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: Etch your heart in stone.
A Zen he practiced till the day he died.

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.

Darkness devours the gibbous moon.
Its final sliver shivers in the freezing void.
Pockets of pock-marked light spill out of dusty craters.
Prints from space-age boots deface iconic astronaut signatures.

Colonies of phantoms have settled on the surface.
They sacrifice stars in elaborate rituals of absolution,
then aimlessly amble in circles around the circumference.
They squeeze water from recalcitrant rocks.

In darkness they decline to speak to one another.
Mutely, they await the daily rebirth of solar flares.
The moon generates nothing on its own. Cosmic
passivity mimics social order. A fiery Logos descends.

I cannot grasp myself:
I elide through my fingers.
I cannot face myself:
one pair of eyes eludes my look.

I am intended by consciousness,
still surpassing myself in passion,
still reaching beyond my grasp.
In what is not, I find myself.

i have climbed the mountains of the west
massive, endless, and blue
forsaking the common trail so well-known and so well-defined by
cairns 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
i have trekked 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
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

The old man clamped onto my hand
like a manacle of stars.
I gazed up at his wispy, white beard
and watched his cheeks tremble
as he recited the Iliad in the
original Greek.

Simone Weil, a French philosopher
who starved herself to death,
condemned the violence of the poem
as a testament to the brutality
oozing out of men's souls. Little
to celebrate there. Plenty to mourn.

Hexametric rhythms caught my
hearing: They echoed in my brain
like exhales from labored breathing.
Life or death lost its meaning.
The will to power conquers all.

Swift movements of being, and
broadswords plunged through
finely hammered breastplates.
Black blood pooled at the victim's
feet. Another triumph for Agamemnon.

The old man, collapsed at the poem's
end, shape-shifted to a marble bust of Homer.
I turned to grasp his missing hand,
But the constellation of stars had vanished.
He had instantly become blind.

(For Mary Oliver)

In winter much of the living hibernates.
The dead seek out warmth.
Birds sing only in treetops, serenading
the world beyond. Let us soar to it
on the white wings of your poems.

You have said that one day we shall
live in the sky. but our consolation now
is the green earth, draped in snow.
Our footprints fade as soon as the sun burns down.
You left us in brightness. All your poems
embraced goodness, love and light.

A blanket of feathers covers your grave.
Beside them, a silver pen shines,
the instrument of grace. You wrote
more than we could absorb, more
than our mediocre minds could imagine.

You blessed us with the whiteness
of wisdom. We yearn to follow you
and the tree-top birds into the sky.
For now, we must feed on your alabaster
poetry, nature's hidden calligraphy,
spelling out our names.

Mmmmmmoon Lion roars.
The moon swerves in its orbit.
His voice reaches to the heavens,
avoiding omnivorous black holes.

He contemplates his philosophy
of life: poems written with
incorrigible vitality and verve.
He purrs the "m's" in his name.

Auden said that poetry makes
nothing happen. But Lion invokes
humor and thought, the rigor of form.
He holds deep respect for his readers.

They crave to do him justice in the
wake of an endangering diagnosis.
Poetry elevates the body, tunes in
to its hidden rhythms, sings its source.

As in Oz, the lion needs courage
to face the injustices of existence.
He silver-wraps his moments, gone
all too quickly. He instinctively roars

a new way to create poetry, one
that embraces the celestial,
disdains the body's betrayal.
He will win in the end:

His lion spirit soars.

sun kisses iris
grass stirs from hibernation
dew rises like rain

The living hibernate in earth,
feasting on stored layers of fat.
The dead turn restlessly in their graves.

A bear's den lies dark and dank,
cozy enough for three.
Cubs ride their mother's back.

Snow piles on snow, shedding
a winter warmth only the sleeping
can absorb. The dead freeze alone.

Spring breezes to the door,
knocking rocks out of place.
Time to rise and roam.

Time to dream of berries and roots,
gorging on harvests of herbs.
Piling on more layers of fat.

Life spins in a cycle:
eat, sleep, eat again.
Sunshine marks the way.

yin and yang embrace
feng shui breeds prosperity
dragon roams the clouds
wu wei leads me home

Roman thunderstorm crashes
around our ears.
The Forum gurgles gamely
under water.
Rain pelts, ricochets off
slippery stones, shrouded ruins.
History drowns before our eyes.
No road back stands passable.
So let us swim through the ages.

