon as me how little it has
Changed.

Down the hill along the cow path
We stumbled like fawn shaking off
The heavy fog of sleep the gray
October day unfolding its onerous
Wings through the gate which we
Were always so careful to close behind
Us past the silver slender ash trees
Between that old stone house and rotting
Garden toward the barn where the swallows
Lived up the ladder to the hay where we
Could swing all day if it wasn’t for
Those dreaded chores which came
So natural to you, in the silo
With those pitchforks trying not to
Slip down into that spiraling lascivious
Mouth of metal (death), where outside the
Silver bearded god watched as
We staggered out like mice from an
Old and rusted tractor into the
Soft polished air of first snow, laughing.

When the sky changes, the heart opens up
And out of cliffs boulders hang on prudently
Like the skin between your fingers
The rain becomes the air. Soon
The desert is trumpeting its flowers
From all its highest fingers
(Were they ever really there?)

Soon enough the earth becomes bare
And what's left hides in caves.
 
What need do I have for flesh?
Simply the desire to be cloudy.

Alone and growing
Small, this patch of snow is the
Flower’s only hope.

Beside the stream
of eternity, the long cliffs
march into the unknown;
Every rock and pebble sings
Thunderous and wild.

Within the forest of time
On branches of moss and ivy
Sits the old ancient owl;
Waiting for the small quiver
Of a mouse in hazy moonshadow.

Beyond the gardens of stars
An emptiness quakes and yearns
For flowers to be born
For mountains to break and bleed
And sing and cry.

Dorothy is out in the garden again
Pulling the weeds out from the ground
Weaving between the green corn stalks
Like a spider spinning a web.

The brown adobe house rests quietly
In the shadow of the turquoise mountain
Which gathers the onion shaped clouds
With its immense emerald hands.

And Dorothy is laying down now
Beneath the sagging green corn stalks
With one ear planted in the soil
Listening to the distant song.

The song of the earth is thunder
Echoing down through the canyons
And the sky is filled with darkness
As the cool wind begins to cry.

Dorothy is out in the garden again
As the clouds roll down the mountain
Pulling the weeds out from the ground
As quickly as she can.

Wet and damp
Are the leaves
Beneath the autumn moon
Hanging on
So carelessly
Free of fear
Full of frost.