Shakespeare's 'First Folio'-
comely words for a human race!

-cec

Pull your waste belt tight boy
before this winter comes
there are hairy beasts prowlin'
with their razor smiles in jaw

Pull a belt notch more boy
listen for lines' thin ice
for when you get your tail wet
it freezes up quite twice

Pull that leather firm boy
don't let your bones grow slack
for when this winter comes
it's you that pay a price

-cec

Where do birds go at night?
When winter's silent furies
turn Hawthorns white,
cotton light on ground and grade.

Where do birds sleep till dawn
while pillowing clouds, twice height,
slumber across this evening sky.

Where do birds go to dream?
Swirling, feathered flurries,
to shiver off frostbite extreme.

Then upon a morning light
to round and wakeful nigh
with muffled wings burst into flight
tree branch waved goodbye.

-cec

Waiting --

hanging on a taught thread
a breeze of tender caresses
air, as molecules, provides life
for now

each tethered knot appointed
pearls on string, in space, through time
echoing eons of primal schemes
forward in the stillness

dangling from one ancient ligature
on silken line suspended
twisting, spinning in dry wind
its storied form tells of the hunt

-cec

Where footling trees do grow
nature, apologies need not know
vistas look back at you with eyes of snow
stones, high meadows, and silver timber knots

purple lupines and fire-**** that blush pink
held firm in gravel hands meet lichened erratics
where mountain's complexion in eon's blink
altered antonym of greens and browns chromatic

Where footling trees do grow
clouds shoot over passes round
to sprinkle, clap showers or to plow flows
marmots don down and burrow to ground

seeds and feathers take to their wing
branches' memories bend to storm's prowl
with constancy of change born on this wind
brutes in caverns and caves utter growls

Where footling trees do grow
a precipice of nascent springs leap
into; pine, spruce, ericaceous woodland below,
to gush as creeks, washout to river's slow keep

dappled light and streaming ray divides
fall forest floor with lulling murmur flutters
there bridge a span in wood knock strides
where clinging moss rolls bread and butter

-cec

no ordinary love is love
plucked from a Mimosa tree
in pink with tips of yellow pollen
that charms crow on wire's talons
to leap in flight when no else calls
as though heart itself were sun

-cec

"The poets eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and name."

- A Midsummer Night's Dream (V.i)

rain's tin roof voices
Northern Flicker's Harpo horn
day's soundboard prism

cec

Snap-bone crushing loneliness
saps these last human desires
music's food spoiled moldiness

muted in feelings feeding calcined pyre

Winter's smoke threads coil skyward
into bent gray heavy clouds
tarry over these tired tombs

ferry-man bowed, slow over Styx, haunted, cowled

Now is this solstice slump home
despondent excursion south
exposing deep in marrow

decomposing airs of Bohemian couth

-cec

Caesar,
et tu Brute;
find crosses for eyes
in greater number than cloud nine
with no more use of life's
accumulated stills
amounting to naught

All our labors lost
one quick shutter click
a quietus consuming trick
played out on curtained stage
ambling scarecrow like
straw for end's wisdom
coins resting for vision ...

-cec

All these poems entombed in a dying bog-

their death wish come true
mourned by poets in communion
dead muses in abject thread count shrouds
there lay Brute in his "et tu" tu?
there Cesar bleeds for art and politic
a writer's sword rusts in obscure earth

though here, among Himalayan thorns
blossom greens and early orange berries
plucked by blue birds and titmouse
scratching foot-tiny script onto tree moss
read by a literal sway of conscious antenna
archived in depths of a comatose cosmos

-cec

Crescent Moon, tell nigh Venus
Mar's eye a ménage à trois
tangled night of domestic wine sky
and kicked heel skinny giggles
descending from a deep cosmic
sigh, breath, breeze
while here on firm frigid terrace
light shivers its evening ambitions  
pinching a twinkle of libidinous stars

