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.

(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

I

the memory -- ethereal --
sprouts forth upon a field
so like a dream so real
we are caught up in it running to overturn
each black stone sweating to hide
behind
the Self we cannot hide behind

for controlling;
to control this Love-thought-lust
****** the waste deep into the Sun

                        II

Earth-day woman, you are both
young and old alike, you frighten me woman

with your sanctity your sanity
of purpose
it is almost wooden
the laughter in your eyes
it is almost grain
this hunting of both

the prey beneath the stone
black not hiding
the harvest of elusive heat behind bodies
turned silver by the Sun... you sing

                        III

hands defile the planting of seeds, overturn
the passion that silently touching your song
could burst into flames

ash chaff so hot
come running back to this lust-thought-Love
let my tongue taste the saltiness of your sweat

let my hands cut deep into the woodenness
of these stones so blackened

with soil

(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

1.

dawn
grayness turning pink and orange mist
upon the crooked vines, the fragrant rows of trees

i see only a wasteland, as my brother's face brushes past
"i am human,"
"i am free,"
i breathe
in and out

in and out
Abel is crying, sobbing softly,
broken in the fields
ever so faintly the echo fades

"Murderer, murderer,"  my conscience screams
screaming into my daylight dream of guilt and remorse

i bolt upright in flames of pouring sweat
the finger of God pointing
firmly at  me

2.
the serpent will not visit me now or again
of this i am certain

but with elongated, ***** fingers
i have given shape to the swirling
shroud of blood that surrounds me

i am encapsulated by regret
with a curious ambivalence of the will
i cast off
the cloak that splatters
into a thousand drops of wine-red liquid

reminiscences, shadows and reflections:
sorrowful leaves sparkling with the glint
of the dazzling morning light

all this and more lies scattered on the wind

my struggle is so heavy; the flames consume so much

wearily i lay myself down to rest
to breathe deeply in this stark, elusive silence:
the silence of the moral void

rest in weariness, rest
and the unpredictable predispositions of divine justice
will expand and divide ever so slowly
with the course of my dreaming

i am  human; i am free; yet i still cannot scrub
the blood stains off my hands.
they leave a mark
that will never leave me

murderer, brother, i am resigned
to suffer the plight of eternity
alone

i am human
i am free
no longer

(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

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.

Enervated, unenlightened,
I trudge the path to the Cirque
of Gavarnie, lodged high
amid the French Pyrenees.

Sheep cluster on the *****.
Mud and muck mar my way.
I must will myself forward,
weary unto death,
yet soon to rise up above the Earth.

As I lay dying, I will write poems
on my palm, using a calligrapher's brush.
The ink will dry overnight.
In the morning I shall start again.

Li Po sits beside me, reciting
haiku and clasping his palms.
When I am gone, he will burn the ink and brush
and streak his palms in rich charcoal.

From Plato's cave
we rise together,
shirking shadows
for the light.

No longer ours, thoughts
burrow deeply into
the shared, human
kingdom of insight.

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.

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.

I fought for beauty, goodness and truth
against your nihilistic violence of love.
All guards down; teeth, claws, hammers, awls;
frenzied, you wielded your weapons of choice.

Your aim was deadly, like a cheetah taking down a gazelle.
It's only necessary, you said, that nature's black palette
be gentle: It obliterates the conscience, paints over all wounds..

I found mine bearable, torn flesh here, black eye
there, a gimpy walk, an endless headache..My energy
level collapsed; I had no appetite, no ambition, no hope
for escape.

Your hold on me was like the hangman's, delaying the inevitable,
yet asking for a little decorum before the bitter end. And still you
fought like a she-cat, black, sleek, sinewy -- God's beautiful killing
machine. You attacked like lightening -- swift, crooked and wonderfully on fire.

You clawed my face, my back, my brain at its soft spot.
You cracked my skull with your nearly 90-pounds-of-pressure jaw. You tore open my chest, ripped out my heart to sacrifice it to
your gods of vengeance.

Then you drew a map in the blood and offal inside the cavernous
room of my beaten body. The map charted a path to the heart no longer there; to the brain now chomped in half; to the claw marks on my face, my back, my tattered torso. Each path you drew left a ragged incision that eventually healed and left a scar.

