He sits atop the fence,
a transient from the endless circus,
eyeing a prickly pear cactus flower.

Meditating its ephemeral beauty,
he asks the eternal question:
Fleeting flower of yellow and pink,
is the will to charm still there?

My son, how could I not
be charmed by your
exquisite roar, followed by
the delicate blooming of your innocence?

Then remember me that I
may remember our predicament!

Lingering above this desert the first rains of winter,
streets greasy with oil/water/rubber cocktail.

Vegas spruces for the tourist onslaught,
bettors eager to lay their Superbowl favorite.

For a weekend the nation marches to a singular drum,
hotels swelling with the faithful to this Neon City.

The Champion stealthily concealed behind the mirror
through which no tout, nor soothsayer may perceive.

The press have lain out every faceted interview,
now only the true believers need worry beads.

This poet shrugs: for him the game has little meaning,
he looks instead to the clouds overhanging the valley.

Bring on the sacks of Sunday, the pass of ******* objects,
there will be snow upon the Redrocks to chill that morn.

To ghosts which walk about our imagination,
we have surrendered counsel, yielded consolation.
They are the souls of the might-have-been,
kindred brethren yoked to our liquid center,
who've never endured the pain of intelligence,
never walked the bed-of-coals of perception,
yet, they have wisdom nestled on ethereal neurons.  

To semaphores which count a poet's unused resources,
written in the higher code of life's metaphor,
iteratively substituting words to distill a truth,
a single universal life experience upon which to dwell,
all taken from myriad axioms of cerebral ecstasy.
This is writing, confrere, and you have tasted it, as well.
We are craftsmen in the medium of language,
poets following the involuntary way.

In those days all thinking took place in his heart.
It had no favorite suburb, no shelter that was home,
immersed, as he was, in the Mojave of humanity,
memories of only former places through which he'd drifted.

Yes, there were women, storms of passion, brevity in bed.
Today, they only took him back in time,
reconstructing scenarios more of actions never taken.
Bedposts served as bivouacs for the nomad.

Here in this desert water assumes a circumstance,
the nomad becoming as fond of it as ambition.
Here silence need not be kept at bay, rather welcomed in,
though it looks down upon him in uncertainty.

Out there on the horizon he hears a sigh,
a mother tongue corresponding to his own.

Her chamoisy cape
announced her artistry
fashioning stares
from men
who ought
to have known better.

Her Mona Lisa smile
spoke in tongues
with insouciant disregard
for men
who were
merely amusing playthings.

Her Eva Hathaway affair
plunged her
flailing into arms
of the one man
who pushed
buttons from oblivion.

As a teenage boy I used to fall asleep at night
listening to the graveled voice of Ernie Harwell
fashion for me word-images of the exploits
by a band of superheroes called the Detroit Tigers.
In those semi-lucid moments before slumber,
I could see the shimmering outline of my destiny:
you see all American boys are meant to be Tigers.
So imagine my confusion, when I fractured
the right talus bone my Junior year of high school,
even putting on weight around the middle,
where no athlete worth his pin stripes would gain.
My karma had begun to take on mass.

I began to acquire knowledge, as the only perceived defense
against some parallel universe impinging upon reality.
Oh, I had everyone convinced, even my keenest teachers
believed I was destined to make my mark in scholarly pursuits.
But no one saw the crying ego of one meant to be a Tiger,
nor how that bottled up the emergence of the Man.
Never reconciled, the Man curled up in fetal dormancy.
Lifespan became synonymous with interstellar drift.
And every encountered star of knowlege was dwarfed,
having long ago collapsed of its own gravity.
Still the heavens of knowledge are auspicious,
so I looked outward, when all the answers lay concealed within.

Only as my life left the outskirts of occluded reality
did I then begin to inherit from my instinctual id,
begin to listen to disconsolate internal voices,
who had known me all along, perhaps better than myself.
The thing is ... the stage has long been set on middle-age,
what props lie about are encrusted with patina,
laden with a dust impossible to gauge or preempt,
made worse by the lack of cast, save one.
Neither Beckett, nor Pinter, could have absurded this.
So, when my acts strike you as quixotic,
when I cut with a penknife through propriety,
it's because I finally remember what it meant to be a Tiger.

It was my best friend who asked me
what I'd choose to be in my next incarnation.
Honestly, she caught me completely off guard,
intellectually dumbfounded by a prospect
I'd never considered, nor felt I deserved.
That night I wracked my brain searching for
a suitable chakra from which to derive an answer.
I know she believes everything is renewed,
so, deferring to her convictions,
I chose a jaguar, as suitable for my solitary way.

She's always had a knack for surprising my existence,
deflecting the metaphysical, steering for spiritual shores.
I recognize this power she exudes, though she dismisses me.
The jaguar I'm evolving divinely subsumes her virtues,
is cognizant of the heroine from Mumbai ashrams.
I'd like to tell you I hear rumblings in the sky,
that there's a certain path beneath my feet,
but my destiny eludes all outward signs,
striving for that inner love that has no name.