A true king is
Not the one for gold
Not the one for death
Not the one for slaves
Not the one for honor
But the one with trust
For the trust of your subjects
Trust is what makes you king

two yellow butterflies
in the sun, entwined,
apart, chasing, diverging,
hovering hypnotic
over the first summer
bloom of the trees,

the wonder that is
travel, paving thy
own path in the air
stream, yet finding
each other,
perennially...

Two days
from now
you won’t remember
how I laid you down
delirious,
my six-year-old
daughter
swooning

spoonfuls
of purple
medicine
sickly sweet

your body burning
up beneath
pink sheets
you kicked
to the foot
of the bed

I swear
you were
dreaming
of mermaids
saddled on pink dolphins
like bejeweled rodeo stars
mermaids
swimming closer
mermaids
with long yellow hair
bucking waves—
sea girls with
one hand raised
in salty air,
orbiting
in circles
overhead,
wee galaxies
of ocean mist,
droplets
of sweat
on your lips.

At dawn
your fever
broke with
the sweetness
of candy glass
mason jars;
fireflies
escaping
as embers,
a dimming
delirium
of stars.

Two days
from now
you won’t remember
how I came to you
in the middle
of the night
when you cried
out for me,
your voice
unfamiliar—
a song sung
by a small girl
burning up
beneath
the sea.

the cicada's have begun to emerge
after seventeen long years as a dormant miner

they arise, pushing through seveteen years of dust
and compounded muclch, breaking out into a brave new world

and for seventy two hours, if they are lucky
they seek to mate, to consumate  to extend their species

some become garish decorations on truck windscreens
some become exhibits in a small boys jam jar zoo
some become waylaid and sing their cacophonial opus
on barren concrete patio's
some become Sunday dinners to peckish nestlings

some succeed gloriously, then die happy
some don't...succeed...and die wondering

but apparently seventeen years ago...
a lot succeded...
if the booming base opera being performed
is a gauge of the primeval drive of the cicada

it is summer eve in the burbs
and the living is..... noisy....

There must be more than this.
More than what lies
beyond the deep,
blue sky.
Where stars condense,
and collide.
Where glalaxies spin,
and multiply.
Where life blooms,
but never dies.
There must be more
than what lies
at the end
of an ordinary life.

Once I saw a leprechaun, and he gave me a wish
I thought I'd travel to every satellite dish
Just so you know, I wished to dance with the stars
And ever since then, I've been orbiting with mars

.

As I count crows
sitting on the clothesline
I see a shape in the distance
that I do not recognize
I move a little closer
but the ash trees bring a sad shade
and the lawn flashes its blades,
cutting directly to the heart
in syncopated beatings
like chopping wood in August
when the last saw
is locked away in the shed

I wipe the sweat from my brow
with a scarf scented of past evenings
chasing fireflies and drinking iced tea,
foggy memories in place of
bi-focals smeared and blurred,
unable to focus on the sticker burrs
pulled from my socks,
hanging on for dear life,
let alone the figure approaching
just past the produce stand with
apples and aspargus in season

Still I look,
peering beyond a fractured arbor
of beer bottle skeletons
situated at the far corner
of nowhere’s homestead, off-white pickets
and a rusted gate now
overgrown and over sown
in rows of corn field miseries,
shucked and burned in a steel barrel
down by the mud creek minstrels
playing broken strings
and bent tubas

When I realize it is you
coming home to me,
walking through the sunflowers,
an effervescent blue sky background glows,
roses bloom in pinks and yellows,
robins tend to their young
beneath a rainbow of blessings
in assorted hues and feathers
as what was once what I dreamed
now slowly becomes what I see,
returning to its former beauty
and the sun shines again