1.
Stone castles float high above the moat,
rising in the empty sky.

Colonnades of clouds pummel the shoreline,
but plunder only Time.

The silver lake reflects the face of God.
Forsake its lifeline,
trace its outline in darkness,
then dive, dive, dive
to retrieve your destiny.

The horizon sleeps at the end of the road.
Light turns, but withholds its blessing.

2.
Pilgrims clamber over slick, thick cobblestones,
combing the ruins of history.
They slip, slide and slither back,
only to lose their way.

A baby-faced mountain bends low
to brush a raindrop off a rose.
The rose reddens, the mountain shudders,
and love blooms —

even as older peaks,
streaked in early snow,
grind their teeth in envy.

Obey your nature.

3.
A crown of fog settles on the silent village.
Wet cobblestones snake back upon themselves,
pooling castles on the ground.

The road plummets to the shoreline; the horizon weeps for no one.

Light turns; Time tires; and infinity seeps into the soul.
Bruised pilgrims withhold their blessing.

Beneath the love-struck mountain,
a lonely traveler gropes homeward.

Patches of empty sky carry scents of welcome:
There, unbidden, tranquility awaits.

No celestial being will ever descend
the misty ether to complement my
wishing and seeking for its eternal presence.

None who are worthy of such adoration
will stoop to move me out beyond myself,
to send me hurtling down the long, contemplative spiral
of the Self, toward the focal point of Existenz.

Identity is elusive. I find no residue,
no center of recognition and acceptance
with which to make my defense.

Identity is infectious, a virus that plagues
without antidote or cure. As with the Fall,
I must disregard the Delphic Oracle. Who
among us has ever truly known himself?

Perhaps I am too tainted, perhaps I am impure.
Perhaps I would be blinded by the brightness of their glory.

No, I am quite certain that those who stir among the stars
will never be moved by pity or suffering to breathe
the breath of Eros that flings me out beyond
this solitude. None will ever come to bestow on me
the presence and embrace I so passionately desire.

I must reshape my future in the image of the Lamb.
I must leap across the world's murderous, polluted abyss.
I must land on the other side in safety, security,
with nothing bruised save the membrane of my porous ego.

A wise painter once said to me,
"Make every day New Year's Day;
resolve to start each new day
afresh, full of possibilities."

I retreated to my Stoic cave,
meditating on 2019, and all
its dark, ****** turmoil. I vowed to start
each day fresh in inwardness, beauty, peace.

One hand in a field of diamonds,
the other slopping pigs.
You are neither star nor earth,
as Rilke would have it. You are
always in medias res, always
on the way, thrown into the world
toward some dark horizon.

Never settled, never open,
never easy, never found.
Truth eludes you like a fugitive.
Your will evades everything
but pride. You run toward sunrise,
a being-unto-death. Now hisses
In a still small voice: then.
Here means elsewhere, there
means nowhere.

Turn back into the void. It taunts
you, tightens its grip on your gut,
spews smoke in your face.
You eat despair, regurgitate fear.
Where Titans swagger, you scurry
toward safety. You keep searching,
one hand in a field of sapphires,
the other trailing God.

To love you as myself
is the second highest command.
Yet if I do not know my own dark corners,
how can I take your hand?

You frown, you cringe, you grimace,
all reflected in my face.
You suffer in this bitter world.
How can I not take your place?

trees grow birch and pine so thick
some fallen to this forest floor

trunks turned thick with gray,
half-rotting, reclaim the earth once more
roots like gnarled hands grasping
for the damp

grasses green stagger silent in the wind
blades biting sharply through shadows so dense/
space has no measure in dark

the sun rises, their bloodless meat turned dim,
turning circles in the sky
humidity hangs, building like a cloud
seeded silver to rain

struck by lightning, the forest,
no longer ******, flashes with the intimacy
of death's philandering copulation/
stumps cluster sticky with sap
and saplings sprout no leaves

rings rusted upon rings reddish-brown
slow years no longer lived through

birds are never yellow here
melodies float like water, colorless upon the breeze
wings break the stillness, signal home, repeat

the road turns away, red clay and rounded rocks/
too few lichen-painted orange and green
dust rises
small clouds under cleated soles

you would not like it here

French revolutionaries guillotined God at Cluny, but He exacted
His tithe all the same: one-tenth of their bad ideas tossed back
at them. The tyranny of terror, cheap dream of heaven, in ruins.

A vast emptiness swamps the nave; stumps of pillars stained black
and gray and black again by age and rain and blood. Only one tower stands intact. I scan the burnished hills behind it; they do not look back.