"Follow the scars," you said; "they will lead you to the soul --
or the blackened morning sun. Follow them and see
how my love is virtue; how it knows no limits."

the simple heart sinks
with the simmering sun
time passes like
a Puccini opera, tragic and bold,
gentleness wavers on the gossamer wind
her delicate touch vanishes
from my vulnerable heart
beauty blossoms by the end of day
clouds swirl in calligraphic patterns
no one dares mention soul

Socrates fought sophistry,
the pimping of rhetoric
to win every argument.

His reward: hemlock.
Now he cross-examines heaven.

i have watched herds of buffalo roam free and unassuming around me
their majesty and inheritance innate;
the earth could but tremble when they moved so slowly

and i have seen elk in groves grazing docile like cattle,
their flanks thick with sinew, their heads lifted and turned,
carrying antlers like a crown and destiny

but this,   o this is something new:
i have seen alaska come tumbling from her eyes
bright and flickering like a candle in amber

i have fallen through those amber eyes that turn away quickly
from my face
i have come tumbling from her eyes
to speak:

"there is always hope

i have climbed the mountains of the West
massive, endless, and blue
forsaking the common trail so well-known and so well-defined by
stones painted orange   green   like shrines
rising high and far apart:   forever forward

and i have dug my hands deep into rocky  hillsides
to stay upright and have fallen
to go where no man ever was or will be
trekking cautiously through smoky forests and snow
always higher, gaining so much ground steep and sloping
until both air and trees spread thin
and i would stop  

yes, i would stop
to listen to the wind blowing hard through the pines below
clouds would cover me:   they could go no higher
and i would breathe, with my whole body,
the silent serenity of solitude and half-frozen lakes

time had no meaning here; there was but one day always
and in the afternoon it began to rain
silver beads of water, like tiny clouds
froze upon my beard and glasses:
i could not see nor speak

the darkness would grow cold and numb and cover me
a blanket without warmth

the night afforded no apology
i could not be distinguished from it
i do not remember becoming part of it

part of it shivering beneath the stars
shivering into dawn
alone

i could find nothing there but strength pure and flowing
from within
it was here i built my dream in homage and wilderness
so high above the earth."
having spoken

having spoken
i see my days come tumbling from her eyes
and i am tempted
bright and flickering like a candle in amber
i am tempted
to smear the dripping wax warm upon my forehead   over my body
when it dries it will be tasteless and intoxicating
yes, smooth like wax
like amber

our shadows rise
on the winds
floating like flat
darkened clouds
ready to spill rain
ready to spew specks
of identity
dense as bone

all is hidden
on the pavement
unsteady outline
of a stretched-out
body minus feet
weightless as sight
wobbly as breath
penniless as touch

our shoes demand
new strings
a place
in the picture
wavering lumbering
like behemoth
branches rocked
by the winds

sprinkling
flecks of substance
shooing
voices to silence
sensing
the pluck of music
waiting
in the wings

The Man in the Moon
stares down at us,
craggy and cryptic,
a closet curmudgeon.

His face shows all
the bumps and wrinkles
of the lunar surface:
cosmic age spots, growing older.

He is isolated, stuck circling
the Earth all day and night,
cast into outer darkness,
blinded routinely by the sun.

What he doesn't show
is his vast loneliness. Until,
that is, he discovered a gift left
behind from the moon landing:

A huge, cuddly hare, hopping
over moon rocks, flopping
its big furry ears. O the Man in
the Moon is lonely no more.

I hurriedly push past myself,
watching my body from above,
feinting with consciousness,
fainting into the Spanish black.

Velazquez's Las Meninas
jack-hammers a tunnel
of ek-stasis, pulling me into
the painter's dark studio,

weighed down by overwhelming
curtains, curtailing the senses'
sense of majesty and control.
This is not trompe l'oeil. This is

tricking the soul into the artifice
of the palette, of paint on board,
of black that illumines perfect
placement: the spectator on the floor.

Stendhal's sensitivity is no virtue
or vice. It suckles the sublime,
sated on illusion, art for art's sake,
delivering a blow to the solar plexus.

I gasp as my body trembles at tremors
of terror, annunciations of angels
bearing paintbrushes as paltry wings.
Their back feathers stained a Spanish black.

Painting owns no one, owes no one
comfort or joy or pedantic instruction.
The cherubs in the foreground radiate
innocence, wonder, humanity's blank heart.

At my feet, my body wriggles skyward,
wrenches for a transplant. Paint on it
Velazquez's black moustache, then part
the velvet curtains. I will rise to new life.

