History deceives us with many fictions.
We mistake fantasies as if they’re real.
Such illusions create stringent frictions,
Giving past emotions their strongest seal.
Our heritage deserves valediction,
But narrative art asserts its appeal.
Myth, story, fable and archaic diction
Overwhelm concrete facts; their essence steal.
I long for the past without reflection
Of ancestral interference or zeal.
But there is no version without mixture
Of deceptions and meanings we can feel.
Past accounts remain shrouded in factions,
Whose rifts of fabrication will not heal.

The meaning of Eucharist
is not empirical. The bread,
the wine, the priest in his
splendid robes hovering
over the Host. We can see
them, hear them, taste
them, touch them. But
the mystical essence
escapes our senses.
It is accessible, revealed
only to faith.
Faith encounters the body
and blood of Christ
in glory at the altar.
Faith beholds the bread
and wine transubstantiate.
A daily miracle, hidden
from the unbelieving,
the unenlightened. Faith
fuses all, makes new
the covenant of Jesus,
who proclaimed, "This do
in remembrance of me."
The bread is tasted and chewed;
the wine is sipped and swallowed.
Our body remembers, but
only when informed by faith,
the pinnacle of the unempirical.

Diffused rays of lengthening light
scoot across the hardwood floor
and pool 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 the surface.

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

Our love is 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 radiance of love overcomes all oblivion.

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

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 Elytis)

                 1.

The sea lies leagues away.
I look leeward and see
No sandy beach, only this
Sandy soil in which our plants
And flowers struggle to grow.
There is no sign of salty air,
Of seagulls, or dolphins,
Or seashells. No Neptune and
His entourage to capture
My weakening sight
With his flashing trident.

                 2.

How easy the Greeks had it:
The sea,
Wine-dark, vast, the press
Of tides calling the long
Boats toward Troy.
Black mountains rise up
In a morning splayed with
Iridescence.
Thunder and echo sound
In the warmth’s embrace.
Glory gilds the waves.

                 3.

Today, the sea refracts
An aquamarine blue, lapping
Lazily against island shores,
Which cradle the waves,
Then ****** them back,
Vivifying, in their
Rhythms, the words of
Infinity, singing
the endless song of the sun.
The spume
Baptizes island souls
As the source of all life.
That is a lie, of course,
Or shall we say, a myth.
Human life began on
The African savannah,
Leagues away from the sea.

                 4.

Yet we need our myths,
To fortify our dreams,
An irresistible radiance
Clinging to the waves.
A heroic hymn
Of exaltation. Bells
Strike in the distance.
Yes, myths,
Classical, traditional,
Stretching toward the center
Of things.
Crusading sails in
The current, carrying
Our yearnings
For the eternal, rosy-
Fingered dawn.

                 5.

Yes, we need the sea,
And its ******-up cones
Of stone on the horizon.
Freedom blows from all
Directions, uncovering
Great tales of destiny,
Penitence, tragedy,
Self-mastery, lament.
The sailor exults
In his salt-sprayed aims.
We need the sea,
Wine-dark or blue, vast,
Rough or tame.
Without it, civilization,
In all its majesty, infallibly
Collapses.


                 6.

The sea lies leagues away.
I look leeward and see
Only sandy soil.

"Art is born of humiliation."
-- W.H. Auden

Art is the second self.
The first lies battered
by humiliation and rejection,
by wanton disregard
of the human.
The first self carries few ways
to defend itself. Power
begets power; strength
begets strength. But they
last only for a day, dying
into empty possibilities
in the night.
The will grows weary.

Art builds an eternal shield
from all malevolence, all
violence to the soul. Art
regenerates, capacitates,
reaches for the infinite.
It hammers out metaphor,
the bleeding heart of poetry.
It fashions a second skin,
thick with pride of accomplishment,
thick with the afterglow
of creativity. The second skin
clothes a second self, safe
from insult and harm..

The second self climbs to
celestial heights. It soars
above the earth, laughing
in new-found freedom.

a quiet sadness broods
the sea surges
rushes wave along the shore

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

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

(After Cavafy)

Do not let your life get so far
ahead of you, busy and distracted,
that you meet it on the way back
a stranger, an alien.