“The birth throes of liberty,” cried Thomas Jefferson. “Rejoice!”
Despots toppled; authority crippled for a future that never comes.
Terror and waste; waste and terror. The desolation of faith.

On the tiny town square, a high-tech bistro beams. Lights
surge behind the bar, sending out distress signals of the mind:
the throb of synapses firing wildly in the wind. Material infinity.

Old men saunter in to down a beer, and harness their dogs under tables.
Parents and students slurp pricey shots of caffeine. Emancipated energy.
Above the din, they cannot hear the Earth’s foundation crack.

Freedom leaves a sacred void in its wake, watered by the blood
of worldly martyrs. On the menu: égalité, fraternité, fissure and ruin.
Thunder in the hills. Words crash around us like cannonballs.

Liberté lingers outside in the municipal lot. A van propped up
on wooden blocks for the night. No hassles, man. Free parking.
Let’*******another beer to Robespierre. His dog strains at its leash.

St. Teresa swoons
in ecstasy as an impish
cherub punctures her heart
with arrows of divine love.

Eyes closed, mouth agape,
she falls back into marvelous,
wrinkled marble,
Bernini's brilliant sculpture
of genius.

Is it physical or spiritual
ecstasy she feels?
We wonder because
the ****** expression,
the body language
are the same.

No matter.
If she did not swoon
in ecstasy, she would
surely levitate in love

1.
Framed by a well-worn,
wooden windowsill,
we peer down on Purgatory
from our hotel perch
high above the restless shores
of Lake Como.

Behemoth slabs of marble
hang in limbo: rough-hewn
bodies awaiting their savior —
the divinely appointed sculptor
to chisel away the sins of their world.

Reflected in the window’s wavy glass,
the ghost of Michelangelo
glides past — an aging slave to beauty —
humming an Italian hymn to Venus
in syncopated rhythms.

He whispers that the stone
comes from Carrara,
carved out of ragged mountainsides,
carried down muddy, makeshift roads,  
crated onto misshapen barges,
then barreled down the Arno River.

Last stop: Firenze.

2.
In his hands, marble beams
as the body of the beloved,
draped in splendor and light,
draped in radiant form — form
of the sculptor, not the sculpture;
of the master, not the slave.

Beneath the rock-rough surface
of his métier, his soul
struggles to emerge from stone,
rising in rapture toward the divine,
rising on wings of beauty,
rising on wings of desire.

In his hands, marble melds into a mirror
of the making mind.
He levitates, an embodied ideal,
rising higher, ever higher,
toward his immortal beloved —
yearning to be made real,
to be made flesh,
the “coarse and savage bark”
of the artist’s first art.

3.
We come late to all
high lofty things,
he wrote.

And so we peer at the pit of Purgatory,
into its dissonant, disturbing discovery
that art cannot save,
that art cannot rightfully claim the artist’s life,
that art cannot breach the infinite reach
of divine love.

What happens is what is real;
but what is real is what we make happen.

The only choice, then: to go down, down, down into stone;
down into the blood-stained marble;
down into the rough-cut corners of regret.
Inconsolable, sculpture crumples into dust.

First, the patina falls away,
then appendages and organs —
everything but the sightless sea-surge
of skin, the seamless sanctuary
of pagan heroes and gods.

4.
The ideal — immensity, enormity, infinity —
ignites in unrequited desire. The heart strains in vain
to bear the weight of stone.

In Purgatory’s pit,
the master stumbles:
art cannot save him.
The body of his beloved crumbles.

Chiseled above his tomb:
Ripeness is all.

Eternal Now calls
time grasps infinity
all rivers flow upward

the surface of the sun erupts
spilling streams of brimstone
into airless passageways
where poets roam

words catch fire orbit the mind
like elliptical rocks mortared tight
they shed more heat than light
pile them high

pick only hard consonants
their Anglo-Saxon pedigree
stirs the lowest impulses of life
use them sparingly

elegance eschews vulgarity
the driving force of the body
the circulation of black blood
swallow it like wine

to name is to own
like landed gentry you parcel out
your words as possessions
****** them from the void

you must climb over the walls
of what cannot be spoken
stitch the sun's lacerations
into the fire of the poem

Two glaciers that once kneaded the neck
of this tiny tourist town have bled
into the mountain -- now twin rivulets of ice
ambling aimlessly up the rocky, grey *****.
Robbed of its tourist prize, the town shrinks
like snow in the scalding sun.
I have not come for the snow nor the ice,
but for the warm-blooded Alpine splendor,
which cannot recede from this isolated valley.
The ghosts of glaciers haunt my path up the hills
into the belly of these bulky peaks, cemented to the earth
like pillars of stone sculpting themselves.
Tourists must settle for such shrunken beauty,
still as intoxicating as new wine.

moon white face
fiery red lips
perfect female beauty blooms

On the flat edge of the horizon
a purple-pink glow beckons me on,
across empty fields dusted with snow.
Trees raise their hands in praise
for the end of this day, plump with possibilities.

