In the dark womb
of the forest, sun-
light filters through
the canopy like
a mountain
shower. Its progress
is microscopic. A
photon bounces
from branch to
branch. A wave
wraps itself
around an
unsuspecting
leaf.

On the forest
floor, shadows
rule the kingdom,
painting over
the middle distance,
pointing to organic
geometries of color,
where long trunks
of timber lie shorn,
where streams
shimmer past
boulders stained
with orange lichen,
where tawny deer
flinch at the first flick
of danger and
flee on their delicate,
toothpick legs.

This is not Eden.
Decay creeps
across the leafy
floor. No living
creature can escape
its grasp.
Decrepit trees
fall without
aim, buried above-
ground, their
roots like gray,
broken
skeletons,
their bark like
naturalistic
wafers. This
is my body.

We wander
through
the forest
amid pungent smells
of water, earth
and wood. Decid-
uous limbs convert
the moss into soft,
buoyant beds that
nurture us, shelter
us, inspire us as
we arise into
shards of light
and fight our way
along the path
of survival.

The struggle won,
we follow myriad
paths, packed with
a labyrinth of
choices, and so
we mark the paths,
make them
temporarily
our own, only
to discover that
they have
already
permanently
marked us,
imprinting through
our coarse skin
the primeval
genome of the
soul.

We stride
toward the misshapen
mountain that
halts all progress
of the paths.
A glacial lake
reflects the crest.
Forest birds perform
Beethoven's third
symphony, Eroica,
to hail our epic
journey homeward.

Soon we will be
cast out
of the inner
darkness
of the forest
and into the
teeming world
of pollution,
viruses and
the machinery
of hate.

Wounded,
we will keep
our focus
forward,
having gambled
on the path
not taken.
With a sweet,
green shoot
between our
teeth, we shadow
the light, bouncing
from branch
to branch. Abstract
patterns in the sky
write our way
into intricate
vistas of color
and delight.

As sap
seeps from
the wounded oak
we left behind,
our progress
is microscopic,
our canopy
dense.

1.
Shivering, I stand alone
inside a sleepy railway station,
looking for a train that never comes,
watching as my spirit comes undone

from the ceaseless clicking of the clock,
the senseless ticking of the watch
that weighs my body down.

Behold how the human earns his fate.
There is always time to wait.

2.
No sooner does time expire,
than it rises up to sire
another progeny.

Shamelessly self-seeking,
it wrecks our days reeking of mortality.

Gaze into its plate of polished glass
and watch your phantoms pass.

They punched their tickets late.
There is always time to wait.
3.
The Flame of Life arrives on a second-class coach.
He eyes me, careful not to reproach my sensibilities.

He comes to cauterize my wounds of time,
but worries I might swoon or mind
the excessive heat.

Perhaps he’s right; I’ll change the date.
There is always time to wait.

We came to the valley to absorb the glory
of the Alps. Wordsworth succumbed
to the sublime here. Now we all romanticize
nature. But the sublime overwhelms;
it is too grand, too large, too dark, too menacing.
The mountains soar,
overflowing the bounds of what
the scrawny human spirit
can take in.

The blue man with the blue guitar
no longer plays things as they are.

Things as they are are not so quick.
Blue men of substance aim, then kick

against the ****** of six-beat bars.
The bass line rumbles near and far.

Half-notes turn whole. Another hue
spews discord, then chords of blue

sprint beyond us as we are. And we
ourselves compose the tune in three-

quarter time. Harmony orbits a billion stars,
slingshots through our world of blue guitars.

We crawl on
our bellies
under the squat
sandstone bridge
to emerge into
the mouth of
the canyon that
boxes in
the light. Walls
slick with
darkened
rock plunge
to the sand-
soaked floor.
Iron-stained
boulders line
our way. Only
silence speaks.