Your years are long and vigorous.
They curl upon the sand
like S-shaped tidal waves, as the bay
itself seeps out of the vast, gray sea.

Tomorrow, if you meet yourself,
burdensome and strange,
you will have lost
your one chance for glory.

You will have lost your way
in a dark wood, as another poet put it.
You will have lost
the mothering protection of the sea,

whose gentle tides are always
taken away, never to return the same.

I see him,
dressed in a crisp, new suit,
button-down, baby blue shirt,
red power tie.

His diction is flawless,
his banter witty and warm.
He exudes extreme self-confidence.
He knows his own worth.

Soon he begins to pontificate
on the presidency and politics.
Surprisingly, his remarks are nuanced,
sensitive, caressed with tolerance.

Then he begins to sweat,
his eyes downcast; his body slumps.
What dark, deep secret is he hiding?
What arcane cosmic law has he violated?

In all absurdity, I see him suddenly
as Joseph K. The burghers soon
join me. The verdict is in.
With practiced dexterity, they slit his pale throat.

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

Rows of lavender lunge
against the plastered stone wall
that sequesters the brilliant,
purple bushes from
the ancient Provencal farmhouse,
standing stoically on the Plains.

The wall, almost as old as
the farmhouse itself, keeps
utilitarian flora in
and extravagant varieties out.
It knows no other function.

Lavender, in all its aromatic,
purple plumage, doesn't mind.
It will seek out each crack,
each empty space, each low
spot in the wall to slither through
to the other side.

Lavender knows, as the wily
farmer cannot, that beauty
will always prevail, no matter
what obstacles stand
in its way.

Beauty thrives, stronger than
the building of any wall.
It knows that all its fellow
plants think likewise,
stretching toward extravagance,
their whole life long.

Beauty is their destiny.

Sly Ulysses strapped himself to the mast,
So the Sirens could not lure him away.
His return home proved anything but fast.
Circe, in her cave, kept him years, for play.
By cunning, he ****** her into the past,
And to Ithaca set sail straightaway.
Penelope stayed faithful to the last.
Her hope for him never lost its strong sway.
He roamed far, once the die of Troy was cast.
His horse, filled with Greeks, the vast city razed.
Cleverness made his sailing ventures last.
“To the beyond” rang the mantra he prayed.
Homer had him **** his wife’s beaus, aghast.
Dante dispatched him to hell, where he stayed.

Beware the way your forebears came,
dragging goods and cattle, horses
and wagons, whimpering children,
not nearly enough food or water
to cross the unforgiving mountain passes.
Destination unknown.

They mistook the rugged, rocky, drought-
ridden road for the path to the promised land.
What they found instead was a land
full of promise, but beckoning only to the prominent
few, who could survive without loss of pride
or prowess or precious blood.

But that is not your way. You are destined
for much finer things, unseen, celestial
things that repair and reset your
spiritual compass, and unfurl the map
of successive crossroads you must face --
the terror of angels, the awe of the
miraculous and the angst of self-overcoming.

Your home is not of earth or water,
but of the sky, its heliocentric emptiness
broadcasting a better way to wander
through the inevitable suffering of
humankind. A delicate, mindful way.

No, your home is of the sky
and of its stars in all their ancient glory.
Together they project a haven of words
to protect you from the elements
and from ambush by the
rash mountain climbers before you.

Theirs is not your way, no.
Yours remains the way of Li Po,
the vulnerable, venerated way,
the way of the poets.

The wedding feast is readied.
The giant tent firmly staked.
The table overflows with the seven wonders
of the palate. No one should be discontent.

Outside, the breeze stirs the dunes:
a shape-shifting horizon
seemingly too distant to matter.

All things well underway,
the groom stands to deliver
his speech, as the feast inexorably unfurls
in the blazing afternoon.
"Dearly beloved," he says.
"This is the happiest day of my life...."

As he heads back to his bride,
he feels a slight sting on his
heel. One of those pesky flies, no doubt.

