Tell me what love is I would say
Could be the seagulls thick
As clay.

Underneath the cedar’s in the green grass
The orange cat spreads her bones a certain way
And every so often lifts her stout head
To see the people coming and going

To her the clouds take on the shape of fish
Swimming lazily in a shallow pond
Her body stalking silently the shore
Never letting her shadow reach the sky

The lull of the afternoon is immense
And the mourning doves gather on wires
Cooing every so often to make sure
The day does not slip away unnoticed

The lighthouse rises above the cedars
Rises above and into the ocean
Stretching its neck in anticipation
For the first hint of a gliding white sail

Now she departs that tangerine flower
Stalking ghost-like paw after silent paw
Strutting instinctively toward the water
Vanishing in the reeds which disclose her

The clouds drape across the waning evening
The sky turns blonde to pink to purple
The light from above shines the horizon
The soul escapes the body once again.

Somewhere in these eyes
A mountain lake
At dusk the rain
Through the pines
The mind
The soft stuff of stars
Between the clouds
Dreams! Life and
The forward falling
Of space
Backward into place
Like no other pattern

All I am is a burning leaf
A sudden flicker, a short glare
Against the window of this existence;
Some sort of ghost, like the winter snow
Melting into a puddle in the far field.
When the gray fog turns into night,
Just at the edge of the forest.
All I am is already gone, no
Breeze left even to take me.

Veins of stone spit out from scintillated mountains
Writing down the history of rain in beautiful scars.
Soon the sun, but first the birds

   In purple clouds of iron wood (I can map the day
by just the sounds) this peeling bark my
Hollowed past too.

It feels good to be on the ground,
doesn't it? Laughing in the sunshine,
crying in the rain. What a feeling to
have, what a wave to ride. And all the
stars and all the minds and every single moment and more. Mountains crumbling and the river long gliding off into the ocean, again. The sound of thunder a flower in spring and all the dew, I never knew, of just how great it is to be alive until the moment I met you.

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.

The emerging minutes
Wrapped themselves
Loosely around the
Branches of my mind
(Like banners in the wind)
And the naked trees
Poetically, whispered
In a spoken silence
Beneath the shadow
Of the mountain.
Dusk was heavier than the stars
Heavier than my sadness
Here in the ravine, waiting
For the snow.

My stoves are empty my lungs are
Clean this desert drive is killenme
In early November remembering when
Times weren't so bad as neat said "
Ah ah ah could ya just killme or
Subway tomorrow at ten a m
It's not my van by then but
When I tend to bend toward en
Lightenment it could be as well as
Now and

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.

I will one day become an ocean
And those that wish will come before me
And throw their troubles in my vastness
And pray their sorrows to my moons.

--I will soon become an answer
As silent as the evening sun
As changing as the seasons done
And bolder than the question.

after things lost in the cloudy past
In the night time barefoot in the plaza
Waiting for the last train north;
I fell asleep in the dry grass
Beneath the stony palms

The stones
Heave outward
Broken
On the hill.
The roots
Twist tighter
Deeper
In the ground.
The branches
Arch upward
Higher
To a trembling sun.

slowly
the tide turns
while the seagulls
ride the waves of air
above the dunes.
The white sails of
storms float on
and away, the broken
shell lays buried in the sand;
I grab it with my mind.
Beyond the dunes
in the cool, dark cedars
the old wind still stirs
salty and brash.

The land was more wild, more wild than us
Yet we sang to the moon and we bathed in the rain
With it’s mountains and rivers unfolding to plains
We rode steady and ready ahead of every bend
With the stars up above we could not comprehend
Just the complete emptiness of a forest with no path
A mountain with out name, and the days filled with memories
And the days filled with dreams.

Isn’t it great to know that yesterday,
The wind blew afar in a distant field, against
The overawing forest, and got plucked into the dark
Like a black hole?
Or this morning, along the coast a gust
So strong it knocked over a billboard that read
“The universe
Is everything.” But sure as day, tonight
It has arrived with a vengeance, banging
On my windows and opening my doors;
Unnerving my sleepless mind with it’s
Belligerent thighs.

The river at night
The river beside the cottonwoods
The river beneath the moon
The early spring night
The cold wet stones
The distant owl calling
Through ribbed branches;
All our dreams floating
Further down stream
All our dreams driftin away.

It was relatively nine
When I walked
To the plaza down
The sidewalk past
The bougainvillea that
Bursts out the fence
Like a volcano
To go see the pigs
That tip over
The trash cans
With their sense
Of smell;
And there she was
Like a ghost
On the bench
With sad eyes
Softly saying hello
Through the yellow glow
Of the streetlight
Behind her
And me being
Relatively shy
Loudly waved good bye
And walked back past
The church and
The old school
To emphatically sit
Back gaze back
At the past and
In thought with
Write about it.

A swamp without
Edges - a white wing
On water –
A moth
That follows the
Unseen flower.

