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.

Muscling past yards and yards of clothes
over yards and yards of shoes, I reached
the back corner of her closet, dark, dusty,
deserted. I gently moved the shoes
out of my way, looking for what might
lie there, hidden, in boxes long forgotten.

I discovered a fiery red opal, once
the centerpiece of a magnificent
ring, but now lying loose from its
setting, stuck amid the collected
detritus of a long, luxuriant life.
Opals were her favorite gems,

After diamonds. So I picked it up,
wiped the dust away and dropped
it in my pocket, where the opal
seemed to burn with zeal to
see the light again after so many
years of darkness. I could feel it sparkle.

Its beauty reminded me of hers,
fiery, bubbly, lighting up at
the slightest hint of wit. She laughed her
way through life, perennially
an optimist, finding the future rich
with possibilities of goodness

And love. Out of her closet at last,
I walked into the front room
and placed the opal on the mantle.
It shone, as expected, in the low-
lying rays of the late-afternoon sun.
It would be the perfect stone, I knew

to lay on her grave.

We came to the chalet in the lush valley
at the foot of the Eiger. The line of
mountains rose ragged against the sky.

North Face loomed, a fatal *****
begging to be climbed. Death beckons
on its icy rock face soaring into the foggy
clouds, only to vanish. No peaks, no crags, no crevasses.

The ogre offered no relief, no guidance,
no help to attain the top -- the prize of balance,
strength, courage, and willpower.

We came to the valley to absorb the glory
of the Swiss 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.
Too much for the scrawny human spirit to take in.

Apple trees heavy with fruit line the patio of the chalet.
Receptive, fecund, the Earth brings forth
sustenance to the eye, to the taste buds.
We will not climb Eiger, only devour its power.

heavy yellow-grayish waves
of swirling ****** backwater
**** steadily at the runner's knees
foaming at the ankles
deep green and lathered
in the sweeping middle distance.

he sweeps the rise of sand
and sedge with arms outstretched,
eyes afloat
fingers ply the flesh along his back,
brush water from his legs
the sheeny stinging film of brine

the white beach runs its sweeping course
swirling, sinking with the sand
drowsing in the drunken sun
refuge is offered -- a luminous blue
screeching of the soaring gulls
the thunder of the surf

great black rocks divide the tide
rolling in fields of azure
limitless, integral
he calls the sky
sweeping back
upon the distance
the endless sweeping middle distance

sunlight dazzling complexities of colors
ascetic flashings in richness of form
purity of beauty in fragrant elevation
the taste, the touch,
the vital intensity

swept away running
for the purely accidental,
the happiness, success
of the accident of nature

movement in rhythm, swift in apprehension
swiftly toward the integral combination
to combine the elements
fundamental, the intensity,
the taste, the touch,
the vital intensity

Ignore the Tao.
Mountains remain mountains.
Moon remains moon.
Infinity in a grain of sand,
raw silk, uncut wood.

Man sweeps earthen floor,
mindfully makes jasmine tea.
Everything is as it always was.
All confusion shattered
in the clear light of being.

Six waterfalls shoot through the viscera of the mountain,
jack-hammering the stone with the precision of
an Excalibur ax. The jet-engine force of the water
cannot be resisted: It is destined for victory,
deep canyons the sign of its easy conquest

We all carry a waterfall within us --
spidery and delicate, or pummeling the heart like
a heavyweight prize fighter. The count nears 10.
The falls are guaranteed a TKO. The heart, a soggy
mess of muscle, simpers in its corner, lost and forlorn.

I shower beneath my falls, which wear away
all my grit and grime, all my stains and soot, for the mere
price of my surface blood. “Vengeance is mine,”
declares the falls, laughing as I stagger beneath the weight
of the water, scrubbed clean again, but missing the heart.

The Ancient Mariner slaughtered
this ungainly bird around my neck
like a bridle it directs my days
like a talisman it breeds only doom
the poet acts the marksman
his words aim at the all-seeing eye
to blind it of foreknowledge
to skew its vision toward the western sky

Only the bird hears my words
recited like a child's rhyme
only its wings mute my voice
flapping recklessly on deck
the music of my verse turns to spleen
for the ****** masses who assault me
the albatross a mere distraction
an impotent symbol useless and puerile

The bird's plaintive cry resounds
as the measure of all poetic voices
why speak when you can fly
why land when the weight of the world
propels you forward atop faded alexandrines
you can goose-step from height to height
or slosh through the gutter swishing music
into broken light spying feathers at your feet
biting the bullet of your humiliation
plotting the evil in all things

The genome tilts on its axis, spilling memes of shame,
mutation and death, tattooed on plasma walls.