≈ cec

gentle in the morning air, this-
which swings upon grey mist
as light and shadow soon appear
among the hush-hush leaves

this winter wet has now beset
within the orchard's glean
where viscid mud and bracken rest
and pearls of rain drops gleam

red berries lure wide eyes that bite
to satiate their gnaw
from limb to branch with claw or flight
for each must heed this call

with roiling clouds of hues and tint
above this valley's lows
these fronts move cardinal quint
in convection's rise and flow

from ages past in lineage lasts
with Raven's heart and soul
upon these western waters cast
through weathered mounts in snow

in this tale as solstice nears
beneath transition's Northwest blow
loyal stewards of this land revered
in humble cedar house repose

receive these then agreeable rains
that nurtures one and all
know this sacred season's reign
as chronicled forward in this squall

-cec

In sunshine
it rains on occasion
cloudburst's choice
           invasion
catching some with muddy shoes
and others
singing joyful celluloid songs

another cold mud month
does not discriminate
sporadically choosing victims
                 once
to the many fallen
channeled
red rivulet's ruin

April,
where are your poppies,
moments of silence?
tears, showers copy,
if dammed would over flood
howling grief's tsunami
pain pressing each drop
to say they did not end it
            sooner

-cec

a scent of roses fill this room
giving clues to summer's bloom
magnified through water's lens
thorns belie our velvet friends

a mouse once helped a lion's paw
who bawled to heaven with his pall
Hawthorn trees, appropriate name
sharp hawed lion with kingly mane

healing beauty eased its pain
as pity brooked the mouse's brain
a greater beast brought down to serve
the lesser mouse with velvet fur

a moral seems to lend its fragrance
as nature builds eternal rings
take this leaf, humbly snipped
as aphid clings to flower's hip

-cec

a dragonfly sat in this yard
atop a stick not far from near
above the poppies, above the mint
from sun above its eyes did glint
no hurry as the wind caressed
as shadow moved upon its rest
the time advanced, it floated by
this insect chose to stay awhile
then like all things it moved along
on flower heads and currents song
its gone now as the day grows long
from moments sight to fluttering gone

-cec

Federico García Lorca --

Dawn in New York has
four columns of mire
and a hurricane of black pigeons
splashing in the putrid waters.

Dawn in New York groans
on enormous fire escapes
searching between the angles
for spikenards of drafted anguish.

Dawn arrives and no one receives it in his mouth
because morning and hope are impossible there:
sometimes the furious swarming coins
penetrate like drills and devour abandoned children.

Those who go out early know in their bones
there will be no paradise or loves that bloom and die:
they know they will be mired in numbers and laws,
in mindless games, in fruitless labors.

The light is buried under chains and noises
in the impudent challenge of rootless science.
And crowds stagger sleeplessly through the boroughs
as if they had just escaped a shipwreck of blood.

An orange sun decends low mountain
shadows climb high the snowy crags
small birds disappear into silent forest
a beeswax candle lites near a cabin window

the inkstone wetted, the brush drinks deep
flowing slow strokes of evening's lament
when heart yearns and love relents
every tremble a storytelling twilight sleep

-cec

silly sung a soggy song
of tears wrapped in an envelope

years all tapped with angry raps
as neighbors' shades were drawn

scrawling bye 'n byes in flowing ink
all strung with notes of woe
postage licked with bitter spit
heart's bucket pours the soul

poets write to move the wind
lead like all Nantucket quilts
friendship and industry woven tight
too understand the cause to plight

today away from nay and sorrow
embrace the path to reach the 'morrow

-cec

Skype died yesterday-
assassinated for Dialing M-for ...
broken packet lengths
severed heads and tails
pixalated mumble-jumbo
a photo swirling mess
Its popping tune buttons
scattered floor waxed bounces
your contact under a refrigerator's pan
gathering dust and spider eggs
waiting to hatch a time-machine message
a Pleistocene missive of steamy goo

-cec

These old knees bark, longing sapling sinews-
with love, beauty, pleasure, songs of nature
sweetest passion, coy-eyed, lingers in you
while years man's core stretched heart's nomenclature
Deep now buried in roots hieroglyphic
nourished by once romance, moon light dancing
soon thoughts turn cypher, Orphic metaphysics
trying to sense nigh want or plight's advance
Finding smooth stones pocketed hand to wait
counting beaded moments beating ascent
where **** Aphrodite, wraps arms in warmth
protogenos Eros in flight's ferment
Ancient loyal feelings plod toward sea-foam  
emerge, reborn, accompany thee home