Seated, he again turns to his wife with
yet another loving look, then collapses
onto the table, clattering dishes and glasses.

Within an hour, he is dead.
A slight breeze stirs the dunes.
Beneath the table, a fat-tailed scorpion
scurries toward the horizon.

A single leaf,
nearly two-thirds torn,
floats idly down a mountain stream,
passing from light into darkness
into light again.

Refracted through the crystalline currents,
a bed of smooth, staid stones
cries, "Eternity! Everlasting!"
but the leaf drifts on.

And I, splashing my way upstream,
thinking myself the keeper
of this shadowed domain,
bend hurriedly
to pluck the leaf from my path.

Then, for just a moment, I hesitate,
to listen as the rivulets
lap against my legs,
longing to hear in them
Heraclitus' lonely, elegiac lament:

"All things are in process;
nothing stays still.
Upon those that step
into the same rivers
different and different waters flow."

But only the rocks sing on --
their same, unchanging song
of the stream's secret source.

And though I,
still deaf to the cry,
hear but the half-uttered echos
of my fleeting thoughts,

I can see,
as the radiant flux of the night
again turns the leaf into light,
how at last we, too, shall step
into that same river twice.

At death --
when in the new-found kenosis of time,
all will be one.

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.

"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.

Sun
blankets
tidal waves
heading to shore.
Sky turns orange-grey.
No one in sight means this:
Nature embraces you whole.
You will doze on the shore, baptized.
The ocean is one; you are many.
Peace infiltrates. waters your bone-dry soul.

The path leads nowhere, but we must follow,
Scrambling over boulders, cut, scuffed and bruised.
We wander through cross-hatch timbers, an old-
Growth forest; its crackling limbs gnarled, abused.
Farther on slopes a narrow, dry hollow,
Whose dusty patina shows little use.
Deer scamper to the water – fawns follow –
For relief. The sun’s beauty a sly ruse
To burn the undergrowth, then wallow
In its victory over life; no quick truce.
Wildlife scrounge for all that they can swallow.
But hunting for listless food proves no use.
We face a harvest moon made of tallow.
We soon learn nature’s rules are not our rules.

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.

The future swirls steadily
ahead, rocky, uncertain and dim.
Our choices are pre-ordained
for freedom. We cannot
not choose. Creatures squirm
at the paradox. Black and white
no longer grace the color wheel.

Ragged caves beckon as shelter.
Birds take refuge in the tops
of empty trees. Exposed, they
chirp melodically at the moon.
There is no difference between
the road less traveled and its
counterpart. Mirror images,

they recede into the woods
at straitened perspectives.
I walk one alone, scanning
the sky for lasting signs
of the present. They are
blistered by sun spots.
The road veers inward.

Duration drags time out
to the breaking point.
What will be gestates
in what is. Seasons give
birth to a multicolored
brood. Paint them a
monotone grey. Walk on.

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.

(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
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.

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."

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.

The ocean accepts every sacrilege,
every pollutant,
every lasting piece of plastic
that amalgamates into an
artificial coral reef bobbing
toward the top.

The ocean is no longer our home;
we treat it like a compost heap --
infertile, ugly, smelling of death.
Fish cannot compete with artifice,
cannot feed on trash.
It is too late to save them.

Homeland

Morning clouds tear apart.
White-blue helmet of heaven.
On the river, goslings glide.
Ripples of desire.

A darkened figure climbs the hill,
silent, snaking homeward.
Death marches, stride for stride,
and drops the red baton.

2. Berghof

Who has cried for sunken Dachstein?
Its crumpled crown.
Beauty is stone.
Carry me through glacial waters,
green and trembling,
fear alone.

Lichen blooms
on blackened tree bark.
Ice blocks clog
paths unknown.
Half-hewn timbers
line the walkway.
Heed the warning:
Hide your soul.

3. Atelier

Shadows shatter:
light’s division.
Present passes.
Breathing comes.