Berries and cream, Gruyeres’ eternal taste,
Cream thick as wooden bowls you pour it from.
The mountains rise outside the village gate.
The castle, past the bridge, bids all to come.
Walls surround the square, the well, the worn slate.
Outside them gleam the green, vast pastures, some
As fresh as cream; well worth the bovine wait.
Turrets, arches, beams: elements of form.
Traipse the cobblestone at an uphill gait.
Shops sell crafts, art to the beat of Swiss drums.
Time suspends its march: the cadence of fate.
Here, the Middle Ages live on and on.
Gruyeres offers tranquil treasures that sate
The traveler’s wish for a world full of charm.

1.
Angels with gossamer wings
flit heavenward
like bees nuzzling roses
for honeyed perfume.
I watch the angels flutter
higher and higher until
they grow smaller and smaller.
One of them looks back and says,
"You, too, will fly when the sinking
day darkens; when the moon
circles the Earth one last time."

2.
I think how I must free myself
from gravity, from finitude,
from time. The serious day
darkens. I watch it wriggle
into the sea, as infinite
as the sky, it seems, but a richer
shade of blue. The roses
eject the bees, their transparent
perfume wafts over me
like a mystical atomizer; particles
splaying my face, bathing my eyes.

3.
Beyond the sky, in ethereal Elysium,
the Immortals dwell. I gather my life
and cast it at their translucent feet.
They answer only in Greek riddles.
Oedipus wanders among them.
I am as blind as he, sinking into
a sea of shadows. Like a feathered
coral reef, wings waver over
the ocean floor. When the sated
day darkens, they will alight
on my back like petals on a rose.

none of this is new anymore
the writing,
the dreaming,
the happy guilt

how many times have i sat
and listened
to the wet leaves slap
against the cold morning pavement?

how many time have i seen
the trees in wonder
give their smoky shapes
to loneliness,
changing with the seasons?

the seasons keep bringing me
back to the knowing,
time in the moving
moving through time

for many they claim
that this is the triumph:
the nature of return
to the original presence

but who among them
can give force to the anguish,
defy the distance,
there-being,
himself?

surely the answer must be immanent in the asking

it must be the place
that is severed from its project

and not i who am falling
through the horizon of meanings

Like Leviathan of old,
the rough, angry ocean
pummels the basalt shore
and coughs up its denizens
of the deep

California Gray Whales
breach the surface of
the autumnal Oregon waters, slide
over the waves like seals
on a hunt,
their colors mingling perfectly
with the yellow-tinged whitecaps,
their bodies aimed perfectly
at migration south.

How innocent they sound
as their songs penetrate
the cacophony of the
crashing surf.

How magnificent they sound;
untranslated poetry, haunting
love lyrics, caressing
the beloved with a sonata
of sonar.

Like a child, they sing for joy,
and the sea turns a deaf ear.

But I hear them. and am transfixed
by their emotion and intelligence.
They sing to me, a mammalian
serenade at dusk.

I dare not sing back
for fear of failure. Of foolishness.

Yet I weep to hear them sing again,
once more, before their majestic
passing to the milder seas of Mexico.

He slumps against the charity's steps.
Torn, oversized Army jacket, a ragged
stocking cap, unwashed face and hands.

His arm extended, he asks for a few dollars.
I resist his obsequiousness and answer
that I carry no cash, which is a lie.

I ponder why I am so afraid to associate
with him; his presence a finger of shame
pointing directly at my recalcitrance.

I drive home in my air-conditioned car,
thinking that I had helped him stay off
the *****. No money was for his own good.

Then my conscience strikes me hard: I am a liar,
a coward. That could have been my brother,
living alone on the cheap streets of Costa Rica.