I have accomplished nothing.
Yet I turn the lathe one last time,
cutting metal, cutting bone,
with a wound too deep to plumb,
too dark to lighten, transfused
with blood that stains the sun.

Sorrow trails me like a bird dog
sniffing out her prey, startling
quail to take flight. I watch them
pass overhead. I am not a hunter.
They are safe to flee, coveys of comfort.

"The world is too much with us,"
Wordsworth proclaimed. I contemplate
his lament, but see no way out.
Ancient faces watch my route --
aimless, famished, still
seeking out transcendence,
still hungry for God.

I embrace the horizon as it bends.
Purple-pink sky leads me on.

blue assembly line
dull labor, faceless workers
slaving for robots

Time climbs
the sycamores,
seeking a resting place,
a nesting place
to contemplate its passing.
No words can express
the sadness.

Wind whips across
the lawn,
scattering leaves,
slapping trees
for their insolent
refusal to fall.

All directions collapse
into one,
into none
worth following.

We break under the weight
of the void.
It insists on absolute
emptiness.
I am full, a plenum.

This phrase tells no one
the truth.
Words scatter on the wind.
Words crackle in the leaves.

Poets guard ancient
initiation rites.
Mystery settles on the Muse.

Silence burrows underground,
digs for gold.
Only dull ore rises
to the surface.

Flakes scatter on the wind,
disjointed,
clattering
through the sleepy dawn.

Shadows obscure Time
as it exhales
the past.

The future photosynthesizes,
green, green,
with broken
promises.

Time weeps for no one.

Broken limbs, tenuous twigs
snap under
the weight
of a plenum.

Time wrestles the void.

Time is full.
But it’s
cracking.

How many times have I poured heavy cream from a squat wooden bowl
onto a fiery batch of raspberries --- the glory of this medieval
Swiss village of Gruyeres? How many times have I trod its cobblestone
streets, smooth stones scuffing my shoes, stones that fit like
molars in a jaw bone-- polished by millions of soles?

How many times have I spied a ***** blur the road, like an
atom split in fusion? Only once, today: an orange-red body,
windswept ears, toothsome snout, black-tipped tail, torpedo straight,
a rudder perfectly fixed on one course only: Elsewhere.

Repetition is the maker of travel, the reinstantiation of
the essence of our experience, each piece yearning to grow
into a medley with others. Only an on-key tune can capture
the elan vital of belonging nowhere but in memory. All travel
begs for repetition, for affirmation, for like turns to like.

Zen practices the presence of the now, instantaneous,
paradoxical, vanishing as it appears. Travel practices the Zen
of Zen, deconstructing the present into a precious piece of the past.
Travel recedes to remember tomorrow as yesterday’s promise.

I am back there, not here. I reminisce, reconstruct, relish
the essence of travel as I taste the heavy cream, the tartness
of raspberries, and the afternoon amazement as a ***** crossed
my path -- just as Merwin describes in The *****, his masterpiece.

I look back. His experience gains on me and quickly melds into my own.
His spiritual exercises inspire me. My repetition of them and his incorrigible wanderlust reconstitutes again and again his own timeless poetic reward.

"Y not"? You say.
Y is a singular fork in the road,
and you always choose
the road less taken.
(You've read your Robert Frost,)
The road less taken is full of beauty,
discovery, adventure and an
unpredictable walking surface.
But you cannot take it.
The more you are tempted to,
the more the road becomes more taken.
You must follow your Y like a Euclidean puzzle.
The fork offers only one tine to you.
The road less taken cannot be taken by you again,
or it will turn into the road increasingly taken.
And your journey by foot will turn trivial and
banal. By taking the road less traveled, you rob
it of its mystique. That, shamefully, stands out as
a mistaken use of this very special road.
Triviality, shame, silly self-indulgence all
mar your journey. Y would you risk it?
Y directs your path like a whirling English
traffic cop. Watch for the telling hand signal.
The one that says, "You, begin." Follow the
lonely tine and be on your way. You will
have traveled the right road, leaving the
less traveled one to its Y-ly mystique.
From here on out, walking in the woods,
when you come to a crossroads,
you will never have to ask Y again.