Silver circles:
no corrosion.
Water siphons.
Spirit song.

light of sorrow
journey claims its end
red rock stains clouds

vermilion sky bleeds
into my heart as
traveler crosses Sonoran Desert
dappled with saguaro cacti
he bends his head in fatigue
or prayer
turquoise bleeds
into vermilion
from this London outpost
I cannot reach him
I cannot teach him
isolated and cold
I can no longer write
with courage

Ulysses sailed for 20 years
to reach Ithaca from Troy.
Mastermind of the Trojan Horse,
he and his warriors leveled that
fabled city; and he emerged as one
of Greece's greatest heroes.
Yet Dante consigned him
to Limbo to waste away
his afterlife. Heroism, apparently,
is not a holy virtue.

1.
Genesis:
grandiloquent awakening
genteel reawakening from the depths of a sleepy ocean
as dreams floated idly overhead like driftwood
translucent surging
back and forth
rising and falling with the moon and its pull

i open my eyes in the salty brine
and am purged

i open my mouth to swallow and
suddenly: Satori!

2.

in the beginning:
the driftwood would not burn

it's true i wandered aimlessly beneath the cliffs
into early morning
even before the sun, i was
mist upon the beach, barefoot, in jeans and sweater
damp in the morning

yes, i was there walking alone past
seal carcass and seagull carrion
seaweed and ***** would scurry
over smooth gray stones and sand
whitewashed with foam by the tide

somewhere along the shoreline    i thought
the firmament moved
a lighthouse beam perhaps

i, too, like the gull, was scavenging among the shells,
some spotted brown like leopards,
for the 15th century
heavy coins of Spanish galleons and gold

"holding a seashell to your ear, you can hear the voice of God,"
the Horse-woman once told me
stooping i listened
yes yes yes    you would have seen me there in the morning
but only because i was dreaming

3,

your reply:

battle fatigues
empty cup
war on homelessness

Fountains fly skyward,
Splattering the boxy hedges,
Impeccably cut,
That line the paths.
Villa d’Este overflows
With sculpted beauty,
Elegant and crumbling.

The infrastructure does not hold.
Static masks bereft of water
Spew blank, dry stares.
Multi-breasted statues
Nourish the grounds
With milk.

Still, we carry on under
Neptune’s ghost.
Gods flourish here.
Inside the villa, Hercules
Performs his 12 feats
Of strength, painted in
Blazing frescoes on
The towering ceiling.
He kills a bear
With his bare hands. Superhuman
power that made him a god.

Another room, more frescoes:
Noah frowns; the 40-day
Flood swirls and surges,
Reeling off course.
He tames the elephants,
Rather than wrestle them
To the ground.

He lay naked and drunk
Before his children in a
Shower of shame.
Facing a lion’s maw
Would have fared better
for him.

Nature unleashes its own
Fountain onto the gardens.
Water spreads everywhere.
Tourists jostle in ponchos.
Lanes empty; the sky darkens.

Irises bloom like Eden:
Deep purple.
Strolling past the hedges,
We are washed clean
By the rain.

And so we wait
for the barbarians,
our hearts palpitating
like bleating sheep,
our mouths dry as stone,
our thirst unslaked
by the morning dew.

Beyond the ramparts,
the sun rises blood red
above the hill
where we hunted
for secrets of
the hordes to come.

We scattered high
and low, far past
the statue of Poseidon
that towers
at the edge of
the wine-dark sea,
which unfurls like
a murderous storm
that would drown our crops,
batter out battlements,
power the siege to come.

And so we wait
at the gates
for the barbarians
and the tsunami
that drives them.

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.

Place your hands on your ankle
and squeeze tightly -- like
a tourniquet -- until your foot
expands, withers or explodes
from the pounds of pressure
damming your lower body’s
blood flow.

You can neither walk nor crawl --
your hands otherwise occupied --
so you must sit, half-cross-legged,
listless like a Beckett character,
supporting the burden of existence
-- its pain and tedium, its inexorable
cosmic absurdity.

Without budging, you survey
your surroundings -- a stage
unattended, only the foot lights
lit. You see your future waiting
In the wings among the heavy
velvet curtains drooping
with dust.