I quickly turn the car around, race back
to the charity, whose doors remain closed.
I search among the grimy faces. He is gone.

the seventh angel
carries the book
of days even-
numbered and blue

feral cats lead
donkeys to the
crow's-nest crest of
window-box bougainvillea

an angry priest swings
a golden censer
at pagan worshipers
up early he tends a tiny

garden in the sacristy
stained-glass laurel
trees spring up
over bejeweled pews

i count the orange
fishing nets caked
in cork larger pieces
breathe like fish

gills in neon purples
and greens piscine
hearts anchor
the poet's heart

possessions prove
useless on nudist beaches
flesh presses sand
presses flesh

i chant the cloning
of yellow dawns
the bearded archangel
guards the beads of dna

harbor-front havens
open wide their gates
tourists rush in
laptops aglow

all is even-numbered
and blue on this
endless dawn of angels
and ouzo and open hearts

Weakness of will plagues the poet:
Misery he can’t slow down.
Find talent; he tries to grow it.
His scratchings issue no sound.
His Muse is mute; his heart knows it.
His vision of art ground down
Like Leibniz’s lens. Sloth shows it.
Light dims, could still come around.
A poem builds steam, then slows it.
His gift a gift the void crowns.
One time he wrote well. He knows it.
Now passion cannot be found.
Whence Dante’s raft? He will row it.
Fragments of rhyme underground.

Warm and tender, the sotto voce passages
of The Passion of Joan of Arc soundtrack
waft softly through the room,
replenishing the pre-winter glow
of a perfect autumn afternoon.

Deep yellows, oranges and reds line
the cracking, gray sidewalk –
beacons of the inexorable killing to come
in this, the outpatient season.

I have survived many such seasons,
thinking only of what lies ahead,
willing myself blind to what has come before,
vainly trying to grasp what is here, now,
dream upon dream upon dream.

I flee Time, the incorrigible executioner,
who leads each brilliantly colored leaf –
its medical gown gaping – to the lip
of the abyss, forcing it, with
an icy hypodermic shove, over the edge.

At the bottom lie piles upon piles of
fading badges of courage – oak, maple, elm;
crumpled prescriptions;
fraying prayer flags once flown to protest
Nature’s annual euthanasia.

Now, in this outpatient season, let us not forget
the sap of the trees slowly freezing,
let us not forget the mesmerizing harmonies
of angelic anthems urging us to turn away
from the illusory beauty of death.

But let us hear the screams of Joan of Arc
as she is burned at the stake for heresy,
the flames leaping as high as her crudely
shorn head, singeing away her wispy eyebrows:
She, the chief victim of ecclesial euthanasia.

Yes, this is the outpatient season,
the season where autumn goes to die –
stripped, prepped and scrubbed –
and where we strive to survive,
in deep yellows, oranges and reds.

Mephistopheles moans.
His bargain won; now what
to do? What good is a human
soul as vanquished prey?

Faust exults in his superhuman
strength. He holds an unfair
advantage over all other poets.
No drug testing for magic.

He dances with the devil,
cheek to cheek. He swoons
at the crescendo, falls into
his partner's waiting arms.

There is something maniacal
in his character, like arsenic
in a tall, cold glass of water.
He gets drunk on it, gets high.

Who will judge his newest
achievement? Like for like cannot
be found. He stays isolated
in his cold grey cage. No touching.

Freedom breeds creativity,
the force of all masterworks.
Faust settles as a lap dog
for Mephistopheles.

Soulless, the poet wanders
through Dante's circles
of hell. With whom will he
find his place? No place

for his cheapened soul. No
punishment for his fiery
hubris. He forms artist and
audience as one substance,

and applauds himself.
His victory is self-serving,
but he has no human
self to serve. His triumph rings

hollow. He plays the xylophone
on his ribs. The music turns
toy-like and irritating. He has
gone too far. No way back.

Like becomes like.
Mind fashions experience into spirit.
Experience absorbs mind, shapes its ethereal body.
We know more than we see, taste or feel.
The invisible encircles the straining atoms
of thought, expands until there is space
to fill with my mind as your mind.

infinity reigns
his ways are not our ways
hope blooms eternal

1.
The sky, slate gray, settles
On the horizon.
The Earth, drab brown, buckles
Under the weight.
Trees scrape the clouds
For sustenance, their
Branches like bony fingers
Clawing the thickened air.

                 2.
Sparrows flutter in the lawn.
Heat rises.
This summer ecosystem
Unwittingly
Works together for
The proletariat’s revolution.
Creatures of the world unite!

                 3.
I stare for hours out
My empty front door,
And see
Not a single movement.
The south wind has died
Down. The ideal vanishes.
Grass stands tall in the dimness.
Squirrels perch high on trees,
Scolding.

                 4.
If I could tell Nature
One thing, it would be
Not about its circular seasons.
Not about its intricate play
Of flora and fauna.
Not about its compromised
Beauty decorated in decay.
Not about its exodus of species.
No, I would sing of its
Invisible source, random
And ordered,
Mysterious yet familiar,
The coalescing, pressurized
Source of our water-logged
Globe.