Coronavirus latches onto a lowly cell, clamps down,
spews pellets of bubonic plague as fleas flee disaster.

1666. Eyam Village barricades its boundaries: No going in.
No going out. The population dies like convulsing rats,

bodies stacked high in the street: cords of firewood. No one dares
light the flame. Pestilence obeys the border's blockade, contained

behind thick, golden stones. Tiny cottages mutate to infirmaries.
Judgment seeps through window panes. Mercy aligns with death.

We build no blockades, boundaries shift in the wind. Virus obeys
no one's laws, vandalizes the body, sets fire to the human touch.

Eyam beams prettiness now. Neat, manicured lawns, well-swept streets,
no trace of plague save on the village entry sign. Tourists flock like fleas,

soaking up history's survival, sobering on its showcase of blight.
Who deserves to die from nature's aberrations? *Who goes in, who out?

Here, atop a rocky crag,
walking stick in hand,
I survey the swirling
mountains of fog,
a vast gray-white panoply
of vanishing peaks,
blanketed in clouds
doomed to dissipate
in the returning sun.

But no heat ever comes,
leaving me wrapped
in my moody solitude,
eyeing the outcroppings
of ragged stone, reveling
at summiting the top of Europe,
scaling the sluggish
slopes of transcendence.

This is what Nietzsche
hailed as self-overcoming,
rising to the grand height
of perfect power and control:
my will alone uber alles.
Aswirl, I order the horizon
to fulfill my desire, to shift
into view all that is missing
from my finite vista -- the glory
of nature -- only to have it
swallowed up instantly
in the menacing shadows
and mists of immovable stone.

Apples fall from the tree
behind the Swiss chalet.
They fall through me as
shadows climb and crest
Wetterhorn Mountain,
crowned by rocky horns
borne from Michelangelo's
"Moses." Horns of brilliance
and power, horns of shining
light that passes through me
into the shadows of the sun-stained
mountain, whose horns turn,
twist and fall through me
into the scattered piles
of apples plopping
onto the neon green grass.
Apples tumble through me
as I pass into the silence
within the silence that beckons
from the mountaintops. I am
the fruit of darkness and light,
fruit of the horn of the divine,
a son of Moses seeking exodus
beneath this rocky band of ragged peaks.

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.

Lying down
at the day’s intermission,
I listen to Puccini arias,
and am transported to Lucca,
his walled hometown,
with its *****-white streets,
its darkened straits,
its massive cathedral under
eternal construction.

Life limps along in
effervescent flux here,
beauty kept dormant,
or sprouting like a tree
from the Torre Guinigi’s
grassy roof.

A one-time amphitheater
sports cloned tourist shops.
Only one
sells Puccini souvenirs.
La Boheme survives
on note cards and
lop-sided bookmarks.

The composer’s legacy turned
into trinkets made in China.
A vast, discounted reserve
of memory, kitsch and fame.
Still, they provide me
a precarious solace.

Music without words
charts my tourist mood
of endless angst.
Opera is the grandest art,
some critics claim.
The human condition rendered
thick in symbol and sound.

Happily, I carry
the philosopher’s stone
to decipher the soaring
scores.
They say, passion, foreboding,
no regrets. A fluttering
high C stirs the airwaves.

Ululating sopranos,
searing tenors sigh
heavenward.
The last act over,
the curtain rises on
the dull, restless, repetitive
routines of everyday life.

In the background,
echoes of Tosca, currents
of ruin and rust.
We must embrace our destiny
even on the off-notes.
Opera’s solo signal:
Amor Fati.

Grief becomes you.
Your wan, tear-stained face.
Your razor-sharp finely cut dress,
black shoes, black pearls, black hat, black veil.

You were cavalier in life,
cloying with black at death.

Abandoned, she waits
for her lover's return
across the empty field.
Banks of clouds bunch up
behind the rising forest.

Loneliness does not dole out harsh
punishment. Solitude re-creates
reparations for the self, fashions
an unyielding glue that will fuse
together all her shattered pieces.