You sense an escape: You can
tumble toward your goal, bruising
your brow and back, but covering
distance like Quasimodo alighting
on his bells. You will collide with your
path forward: exchange your tourniquet
for a cross.

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.

Halfway up the stairs to the bone-white, beehive Basilica of Sacre-Coeur, I lost count of my climb. My legs remembered every trembling step, but they could no longer do the math  On the vast portico, swarming with earnest worker bees, guidebooks in hand, I turned to take in the triumphalist, panoramic view of smog-shrouded Paris -- a vision marred by the massive carbon boot print of 11 million Parisians. As my stomach snarled from my meager morning meal, I searched for a place to eat my equally meager lunch.Soon, I spied a bench wide enough for three people, but with only one occupant, an old Frenchman, blind from childhood. As I watched the tourist crowds run amok, careering into one another, I  asked if I could sit down beside him, and we struck up a conversation in French. Affable, intelligent, alert as a bird among cats, he was reading a braille biography of Marie Antoinette. I was impressed. He then told me how as a result of an untreatable eye disease, he had had his optic nerves cut as a boy. It was a drastic treatment,  to be sure, but common at the time. Now, he said, his life nearly over, he seriously contemplated suicide, plagued by the meaningless daily routine of a visit to Sacre Coeur, where he rested, a fixture unseen by the unsettling crowds. He could find no other purpose. So, thinking myself a therapist to the world, I leaned in close and remarked, "There is always hope." "Why do you say this?" "Because God exists." "Ah, God exists," he retorted in a half question, half scoff. Below, the carousel's calliope played a delightful, dancing tune. He listened intently. After that, we sat silently side by side for several minutes, he hearing the shuffling feet, I watching the mobs of visitors overrun the balcony. We never spoke again, until it was time for me to enter the basilica. We  exchanged "adieux," and I walked away. To this day, I  wonder what the blind man heard, among the noisome crowds, on his lonely bench at the base of the beehive Sacre-Coeur.

The sun limns the crest of snow-capped peaks packed below
a pale, cloudless sky. The faded blue draws out the
steely gray of the three mountain musclemen: Eiger,
Munch, Jungfrau. Alpine white outshines the same hue
of fresh carnations placed delicately in a vase
on the living room table -- as if forever.

Alps wear puffy cowls above craggy faces, drooping
indentations from too many jaw-shattering bouts
with the natural elements. White wobbles always
on the ropes; the countdown begins. Disfiguring
bruises turn into the loser’s crown. Nature tricks
us with its charms of purity and innocence.

Lucerne’s {Kapellbrucke} exists only for us, transported
from the 14th century to now, little changed from its origins --
and all for our pleasure. Yet It is a ruse that anything
eight centuries old would remain in place for
our touristic joy. We are intruders on history, backpacks
replacing 19th-century carpet bags, gilded in fool’s gold.

At dusk, Eiger turns from white to orange, a fruitful hue
whose sustenance is only glory. You can feast on
white Raclette cheese, white wine, white boiled potatoes,
white onions, but not white glory. Nutrition comes in many
substances. Orange stones satisfy some senses,
but leave us waiting for more, night after night,

This is true even in the light afternoon rain of autumn.

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.

.
I have burned myself out
in the struggle. I am no longer
a man and it is right that I should die.
-- Albert Camus

casting the mended net forward
what will i find? you ask

some woman who has visited me
in this dream
where is she now?

in this dancing dream/play of dharma
she has opened her hand to me
she has offered

yes, i have seen it

some woman who has touched me
with her silver shining palm
and i did not turn aside

she does not wander --
somewhere amid the swelling,
crashing tide she is waiting still

perhaps i should only listen

again you ask, casting the broken net forward
what shall i find?

only that there is no longer darkness
in burning oneself out

I carry the land
like a stranger in transit.
Wilderness calls me home.
Aspens shiver.
Knife-edge mountains slice the sky.

I carry the land
like a stranger in transit.
Wilderness calls me home.
Aspens shiver.
Knife-edge mountains slice the sky.