Steel blades cut lush blades
Their air-borne juices recall
Energy of squirrels

Leaping fur wraps muscle; mind;
Full presence; lush unknowing.

First: a soft statement
tolled out to a vacant page
ringing, and rebounding at the edges
as a quiet ripple set
to subtly amplify the light
of imagination.
The stone was dropped by --
what?
A hand that is as old as, or is older
than God.
It pushes through the water like a fish
without fins, it invisibly reshelves
the fluid memories from below
to above, below
to above until at last the rock,
the stone that is a soft statement at the top
of a once-vacant page,
clacks into place on the darker underside.

And then the poetry continues:
Crumpled Lightning;
A hailstorm of Words; Visions; Lines: Sparks;
all angled to mirror the space occupied by you,
even as it speaks of something else entirely,
even plummeting from every direction
to the point they blur - left to right, top to bottom -
the poem is a sheet of water,
a prism of distorted imagination showing you there,
you, clear as day, sharp as life
something, some piece of a thing, is made so clear
to you, a facet of life, a law of reality, or the inner clockwork
of a mind; you see just that much more of yourself
and that space you occupy in air, it is
that, though it may be masked by its magnitude, or its detail,
that is the quality what has wrapped your mind in a net.

So then the poetry concludes
with what?
Some three pillared, immovable declaration?
One scarcely held breath in the wind?
A clot of sky? A vein of iron?
You never fully expect it, no matter how often you are told.
Somehow, very likely inexplicably,
you recall some quality about beginnings,
drawing your eye to the top of the page
that started it all. The
First: a soft statement
an echo freshly familiar, despite
its elder weight; it was there all along
an echo, but an anchor of a stone
built for tethering all that poetry
to the underside of your mind.

These mountains are but a stand of trees
to the man astride that horse;
dark eyes are
massive storm clouds
or shadows cast
by towering presence
hidden in the folds
of an otherwise ordinary
brain. Power? There
is no end to this man's power
except the end
that will always march
shattering sheets of glass ice
with hooves so hard
they weather mountains.

Does he see it? The horse,
whose everyday hooves crack
one film of ice among many,
sees it; has a face
- most expressive beast on earth -
that speaks aloud
against the cold that runs fingernails along
the raw interior of her throat.

Yes, this man, like so many men,
make choices, and choices
have troubling consequences.

There is darkness
in these mountains;
because mountains stand taller
than the common countryside.
Sometimes, their height brings them closer
to the sun. At midnight, their peaks
are more distant than the depths of a gorge.

See the deeply set, tempered soul
ensconced in that man's eyes?

The horse is very,
very tired, and sees more
than mountains, icicles,
wisps of frozen cloud -
she sees beyond these and
beneath these, to a destination
frozen shut in the folds of an
otherwise ordinary brain.
Power? The horse sighs
and drips chilled mucus
on snow. Her humanity
she pours out and only a
frozen peak can see.

*There are humans
making choices
always leading
to the cold.

You set it glowing
We named it sunshine
You let us call it ours

Each day it moves us
We step down on the floor
It sweeps us out the door
Like we were shewed

We've diff'rent stories
Jointly we whisper
Do we matter at all

Sun-dusted cities
Flooded full of noise
An isolated sea.

Down in the subway
In silence we're binded
It's like we're all blinded
Indifferent stone

Each face is different
Jointly we whisper
Do we matter at all

We've diff'rent stories
We don't stop whispering
A soulful emptying
Are we alone?

Each night I lay for sleep
I hear an ancient speak
Lift up your eyes

Remember that you're small
You're still my all in all
Read then remember
then go in peace.

We're unique people
And we all fall like snow
No need for vertigo

Remember from
which place that we fell…