-cec

Three monkeys, wearing stylish t-shirts of death and destruction:
one its eyes, one its ears and one with mouth covered, sit outside.
In the dust and debris of Gaza, monkey bones seem like children's,
where are their mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grand parents?
Why do the apartment concrete slabs slant and tilt so?
A pipe gurgles water seeking pressure to climb out and up
into the high-rises of civilization, to no avail;  stray dogs drink warily.
Distant thunder pounds the ground, like giant hammers all day long,
not construction; deconstruction, demolition, immolation, death.
Humanity flees with nowhere to go on this planet of shame
as the conquering heroes raise small skull cups to cheer a victory.

-cec

Let's begin our song with its music coda —
Nahua elders, of an agricultural peoples of ancient America
weaving their way into history's braided tail
with a relevant document of late fifteen hundreds
communed with a Spanish Franciscan friar, Bernardino de Sahagún
suspending time and space onto European paper
writing, a general history, of the things of New Spain
the Florentine Codex (1575-77), during the Great Pestilence of 1576

Meeting to collect the remains of the day in Colegio Imperial
on the Aztec bones of a city now called Mexico
it was ends of eras, community, culture, ghosts
a Rosetta stone of Spanish steel and Nahua blood columns
laid out so even Pliny the Elder would be proud
thirty plus years to account, thousands dead
now resting at Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, Italy
this profane tomb still wet from the voyage of conquest ...


Nahua, you plant your staple crops, still
beans, maize, squash, tomatoes; still
the maguey plant calls to your weavers, still
remembering your hands and hearts, still
crushing life may come and go
but the elders foregoing forgetting
released their spirits to print your song

-cec

The very thought of you
strums time out of day-*


This baked wilderness defies emptiness
as cactus flowers bloom for none
in sun's blistering sorcery
as scaple sharp, shadow surgery

Of this sovereign heat spell
bleached dunes give way shells
crackling weeds, sentry sands
let arid Bristlecone land

Downward rooted and hoary
fibrous fingers sprout steadfast
retelling scrub brush stories
of phloem wine, mirage's vacuous blast

Clouds, in debt to ocean's soul
owe, are owned by Helios aloft
shape shifting steamy billows
promising royal anointment

Then this evening after life
when all is but spent in scurry strife
let it dwell upon a dream
of leopard rains and keystone schemes

Before silhouette night's numb lull
forcing close to petal's remit
in desiccated continental drift
prepare this silent will

-cec

"Sposa ..." by Vivaldi sung by Bartoli,
Plays ...

wives disrespected, ignored, forgotten
she, resounded, off tract, forlorn
found, you, a treasure in Neptune's ocean
faithful to your heart and female notions
then we braced in loving arms
pressing full these bodies charms
when highest notes did meet in kiss
this world, fell away, as though in mist
and all there was were these two souls
immersed in classic rapture ritual
as time spun down this tape of bliss
your mortal coils did drift amiss
though in this heart you always play
this dream's music throughout dog's day

-cec

hearts suffer great loss
hummingbird's tongue drips nectar
wings muted beating

-cec

This sadness in your eyes, eyes, eyes
plumbs abysmal depths
irretrievable dreams in debt

Here as viewing province, hesitant to pry
as  meddlesome, these subterranean wounds
in howling incubus despair

upon a sea of pregnant cries
aware, that we are life marooned
to test what we can bear

Transform, yield burdened truths
pull wool from heady visions
reveal your hearts, release regrets
reclaim joy's favor, and heal incisions

-cec

Fog rolls bank on ocean's crest
over mounds of roaming waves
buoy bells float in dissonant beats
near shores of sand-piper beaches

clangs that mark a barrier's depth
where sunken vessels sailed
and now these tolls extol their death
to those who brave this veil

the question lies on either side
and where these ship do round
on going out and coming in
through narrow's passage bound

-cec

Dear feathered friend
what do you rend?
a worm from down low
or grub with no toes

Up 'fore dawn's porridge
you care for no storage
'cept to fill a small belly
with nutritious bug jelly

Quick in you flutter, by an' bye
tree's tea leaf readings, fool the eye
you twitter, tin whistle, and tweet
announcing your day's avian treats

-cec