Inwardly she knows he is not
coming back. Her packed bag
a scornful reminder that love
is as fleeting as the wind; it
blows where it will; it razes

whatever stands in its way. Her heart
is not ready for such defeat. Her will
grabs hold of a hope rising behind the
charcoal clouds. He will not return, no.
Still she stares through the trees, alone.

orange dragon clouds
swirl in the dusky, baroque, winnowing sky
the once brilliant day dies within me
still I cling to a rocky pinnacle        alone

(After Dante)

The Beloved glides through the room in light.
A flick of her hand, and shadows dispense.
Her form beams shapely, resonant and bright.
One sharp look will wilt my world, weak and dense.
She is fragrant as hyacinth at night.
She turns around, and my willpower’s spent.
I reach for her arm, but she’s fast in flight.
No coquettish flirting to make me wince.
Only freedom that exposes my plight.
I am lovelorn, hard stricken. No defense.
Rising skyward, she claims heaven, her right.
Living earthbound, I maintain my poor sense.
Still, I yearn for her with heart, mind and might.
My pursuit is authentic. No pretense.

For Laura, the Beloved

Two Tennessee yahoos
trekked the train tracks
outside of town. They
were always at it --
half habit, half quest
for something new.
Anything.

The older man -- perhaps
the father or brother
of the younger -- had
hit on a plan of his own:
Today he would make
something new happen.

It was an act straight out
of a John Berryman
"Dream Song," even though
he had never heard
of the poet or his
magnum opus.
Little did it matter.

Down the tracks, you
could pick up the shrill horn
of a locomotive, barreling
blindly toward its stop
in town -- a Siren solo
that nobody paid
attention to anymore.

But the old man heard.
He stepped more evenly between
the rails, tightly shut his eyes,
and lifted his arms wide,
as if meeting an old friend,
The train sped on, clacking
clinically over the creosote ties.

The Cyclops eye on the face
of the locomotive shone
like a laser into the autumn twilight.
The older man braced himself,
deafened by the lonesome horn.
Like that, the train whooshed past
on the second rail.

He had picked the wrong track
to die on. He fell to his knees,
the horn of the train still rattling
his brain. Years later, he would
tell this tale -- half habit, half quest.
And we could still smell the scent
of something real coming close.

The lighthouse looms
far off-shore,
its blinding Cyclops eye
circling like a hawk
closing in on weary prey.

The beam blips to
infinity, signaling
wayward ships to slow
their progress through
the choppy sea.

From here, on land,
the house rears up like
a medieval tower, a defense
against dragons menacing
murky depths unknown.

I blink back, trying my best
to reach infinity on my own.
The sea is no substitute. Its
vastness sweeps to a pinnacled
caesura on the Western islands.

Ask Melville whether the spiny
reefs held infinity at bay.
Only for a fleeting moment.
Only until a colossal crash on
the firmament sounded. Paradise lost.

We have no paradise here, save
the spectacular Oregon coast
after sunset, when flat sand lights
up like a neon walkway and
purple streaks paint the sky.

Star fish, in puerile pink, cling
to black boulders. Slimy, crooked flesh
at low tide. The lighthouse
keeps signaling to no one.
No shred of infinity to be found.

Come hither
O Thou,is life not a song?
-- E. E. Cummings, "Orientale I," Tulips & Chimneys

1.
i lay the book down
bookmark in place
still shivering with
possibilities still
vibrant in the after-
glow of literature's
vitality words bloom
like daffodils the
white space around
them the clay to
reshape a living
persona of the dead
poet he populates
the page like rain
on fertile soil like
pennies on the
dollar hear him
holler i am here
his heart broad-
casts his feelings
his feelings broad-
cast his voice

2.
i sense e. e. ***-
mings
singing each
chanson innocente
each birth of spring
each burden
of love
joyfully borne
he is there in
the sounds
that echo
in my skull
that slither
down my
spine an
anatomy of
meaning
that even the
harshest critic
cannot dissect
muscle and
bone united
to lift the weight
of puddles
meant for jump-
ing stretching
to tie jump ropes
into knots of
playfulness
still taut
today

3.
it is always
spring in the
dewy meadow
it is always
meadows that
cushion the
poet's fall
o father how
i've failed
you
how i set
free the
body that
hypnotized
the greeks
that still
shifts its
weight
in marble
of oh so
innocent
white

4.
the poem
passes
judgment
on the
pompous
on
repression's
hosts not guilty
are the children
laughing
and skipping
past the
latex
meadows of
the goat-footed
balloonman
who paws
the mud
like well a
tied-up
goat
e. e. whistles
a chanson
from far
and wee
i lay the
book down
and whistle
back
the reader’s
*chanson
de merci

The Black Madonna weeps alone.
The stream of pilgrims
Dammed at its source.
No more touching, no praying,
No pleading for grace.
Only desiccation and silence.