1.
Stone castles float high above the moat,
rising in the empty sky.
Colonnades of clouds pummel the shoreline,
but plunder only Time.
The silver lake reflects the face of God.
Forsake its lifeline;
trace its outline in darkness,
then dive, dive, dive
to retrieve your destiny.
The horizon sleeps at the end of the road.
Light turns, but withholds its blessing.

2.

Pilgrims clamber over slick, thick cobblestones,
combing the ruins of history.
They slip, slide and slither back,
only to lose their way.
A baby-faced mountain bends low
to brush a raindrop off a rose.
The rose reddens; the mountain shudders;
and love blooms —even as older peaks,
streaked in early snow,
grind their teeth in envy.
Obey your nature.

3.

A crown of fog settles on the silent village.
Wet cobblestones snake back upon themselves,
pooling castles on the ground.
The road plummets to the shoreline; the horizon weeps for no one.
Light turns; Time tires; and infinity seeps into the soul.
Bruised pilgrims withhold their blessing.
Beneath the love-struck mountain,
a lonely traveler gropes homeward.
Patches of empty sky carry scents of welcome:
There, unbidden, La Tranquille awaits.

— Chaulin, Switzerland.

How many times have I poured heavy cream from a squat wooden bowl
onto a fiery batch of raspberries --- the glory of this medieval
Swiss village of Gruyeres? How many times have I trod its cobblestone
streets, smooth stones scuffing my shoes, stones that fit like
molars in a jaw bone-- polished by millions of soles?

How many times have I spied a ***** blur the road, like an
atom split in fusion? Only once, today: an orange-red body,
windswept ears, toothsome snout, black-tipped tail, torpedo straight,
a rudder perfectly fixed on one course only: Elsewhere.

Repetition is the maker of travel, the reinstantiation of
the essence of our experience, each piece yearning to grow
into a medley with others. Only an on-key tune can capture
the elan vital of belonging nowhere but in memory. All travel
begs for repetition, for affirmation, for like turns to like.

Zen practices the presence of the now, instantaneous,
paradoxical, vanishing as it appears. Travel practices the Zen
of Zen, deconstructing the present into a precious piece of the past.
Travel recedes to remember tomorrow as yesterday’s promise.

I am back there, not here. I reminisce, reconstruct, relish
the essence of travel as I taste the heavy cream, the tartness
of raspberries, and the afternoon amazement as a ***** crossed
my path -- just as Merwin describes in The *****, his masterpiece.

I look back. Merwin's experience gains on me and quickly melds
into my own. His spiritual exercises inspire me. My repetition
of them and his incorrigible wanderlust reconstitutes
again and again his own timeless poetic reward.

Sleep eludes me like
a jilted lover.
Eyes shut, ears shut,
craving unconsciousness.
Brain waves break
against the waking shore.
Breathing falters, gasps,
Hiccups in a fitful daze.
Tiredness descends like
the evening fog.
Vision doubles, loses focus,
seeks the unity of dark.
I dream the world
in aching color.
The world dreams back,
a screen of void.
Who can project the emptiness
of calm?
Who can protect the solitude
of rest?
Vertigo ***** the marrow
from my soul.
Pain fills the fissure in my head.
I turn to turn in the ocean
of my bed.
I no longer can go under.
In the shallows, I cannot swim.

purple clouds swirl
in calligraphic patterns
no one dares mention soul

rivers of ice melt
from our vast carbon footprint
greenhouse gases ****
we must exist without coal
centuries of history
point to our eternal shame

The orange-pinkish horizon slips
into the silver sea.
We sit side by side
reading.

Soon night slides into place,
infinite in scope.
I take your hand,
squeeze it gently,
as if to say,
"I am still here. I am not lost
in this book, but
am ever present to both
you and its pages."

You squeeze my hand back,
as if to say,
"Yes, I know."

The moon disappears behind clouds.

The yellow cross
beams out white rays,
splayed into splotches
of orange red.

The blue edges bloom,
soothing, But deep inside,
I am color blind. No
harmonious hues will do.

Discord haunts me like
a ghost at its grave. My
promise is waxing; my
life a pale gray.