The aimless spaces
Of the desert
- The sweeping dunes,
Beyond the masked circle
Of an empty moon.

Mesquite dreams, with soft smoking edges
Waft the darkness of this desert
          -Moth wings of the morning
Longing-
Off onto the red wound of the dawn.

The thing about the future
It looks at you in the mirror
But you can't see it there
Smiling back at you like
A thousand sunsets at once;
But soon enough the time has come
Then it turns away and runs.

But first the mountains
Covered in stars, the purple peeks
The emerald cliffs. The winter’s melt;
The rush and rage, oh at mid-life
That downward pull upwards.
The stream meets the river the
River sighs, red and full of clay
(I remember the day we met like that)
Full of fish and thoughts of…
First the moon, then the tide.
Onward through naked sand
Stone, full of compressed time.
The chromatic choir plays a
Crescendo, as the raven never
Really sleeps. Then the spring
Meets the summer dry and full
Of ash. How the ancestors came
Here to pass, that bridge and
All the distance. Down
By the river, covered in a deeper
Shadow, I kneel and feel
The river at midnight.

If you believe in a beginning
And you believe in an end then
I could be somewhere in between—
Laughing in the dusk of first snow
Walking quietly on the edges of some
Murky swamp.
But if you don’t believe in a beginning
And you don’t believe in an end then
I could be nowhere but---
Laughing in the dusk of first snow
Walking waist deep in the heart of some
Murky swamp.

What kind of stars do you worship are
They desert? What kind of pink are
Your sunsets? Dream. Mesa and
Moon, memories. Spring and
All the blood through these veins;
Carving out this dust from my eyes
So pharaoh.

I opend my cold hands to the old sun
Grasping a memory, I once touched;
A forest's edge, faded in the dark mist
Of dawn, oh sweet spring! Open your
Eyes, open your mouth and taste
The sweet decaying soil, the death
Of everything come to life again.
I closed my eyes and feel the sweet embrace
Of my mother and father, the unspoken
Love I came to appreciate; and all at once
Existence (the mother and father of all)
Became a solid, soft thing, while
Time quietly showered over me
Electrical and phantasmical.

There in the sun with eyes closed
And hands open, raised
I opened my mind; like a
Lighthouse on the rocky shore
Sweeping the broken, brash horizon
(and finding more than what was there).

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.

Down in the canyon
Where the sun falls
Onto a stone, the light
Of autumn.
Down in
The shadow of the
Stone’s deeper signs
Small birds sing.
On the wind
I know the time
When everything dies
I know the time
When everything lives
On the wind.
The trees become themselves.
Quiet as deeper into
The night you go
Never leaving your feet
You float.

A red-bellied turtle lay
Nestled between the
Saw-grass edge of the trail
I ventured

It spoke of patience
And existence

I studied this
Strange creature
For a brief
Bid farewell
And headed on
My way.

My love, is a desert set on fire
Her hair the golden flames of
Evening, her eyes the purple dusk
That lingers, then fades
And when I touch her skin like that
With my mind the stars
Like bats, flutter from the cave.

After the storm rolled by
The swollen edges of the swamp
Lifted their white wings to the night
In flocks of thousands. I watched
From the cypress as they became
The stars, burning in the farthest
Corners of my mind. Dreams
In the space between synapses,
Fizzled and died. Love was but
A question we hung carelessly
In the dense jungle air.

This flower of entropy, this
Single sullen bloom, ah
The universe, unfolding
Its many colored petals
In the lazy afternoon.

Where are all my thoughts behind the trees
Into the deepest part of the night, beyond
The edge of beginning  to love
Into the swamp of life, the great muck pool.
Behind the trees into the deeper night
Where the stars wander freely
(that’s where I am going). Beyond
The hills dressed in the gown of the moon
Beyond the craggy ridges of the giant
Who feel asleep crying. Beyond the street
The bank of trees are breathing in the musty light
Of the lamp, a group of birds huddled together
Feather’s ruffled in the wind.

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.

These waves, brought to life in full color
Against the brim of a tropical sunset
Over the weary Gulf of Mexico
Washed white and silver foamed upon this shore
These waves; complete movement upon the ocean, devout servants
Endlessly caressing the pale, sparkled sandy shore
Endlessly ebbing and flowing through time, space
Through all of deep day and all of long night
Between the setting sun orange and blue
Between that of land and that of mysterious ocean
Between that of water and sky, now darkening sky
Always there caressing
A fine line overlapping, again and again
Riding the spine of earthly force
Crashing against this fateful shore
Gaining strength, losing strength
Gaining strength, losing strength
A constant force upon the land, twisting
Twisting and punishing the pale sandy beach
Twisting rocks and driftwood into new life
Rocks and coral grinded into red dust over millions of waves
Driftwood brown, turned into dirt and black soil
Life molded into liquid, life turned into permanence
A reminder of this strange reality, gravitation
That of which expires, that of which grows
Working on this exact beach, at this exact moment
Grinding and pushing, bringing reason to things
Bringing new to life, destroying old to life
Exposing ancient shells to the sunlight
Woven by a certain pressure, creating detail
Beauty in detail, made by the constant waves
Of which they shall one day destroy
And this very land, one day they shall destroy.
These waves, moving in, in blue and gold before the sunset
Stretched out across all of the land on earth
They have not ceased, they will not, they are relentless
They are innovation in each, beauty of this earth
This universe!
Waves moving in and out, for eternity perhaps
These waves, beautiful forms
Have me mocking the very air I breathe
Have me mocking the very thought of life and death.
(To the waves that crash on Jewel Key)