The mountains of Montserrat buckle
Into grey stone clouds,
Rising crookedly above the monastery floor.
They will not rain.

Inside the small art museum, monks
Bank their bounty,
Largess of modern painting.
Degas to Dali.
The Madonna reigns in a room of her own,
Levitating beyond the mountains amid
Angelic beams of light.

It is dim in the basilica,
Candles flicker above a grave.
There is only the sound of weeping.

William Blake's Ancient of Days
casts down atomic-yellow rays
of ever-shimmering light.

Coal-scuttled clouds vie
for dominion in the dusky sky,
majestically darkening into no-longer night.

On the desert floor, barren and warm,
recumbent dunes lie like sleeping women,
restless and turning.

Cacti stand sentinel over unearthly silence.

Gold limns the crests of the dunes.
Muted light paints the sand a once-fiery ocher.

All this passes for isolation in the world,
a cosmic confusion of identity,

Until the entire tableau passes through its stage
of equilibrium, passes through me like liquid.

No day, no night carries the bundle
on the road to enlightenment.

I peer at the synthesis, bemused.
Suddenly, Satori!

1.

Like a colossal black hole,
the pitiless night devours
every glowing shred of light,
generating an impenetrable
darkness for the pilgrim
groping to find his way home.

2.

Darkness is its own reward.
The lines on the highway
disappear into pavement.
Compasses swirl counter-
clockwise, blind to true north.
Death hides behind bushes, reaching
out to ****** the unwitting soul.

3.

I yearn to embrace the night
in all its inhumanity, to find
its weak spot for the traveler.
But there is no shadow of
direction. The night hides
within itself, dense and tragic,
like a Puccini opera.
Who can sing its arias?

4,

Like a colossal black hole,
the night compacts every
beam of light. Who can lift
the curtain of darkness
that falls across our lives?
Who can bring light back to the world?

The clock stops for no one.
Sunday turns to Monday
turns to Sunday.
Endlessly absurd days.

Lorca leans into the bullring's skybox,
freshly painted red and green
like blood and grass beneath the Iberian sun,
where poetry composts into compositions
fit for a toreador, whose tights hug his thin hips,
tempting the huffing beast to hook his groin.

Spain's family jewels bulge behind the tattered
red cape, the one tool of the trade that can't
**** the bull, only blindly enrage it to charge
for its pride, its race, for the red light of glory,
as royalty wave their embroidered handkerchiefs,
awaiting the bull's ****** ear, still warm and steamy,

after so many twirls around the packed-sand dance floor.
Each step kicks up a black faux pas, first lunge
along the fatalistic journey to mortality: a pale thigh gored,
an artery gushes. Gangrene seeps in, drenched
in brandy, which disinfects only the guzzler's gullet.
No antidote to sepsis, no darning of the tights.

The toreador dies to fight another day, his banderillos
still stuck in the **** of muscularity, his eyes darting
among the crowds for a sign of good fortune, good
hunting, as in the old days of machismo and torture
and blind lust for the blood of brutes who threatened
no one but the cowardly prince on horseback, wobbly

beneath the weight of his armor. His ardor as fabricated
as his divine right to rule over the beasts of the field,
over the beaten-down brows of his subjects, toothlessly
grinning at the hope of dining on sacrifice, something
the truly chosen people could do only on the pain of death.
Lorca mourns the dying fighter with the duende of

flamenco, the wild, passionate cry of suffering, the blackest
black of Spain, the urge to create and destroy, to undress
the poet's soul, as naked as a newborn, as powerful as
a raging bull, charging without thinking, divining the forces
of nature like a hurricane, an earthquake. To shout down
death is to immortalize art, as long as human history endures.

Wittgenstein's ladder wavered in the wind,
as he set out to scale the great garden wall
of language. His ladder, hand crafted for many
years in Vienna and Cambridge, came up short.
He could not climb the moss-dappled wall --
his intellectual paramour since
he started building a new metaphysic of the word,
with his Tractatus.