Ahead, we climb
a makeshift ladder
of timber tied
with fraying rope.
Up, then down again,
crawling farther
atop the sand,
captive to
the dark until
we emerge again
into the day's
last light.

Behind us,
giant eyes
peer out
of gray-white
plumage. On
the rock shelf,
two infant
Great-Horned
Owls spy on
us with
curiosity,
wonder
and fear.
No adult
in sight,
trustingly
airborne at
twilight
to swoop
down on the
day's prey,
plenty
for all.

Uncanny,
the infants’ eyes
never blink,
absorbing
us in their
piercing
depth
of field:
strange
mammals,
too large
to slash
and carry.

In the distance,
heavy wings
cleave the
darkened air.
150 words

Poetry hunkers down behind
the freshly finished facade
of language; each link to the lexicon
lovingly chiseled into the smooth,
grey stone. Here, precision reigns over all.

Vainly held in place for the length
of a reading, the facade glides
toward a shimmering white dot
on the horizon. The perfect poem, perhaps?
Here, perspective precipitates all.

Like quicksand, a marshy morass
of words ***** at the poet's feet
as he strains to match
the facade's pace, stride for muddy stride.
If he succeeds, pride will power all.

Poetry is breath, inadequately lodged
in the poet's ever-shrinking body.
Reading wrests the silent syntax,
inhales form through its viscera, exhales
metaphor and rhyme. Like becomes like, becomes all.

Scientists aside, the poem thrives as a living organism;
it breathes itself far beyond the face of the facade;
it swirls into the stratosphere, flying
straight toward the cosmos' breathless edge.
Here, the getting of wisdom is all.

Dull orange bracken clings to the peat-like soil that seeps
into muddy moors past Devon. A shadowy fog makes
a royal landing on the low-slung ridge, spewing
fists of mist fit for scalers of Lakeland mountains,
balancing on the knife edge of Helvellyn before dawn.

I follow the droppings-dappled sheep trails, veering away
from the road. A ***** white flock nuzzles the close-cropped
scrubland for shoots of greenery, but masticates only humid air.
In the dim light of evening, a dark presence looms on the uneven
horizon: a distinct world fitfully revealed and obscured, liberated from,
then confined to the clinging veil of illusion that clutches the Earth.

This is no pilgrimage into the noirish heart of nature, yet
I detect through the flattened corona of the monarch moon
outlines of a troupe of Shakespearean ghosts tottering my way.
Revealed and obscured, like questions in Hamlet's tragedy,
they would gladly chant as a Greek chorus, if only they had
material voices to be heard. Together, they mime the news

of Elizabethan England: betrayal and intrigue, executions
and ***. The lust for power pours the foundation of the
City of Man -- sin and ambition, deception and pride. I hear
nothing but the constant scuff of my boots against wet stone.
Silence wraps round me like a cloak of quicksand. I must try
to scrape it clean. But with each new blade stroke, no novel
message emerges, no sign points homeward. Emptiness reigns
like a ruthless queen, ****** and shorn, an otherworldly white.

Looking back, I search for Coleridge strolling atop the Quantock Hills.
He has coaxed the Wordsworths there, convincing them to barter
isolation for inspiration. Poetry speaks to William, demanding
a new voice, a new style that joins the bright heart of nature to the brooding spirit of man, that lifts the lowly moments of the mundane
into the celestial heights of the Poet's magisterial meditations on Being.

All this once would have sufficed for me, but the stale, soaked smell
of sheep reminds me that I remain alone. Night falls and the moors
glisten from the constant damp. No one comes to England for its weather or cuisine. No one comes for solace or comfort or love. History,
      literature,
haute couture, base passions: Such is the recipe for a signal
      significance,
for a British extravagance of soul. It abides in the blackened bowels of Exmoor, launched from fallow footpaths and sodden goat trails,
skillfully trammeled by ghosts who juggle in silence the lavish jewels
of Elizabeth's crown, sparkling in the saturating mists before dawn.