                 5.
I would tell of
The feast of the senses,
Cacophony and all.
The red tooth and claw
Of survival.
The colors of delight
Along a mountain stream.
All in one; that’s the secret.
Harmonious, injurious,
Savage, tame.
Who takes the part must take the whole.

                 6.
The sky, slate gray, settles on the horizon.
The Earth, drab brown, buckles beneath the weight.
I stare for hours out my front door, and see nothing.

In my eyes,
the faint light of evening falls.
Soon all will be darkness,
time to envision
tragedy or joy.
No markers lead the way
to my leap of faith.

I hurriedly push past myself,
watching my body from above,
feinting with consciousness,
fainting into the Spanish black.

Velazquez's "Las Meninas"
jack-hammers a tunnel
of ek-stasis, pulling me into
the painter's dark studio,

weighed down by overwhelming
curtains, curtailing the senses'
sense of majesty and control.
This is not trompe l'oeil. This is

tricking the soul into the artifice
of the palette, of paint on board,
of black that illumines perfect
placement: the spectator on the floor.

Stendhal's sensitivity is no virtue
or vice. It suckles the sublime,
sated on illusion, art for art's sake,
delivering a blow to the solar plexus.

I gasp as my body trembles at tremors
of terror, annunciations of angels
bearing paintbrushes as paltry wings.
Their back feathers stained a Spanish black.

Painting owns no one, owes no one
comfort or joy or pedantic instruction.
The cherubs in the foreground radiate
innocence, wonder, humanity's blank heart.

At my feet, my body wriggles skyward,
wrenches for a transplant. Paint on it
Valazquez's black goatee, then part
the velvet curtains. I will rise to new life.

Sheep graze the massive green meadows, wholly unaware
of the dilapidated barn I have come upon. Each rotting
plank a page of struggle, then failure, success and more failure.
Oblivious, the sheep have reached Nirvana: endless heaven of food.
I might envy them, except for their muddy, mixed colors of wool.
Paradise does not mean purity for these plump little herbivores.
They baah unknowingly, nature’s mystic vision: bliss of instinct.

Circles of rope, white, grey and bilious, squeeze around
Wetterhorn Mountain’s chest, leaving only its angled
forehead in sight. Like the tail of St. George’s fiery dragon,
the clouds sink into stone, ******* down their grip
until nothing is left breathing, until nothing is left. Stone
emits a feeble cry of fear and trembling. The dragon’s
tail squeezes tighter, intent on suffocation -- severe oxygen
deprivation above timberline.  
                                                          
Rain is the Sancho Panza to the mountain’s Quixote;
the circles of Dante’s Hell mirror the clouds’
constant clinging below the pointed, harpoon peak.
You can climb this mountain as in Purgatory, but its path
is polished to a slippery ***** from the clouds’
constant rains: such a dubious, deadly affair. Only St. Georges
persevere here; only the holy ones manage not to stumble
on the bulky, slick rocks.
                                        
Rain is not a baptism, but an ablution.
Rain threatens the clarity of the day. Rain threatens
the clinging of the day to the present. Always, such rain will pass.
Puddles in post holes, precarious ascent to the cloudless light.
Rain clears the path in hindsight but nurtures the future to come
quickly, like cacti with brief, brilliant blossoms.
Let the thorns be your payment for grasping the blooms.

I follow the droppings-dappled sheep trails of Exmoor, veering right
toward the hills. A ***** white flock nuzzles the close-cropped
ground, but gnaws only humid air. In the dim light of evening,
a presence looms on the uneven horizon: the world of my
future and former selves, fitfully revealed and obscured,
first liberated from, then confined to the clinging veil of illusion
that clutches the dark English countryside, legacy of my birth.

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
mime the news of my heritage and inheritance: sin and ambition,
deception and pride. Emptiness reigns within me like a ruthless
queen, ****** and shorn, painted an otherworldly white: Elizabeth.

All this once would have been enough, but the soaked smell
of sheep reminds me I am still alone. No one comes to England
for solace or comfort. Yet the recipe for lasting identity, for a
significance of self, abides in the dark hills of Exmoor, launched
from sodden sheep trails, trammeled by a gaggle of ghosts who
juggle the jewels of Elizabeth's crown, sparkling in fog before me.