Suddenly, he hit a stalemate. Not able to scoot over
the wall, he washed his hands of trying to analyze the
black hole of predicates, conjugating verbs and slippery
allusions ******* up each particle of proper speech.
He splashed his face in mystic water. then offered
a gnomic pronouncement over his failure. A type of
recipe for missing the mark:

Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent.

A proposition of the limits of language; it turns out we
cannot say everything about everything, after all. So we
must embrace silence in its coarse cloak of humility.
We must stare down our limits.

Jacques Derrida thinks we must write what cannot be
said on the other side of our mystic sputtering.
The written word has an immediate, imperative tone
of authority, he implies, an authority that renders
silence a respectful remnant of our former backward ways.

But silence butts up against the scruffy gray wall
of meaning. And echoes off it precisely as what
has been said. Pointing by writing opens up another
avenue of speech. Writing speech only codifies it
as a once living thing. You must read the written
text then still point to be understood.

As Wittgenstein knew, silence proves less reductive;
writing simply cripples the living word.

evening falls heavily
like footsteps in the sand
gliding with the weight
absorbed in the formless

moonlight reflects
in the dull moving water
through the saw-toothed-edged grasses
all images refract

he takes a step, stumbles
in the darkness, falls heavily
the white sand wrings his ankle
the silent burning in his hands

the pale moon has robbed him
his cries abnegated
he dies
a rivulet of clearer water
trickling creases to the open sea

Abandoned, she waits
for her lover's return
across the empty room.
Banks of fear bunch up
behind her furrowed brow.

Loneliness does not dole out such
punishments. Solitude re-creates
reparations for the self, fashions
an unyielding glue that will fuse
together all her shattered pieces.

Inwardly she knows he is not
coming back. The static portrait
a mournful reminder that love
is as fleeting as the wind; it
blows where it will; it razes

what stands in its way. Her heart
is not ready for such defeat. So she
grabs hold of a hope rising behind the
painted walls. He will not return, no.
Still she stares through space, alone

The sea crashes hard into
the black boulders
of the harbor.
Fountains of spume dribble
landward into crevices.
Shrouded in gloom, I climb
slippery black stairs to see
the spectacle.

Rough sailing ahead.
Rough rains behind.

Cinque Terre craves attention.
Five Lands of building blocks
And pastel colors.
I stand on the *****
of indecision, stumbling
toward the rocky marketplace.

Can I buy peace there?
Can I make fire on the waves?

Riomaggiore anchors my fall
onto the watery stones,
black and blind.
Face down,
I float the Five Beauties of spume.
It is safe among the crevices.

The cloudy sky reflects in the summer pond,
After the long-anticipated rains.
Cattle herd as one; at the water, bond.
They seek moisture, rare on the dusty plains.
A cottonwood gives shade, but no one comes:
Emptiness of the land a stark refrain.
Of the flat horizon, Kansans are fond.
It opens out to an infinite vein
Of loneliness and hope, like a fine frond,
Storing the last baptismal font of change.
Nature terrifies and soothes, justice cons.
It brings as much pleasure as wanton pain.
Still, we pin our longings on Eden’s song,
To hear the Earth’s sirens never again.

Bernini’s sculptures float
over fountains like
a ship’s mast set in stone,
straining to stray off-course.
I follow the muscular, hysterical
flow of the Four Rivers.
Lethe bubbles underground.
Step lightly.

Chubby-faced children spew
showers between their cheeks.
Nothing is quiet in Piazza Navona,
spreading to the seven hills
like a blanket of bedlam.
Heaving waves of tourists
Speak to themselves in tongues.
Whose gift to Roma is this?
The Four Winds? The spigots spilling
holy water onto the hordes
of heedless souls?

Neptune stares down on
my dampened bald spot.
I will Photoshop it out
if he snaps my picture.
Or some petite, American tourist
will, craning her head
like a dolphin
flopping on Neptune’s trident.

Navona is a nova of marble
and foam.
Specters live here.
They shout here, they circle.
Bernini’s spawn.

She brought me dozens of photographs.
White, shining virgins
on the eve of their weddings.

I kept them for days,
these dull, glossy surfaces;
the faint grease of fingerprints
screened the black-and-white view.

I returned them in September
on the white eve of autumn.
She took them in silence,
a sadness I knew.