I will die by my own hand,
despondent and betrayed.
But before my misery ends,
I will cling to the yellow cross.

the black rain
pushes incessantly
against
the window

great dull gray streaks
spread
the ephemeral sun
into
pallid false reflections

ridiculous faces
touching ***** white
wisps of clouds

a narrow
uncertain light
falls heavily
upon a page
I have written

crossing out
an unneeded,
superfluous
word

the room
is illuminated
with a golden
bright appearance

reflected in
four varnished
corners

of the table,
which catches my eye

I look at it
and the faces melt

the whole room is like that
nothing left but great dull gray images
even the cold ridiculous sky
is like that

this diminishing light;
I can no longer write with courage

silver sea recedes
pink horizon plunges
black boulders full frontal

Wordsworth tends his daffodils; Coleridge rhymes.
Rydall Water circles, slow in the rain.
The poets compete -- friendly, over time.
Coleridge finds ***** eases the strain.
Each writes beautiful verse of his own kind.
Wordsworth favors daily speech, spoken plain.
Coleridge bows at imagination’s bright shrine.
Wordsworth’s sister, with them, divides the twain.
Her journals paint the joys of simple climbs,
Or walks through the fields: Dove Cottage awaits,
Awash with white walls; moss-dappled sides
Of the roof. Inside, Lyrical Ballads proclaims
That the power of Art will outlast time:
The Romantics shall never be put to shame.

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 mortal earns his fate:
There is always time to wait.

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

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

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.

In winter much of the living hibernates.
The dead seek out warmth.
Birds sing only in treetops, serenading
the world beyond. Let us soar to it
on the white wings of your poems.
You have said that one day we shall
live in the sky. but our consolation now
is the green earth, draped in snow.
Our footprints fade as soon as the sun burns down.
You left us in brightness. All your poems
embraced goodness, love and light.
A blanket of feathers covers your grave.
Beside them, a silver pen shines,
the instrument of grace. You wrote
more than we could absorb, more
than our mediocre minds could imagine.
You blessed us with the whiteness
of wisdom. We yearn to follow you
and the tree-top birds into the sky.
For now, we must feed on your snow-white
poetry, nature's hidden calligraphy,
spelling out our names.

Sensitive to her sensibility,
I carefully craft my thoughts.
One blunder means embarrassment.
Two, humiliation.
Wishes must be weighed;
intent investigated.
She is worth taking every pain.
In reverence, I gaze into her eyes,
take her hand, do not speak.

(After Anne Sexton's "The Starry Night")

Van Gogh's "Starry Night"
illumines a damaged heart.
Poetry remains therapy
until the patient is cured.

Pulitzer Prize, parties, men
and accolades galore.
Anne Sexton, the poets' darling,
dances to the darkening sky.
This is how you want to die.

This is how the world ends:
without swirling stars,
without a crescent moon,
stuck alone inside your garage,
door closed, car running.
Inhale the aroma of the blackened night.

My Beloved glides through the room in light.
A flick of her hand, shadows dispense.
Her form beams shapely, vibrant and bright.
One sharp look wilts my world, weak and dense.

She is as fragrant as hyacinth at night.
She turns 'round; my willpower’s spent.
I reach for her arm; she’s fast in flight.
No coquettish flirting to make me wince.

Her inward freedom 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 beauty: heart's light.
My pursuit is authentic. No pretense.

-- For Laura

knowledge aims at pride
wisdom seeks humility
mind awakes in light

Faith overcomes all, a gift
of the Spirit. Let us hold fast to it, like Job.
Let us lean not on our own understanding,
but cling to the mighty bulwarks
of Your everlasting mercy.

i am encapsulated

with a curious ambivalence of the will
i cast off
the chaotic cosmic cloak that shatters
into a myriad particles of tiny plenum
-- reminiscences, shadows and reflections,
sorrowful leaves sparkling with the glint
of dazzling light,
like tiny jewels of dew --

all this and more lies scattered on the wind

the struggle is so heavy; the flames consume so much
now, here
beneath the distant, burning stars,
shuffling through these crumbling
monuments at my feet,

a nervous flash of lightning
the shape of infinity in all i see:
the apocalyptic evening sky is exposed

wearily, i must lay myself down to rest
to breathe gently in this sweet, elusive silence,
the silence of the Void

rest in weariness
rest
and the unpredictable predispositions of the cosmic structure
will expand and divide ever so slowly
with the course of my breathing