the flower petal less
the moon wide
walking through the desert
in novembers purple dusk
Adrift without sail
no anchor no shore
to hold for to find
open up the heart wide
feel the stones inside
cold and dry the
empty vein bleeding
in the sand but wait
the sound
of nothing
the horizon hanging
like a senseless smile
a broken bone
fractured and frail
I carry this dead weight
forward and beyond
through bloodshot arroyos
through canyons of stars.

The window would be half open to a mountain then
I’ll tell you something a window is all
Half left open before the rain; every day
Though the window has changed I’ll tell you
Something about the pain. They sit they sit
With their fingers tied, the pines are tired the
Mountains are wise. The window is wide.

Then they walk like bird and awkward is all
If the dead could talk they would say; I’m frightened
Yes the raindrops fall. Someone bends the tree tops
Tall. Someone leans and whispers in my ear. I hear the
Dirt I hear the dirt.

And then, they all go home even my lover goes back
Into the house. And then she sits upon the couch. Very
Very. Tiredly she walks they rise and touch my facesometimes
Sometimes the dead awake the window the window
And thanks for coming.

But the heart, she says It is just mine they rise they rise
She climbs inside. The hospital with grey wings I know
It isn’t impossible. But it's hope and love and love and love
and love and If I could die without a kiss. The window
would be half open then to a mountain.

My dog dragged me through
The door into the night
Out into the cold wind.
My thoughts dragged me
Beyond the desert horizon;
The coals of dusk just ashes
The center of despair.
November's half gone
And its empty promises too
Gone like the wind in the night
Gone like the wolves in the woods

Physical burning wing
In motion the big bird
Flies into the woods
Like a flame extinguished;
The year is in rust and waning
The day in dusk and purple
And it's best we head home now
Back along the cow path
Over the glacier's disposed memories
(Still looking backward
My mind goes deeper into
The cold, dark forest)
To the steady fire waiting for us.

Then the desert
Speaks
To me you
Should not be
Here the old
Mountains
Say, no rain
It's true
As love
As blood.

For how long did you know my father?
For how long did you help him make bread in my grandfather’s bakery?
Was he genuine like me?
Was my father shy? Was he timid?
Was he strong and bold?
Did he ever hide any secrets?
Secrets hidden deep within his flesh and bones?
Please think carefully about this
Did you ever see my ancient thoughts in his lonely brown eyes?
Did you ever know his brown hair would be my brown hair?
His eyes would be my eyes?
His flesh my flesh?
Did you ever think that my father was like a book waiting to be read?
And that I was his words invisible until now.

Twenty hundo on the brass tho
and they wonder why I flash glo
******* walking through the grass low
and they wonder why they crass, tho.

Ate some sea food and an *******
Now I'm swimming is some glass snow
Brain so stirred, I'm talking fast slow
Starry night, just like a Van Gogh.

Like the moon, I'm casting shadow
Laced with oil colored pastel
Call me empty, I'm a vast shell
Alexander, call me Graham Bell.

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

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

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.

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.

I've always exerted
My heart carefully
Not to attract attention.
Like a waiting lion
Or the empty night.
In the forest
My heart beats against
Time. The distant shores.
I breathe in the vastness
Of a darkening forest.

I The Ravens

What spirit flies in fall the raven’s
Over mesa and on the wind
High above the valley of long light
And shadow, in waves towing
With their wings the seams of night
Tugging the tight veins of winter.

Against the wind, in pairs twirl
Like lover’s in the deeper woods, and
Shadows on the stone make four
But only from the dying sun.

II Venus

What pale star rests above the kiva
In dusk the last light is Venus wearing
A crown of waning purple light I know
I know I sulk among the junipers, like
A slug beneath a stone a snake
Within his hole I know the night
To come, the cold stars not so naked.

III So is Darkness

So is darkness but the desert of
Light, and just as long as sad?
The endless journey between the
Wall of pines, the dark oceans of
The mind, climbing toward the
Edges of the summit and declaring
The emptiness of things, fluttering
Just two beneath the newly birthed
Moon.

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

Blue, blue and green the intolerant mountain's rose
Exclaiming the melting point of snow
On the tips of their rocky tounges.

(Such a feeling of almost immortality)

I drove through the green and to the blue
Singing songs and crying, like a lost bird
And I didn't know what else to do
But leave the moment behind.