"I wanted you to choose one,
for whom you had fallen."

"But I'm past the age of falling,"
I said,
"For love, I only stumble."

My brother and I stood three years apart.
We stood toe-to-toe, fists clinched,
each of us angry at the world, each of us an avatar,
each of us angry at the other.

One carried the mark of Cain, a discrete tattoo.
The other wrote poems, an acceptable sacrifice to the gods.
I never recovered the ink he stealthily stole from my desk.
i never recovered his confidence. My fist never unclinched.

At night, we frolicked in Bacchanalian revelries,
in psychotropic highs only poetry could eclipse.
Yet he never respected my temple of books, desecrating pages.
The written word was not his friend. Nor I, in the end.

He had a son out of wedlock; I dedicated poems to the boy.
But he could not speak English; his small tongue would not fit
the hieroglyphics on the page. My brother chiseled them off.
He died in middle age, unsung, poorly read. Still angry at the Word.

Love dies like an assassin's victim: caught
completely unaware, the thud of a bullet to the head,
mouth gaping to pronounce its own name. The heart
pumps its leaking reservoir of warm blue blood; the final
breath gurgles in the chest like a baby nursing.

Love dies because we create it in our own image:
two become one become two again. We see ourselves
darkly in its bright, believing face. We wrap our bodies
around it, lusting for ecstasy, with no room left for
the self, for the other. Like St. George and the dragon, we

unsheath a righteous broadsword to make a surgical
separation of locked *****. We dread what we wish for.
We lose our world in passion, empty-handed when
the end inevitably comes. We crave an eternal love,
but are fit merely for a temporal one. Time is love's assassin.

Quasimodo frantically sounds the alarm,
swinging on bells like a medieval orangutan.
No sanctuary lingers in the smoldering nave.
Gargoyles roar like fire-breathing dragons,
then cower in corners, confused.

Notre Dame crumples in the wind, baptized
by the Holy Ghost and fire. Passion Week
transvalues every value: the great reversal comes.
Centuries of history agonize on the cross; dreams
of resurrection snag on collapsing rooftops.

Once a lighthouse to French pilgrims,
the spire tumbles, puncturing the pews
and all signs of hope. Prayers smother in the billowing smoke.
Non-believers gasp in hellish horror; while
the devil laughs, looting their scorched patrimony.

The ghost of Victor Hugo strolls amid barricades of crime tape.
Fire has done what the revolution could not:
Our Lady has lost her head, flames so much
messier that the swoosh of the guillotine,
strewing collateral damage in their wake.

Pegasus soars with a golden bridle:
imagination unharnessed.
He performs aerial feats
with composure and grace
high above the buckled clouds.

Pure white scion of Poseidon,
he ascends to the heavens.
Lightning and fire flash
in his wake. His flight
lights the world in silence.

Untamed by mortals,
he metamorphoses into
the constellation that bears his name.
Stars spread across the sky
as his pasture; ambrosia
overflows his jeweled feed bag.

The great winged stallion of
Greek mythology, he struck
the earth with his unshod
hooves and purified
water sprang forth.

He irrigated the cosmic mind,
soaked the bone-dry soul.
Those without wings must
continue to search for his
inspired springs of grace.

Rapture of the imagination,
disciplined by the gods,
he paces Zeus' stable,
free of the weight of
humanity; ridden only
by Olympians.

As he prances among
the coiling clouds,
a solitary feather falls
to the earth.
Look for him in the dark.

Purple clouds at dusk.
Canyon walls darken with age.
Elk graze the roadside.
I must change my life.

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.

The dead cannot pray.
They molder in their graves
Awaiting resurrection,
The force that creates
The soul’s yearning for
Transcendence.
We yearn for happiness,
Satisfaction, comfort, rest.
We yearn for meaning,
Purpose, a cosmic path.
We yearn for self-consciousness,
Preciousness, an open heart.
Death cannot extinguish them.
Our days are strung together
Like letters in the sand.
We see the message only
As it disappears.
Night divides the light
Into fractal pieces.
The firmament flattened by
The weight of stars.
We rise and recline like
Mechanical banks.
Shoot a penny into
The lion’s mouth.
Hear the hunter roar.
Death stalks the living,
Sticks its finger in our
Ribs. It is a holdup,
But we carry no cash.
Remember Ozymandias.
Memory sculpts
Memorials that crumble
In the sea.
Waves lap the pieces.
Epitaphs erode.
Death be not proud,
John Donne proclaimed.
But how can the fallen
Take pride in their downfall?
Extinction awaits around
Every corner.
There is no defense.
Death is a theater with
Its curtain half-drawn.
Below it, you track
The actors’ shuffling feet.
Above it, only oblivion
And empty stage lights.