Diffused rays of ever-brightening light
scoot across the hardwood floor,
pooling on the space where we last lay together.

A long, yellow-pine slat of wood
gleams in the afternoon sun;
a bump of lacquer breaks above the surface.

For eons, we have coaxed each other
into the light, bearing down upon us
in ever-whitening stripes of purification.

Our love becomes the light, seeping through
the dark crevices of our hearts,
scouring the deep recesses of shadow and doubt.

The floor creaks as we glide across it,
hardy survivor of this hundred-year-old house.
Our love creaks as the past thrusts itself into the present.

We cannot grasp it, but we feel its warmth
wash over us again and again. We know
the light of love overcomes all oblivion.

1.

Edward Estlin Cummings
rode Buffalo Bill’s watersmooth-silver
                                                          stallion
into my high school English class in 1971
and broke onetwothreefourfive lightbulbsjustlikethat
                                                                                   over my head
he was a forceful man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Poet

2.

E. E. Cummings
whistled
the

goat-footed
balloonMan’s        tune
far
and
wee

in Just-
spring
and
      i heard
nothing but
the world as puddle-wonderful

3.

e. e. cummings cut the tops off
his capital letters and i

                                    stayed a little
                                                        person

l(a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
one
l

y

i never signed
                      my name
                                      the same
                                                    again

the cyan sky shimmers
towering treetops shimmy
all rivers flow heavenward
coyotes yawn at dawn
the sun reinvigorates itself

Liquid diamonds adorn the sea,
silver sunbursts of brilliance shine
through the waves, living, heaving,
violent jewels of seaweed and paste.

The sky bares its midriff of pale blue
skin, unmarred like a newborn, a marble
dome of sweetness and smoothness,
restless to immerse the nascent dawn in light.

Under the fierce Aegean sun, we saunter
toward Pireas' port, bags packed, supplies
secure, farewells sobbed, to set sail for Spain,
like Odysseus on his makeshift barque.

The journey demands a lifetime of searching
signs, of casting far and wide to escape
the Sirens' enervating songs, anchoring
the helm in darkened caves the size of yurts.

On the hunt for El Greco, the Greek painter
holed up in Toledo, his home away from home,
his haven of elongated, diaphanous figures,
who rise to the clouds, linking heaven and earth.

We owe the Greeks the fat seeds of culture:
philosophy, theater, sculpture for all, democracy
for the fortunate few, women and slaves stuck
in the kitchen pouring libations for ancient sins.

Shades haunt the past, mounting arsenals of guilt
and accusation. The Greek splashes linseed oil on
canvas, erases his debt, dabs an eerie white in the eyes
of threadbare saints, who elevate to everlasting heights.

Supersensible residue of sound
      reverberating within
the waves & waves & waves of consciousness

reflective laughter flashing
          in the depths of eyes

upon the precipice's edge
          the Absolute folds in on itself

My father’s legacy dies within me.
I carry his book of rules like a coffin with no lid.
A long, grey, wooden rectangle
Full of admonition and praise,
Phrases spilling out like stones
Splashed with symbols and ciphers.
Stones stacked to heights below my grasp,
Staging the play of ancient axioms:
Do, don’t, resist.
Ahead, the future, rife with signs:
Go, stop, resist.
Resist the emptiness of death,
The ephemera of memory.
Carry stones like sins.
Pray for mercy, forgiveness.
Carry his legacy like iron
In the soul.
Weight of sorrow and disbelief.
Weight of anguish and grief.
Nothing dies within me.

bright floral bonnet
young lovers nuzzle, silent
Eros' kiss; first blush

The pallid, pure, lemon-colored sky
is no great loss.
You are suffering now,
floating like the dreaded archangel
through the fragrant floral wreaths.

The end of day,
this gentle light upon
the resin-colored hill,
filters through
all threat of sorrow.

You shall be known
tomorrow, it proclaims,
as they are known today --
en masse,
without pretense,
bearing new names.

Rome conquered Gaul,
erected vestal statues
whose vestiges still stand today,
symbols of the lust for
power that turns all foreign
territories into home.

Romans enforced the
Pax at swordpoint,
built long, straight
roads throughout Provence.

Centuries later,
Vincent van Gogh
wandered among
the ruins at St. Remy
and sunflowers
began to bloom.