(after E. E. Cummings)

ALPHA

time's mightiest dream
fills unspace with lowliest freedom

we
choose
NOW to act
in alabaster innocence
we
yes the day
its
magnanimous
blessing

we
skip through
greenvanishing
meadows
leap to
pale
indifferent skies
(while memory
whittles
away
the past)

we
carry little
people's
humility;clouds
drain heavens
gates
of slippery/silver
tears

languid lovers lie
in curly locked *****
their coitus
the rasping
friction
of IMmortality

BETA

onetwothreefour equations
rewrite relativity,tumble down
puddle-licious
wormholes

Euclid inhabits
an ice-oceles
triangle
draws line
A to be

pockmarked
moonrocks
pummel
Atlantis

the universe dances
to canticles
of calculus
out-Zorbaing the greek
outshining
the starz

God lurks
in
unlucky alleyways
plays dice
with
Einstein's
willowy
hair  today
de-parts tomorrow

clumsy rolls
of
snake eyes
whistle down
celestial canyons
signals bleep
f  a  r.....    a  n  d .....  w  e  e

OMEGA

present's presence
courages the future
of illusions
(the
blind
heart
bleeds)
on a magician's
rickety stage

quarters sprout
behind junior's ears
magic,tricks
cut in half
cambridgeladies
faint from vapors
peddled by the
goat-footed
good humor man

kings horses
pull the velvet
curtains
a-side

sunken sailors
saLUTE:
scribble
on the sawdust
ocean
(a
n
c
h
o
r
s
a
w
e
i
g
h)
floor

schools of
spermatozoa
break-dance
toward
a/******/****

fluids flow
freely
to hard
hoed rows

cherubs:chime
a flowerblooms

time turn
s  in its
s l e e p

freedom
kisses awake
a  N  E  W  dawn

dreams
swirl
in the
mirror

a poet pens
his epitaph
the soul's eyes
BLINK

unspace floods
with;beauty

stacks on stacks of books
knowledge encrypted inside
who will crack the code?

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.

Death comes to Everyman sooner or late.
You can’t change the days of the life you’ve led.
Some worry, some pray, gripped by anguish, fate.
Some scurry past problems, all in their head.
Philosophy or Art their yearnings sate.
God of the gaps brings others daily bread.
If nothing’s the end, then nothing is great.
Socrates stayed calm on life after death:
Deep sleep or society would await.
Christ died in torment, his last, living breath.
If we believe or not, our hopes abate
At the gaping grave soon filled with fresh earth.
Nature seems too real; supernature’s late.
Best live your life as if already dead.

Lucretius envisioned the universe
as made of atoms governed by chance,
with a "swerve" reserved in the void to
salvage some semblance of free will.

Breathtakingly, he foresaw the chief
discovery of our age: atomism, which
we harnessed for energy, genomes,
and the horror of Hiroshima.

His brilliance cannot compete
with the mushroom cloud's darkness.
He foresaw the building blocks
of reality; we deconstructed them.

Insight, wisdom and true philosophy
live of one side of the millennia.
On the other, that same wisdom
crumbles into fusion, fission and death.

Good can be used for ill, unwittingly;
ill can rarely, if ever, be used for good.
Lucretius peered into the anatomy
of the universe and beheld the atom.

Science of our age followed his vision
and beheld, unwittingly, the ferocious
power of destruction, all atoms swerving
from their path. Free will would have its day.

Jeffers’ poetry is as hard as bone,
His windswept lyrics fed by his dark side.
At Carmel, he built a tower of stone.
Wind, sea and storm fostered his rugged pride.
On nature’s fiery force, his skills he honed.
His message bleak, from which he could not hide,
Foretold an elemental strife alone.
He wrangled roan stallions only few could ride.
His wide-winged hawks over the waves would moan.
He joined their wildness with soul open wide.
His poems made me yearn for his coastal home.
Nothing human-made would pull the tide.
His poetics read: Find your heart in stone.
A Zen he practiced till the day he died.