the boy leaned his head back
and proclaimed the clouds looked like
a dog in a pond

when in his three years had he seen
a dog in a pond? who taught him you could see
anything in the heavens?  

trees spouting marshmallow blossoms  
white angels in a kangaroo choir, dragons
breathing scarlet fire   

who would tell him he saw but vapor
and light? who could make his hound drown
by ******* dry such a beautiful blue?

a sextillion tons of sea above me  
I am watchful sentinel, in the trench
Mariana--what strange creatures visit,
in this world without light  

day or night matters not, here,
where pressures are beyond measure
yet these beings glide by, more drifting
dreams than sluggish flesh  

my neighbors yet belch fire,
steam, and black cream from their bellies
as I did in my youth, but
I am now silent  

and though I have perfect recall
of all that has ever happened, I am crevice  
without the crease of time, and remember
not one sorrowful thing

I hear his barking from the other room
like a knocking on a door I can’t open    

his coughing comes in waves, drowning silence  
I clutch my own chest, “breathe”  

twice, thrice a day, I see him hobble to the bathroom,
oxygen tank behind him, his ball and chain  

there’s no ax of repentance to set him free after
fifty years under the brown leaf’s spell

not in this gray world where mindless cells multiply
and organs surrender to uninvited guests  

until one morning,  I wake to stillness--though I know
his hacking will abide forever, in memory’s vault

the only sounds, the sloshing of our jungle boots  
and a cricket symphony

the air affluent with the odor of  the paddies  
oxen dung, rice-rich stagnant water

a lone golden cloud I see has two lives--one in the western sky;
another on the water’s face

and it suffers two fates, in unison, as light fades, while sky
births crimson before it morphs to black    

in its silent death throes, I see the cloud melt from the heavens
but on the water its departure is less graceful    

blurred, convulsive from our mad marching, our soles slaughtering
a would be perfect reflection of  firmament

paler than her skin, was the scar
on her chin, a two inch memory phantom
at a forty-five degree angle

that, I recall most of all,
the lady beside me at the deli, the Saturday
before my daughter was born

I know I looked at her twice
in the flash of time it took to order,
two pastramis on rye

both of which went to ruin
since my wife went into labor
the moment we sat to eat

we made it to the hospital
in twenty minutes, though I don't remember the ride,
my hands on the wheel, the traffic lights

we hit every one, my wife said,  
yellow then red, and those were perhaps a portent,
an omen of what was to come:

thirty hours of breathing, heaving,
fetal distress, a caesarean section, a beautiful
daughter, who lived thirty minutes

I can't usually see her face, except
when I close my eyes to sleep, and then
as a small circle floating above our bed

her visage smooth, baby pink, full of light,
though it lingers but a moment, before I see the scar
on the woman's chin, the meal uneaten

mending the snow
has now become knitting white
to frost
as lost kingdoms navigate
from their obscurity -
hosting the hours of our doom
to decades of joy and inertia ...
even as you really love someone
on purpose... you forget
someone.

and all
is come undone !
from a kernel of honey
as ever was.
barking madly at false gods, while -
nipping at the heel of
Unhealing wounds...

all  havoc and have at It
where the true wrong
believes You.

a sting of happiness
dashed against the stubborn
fuss of tossed rocks.
the milk of shadow....
clawing at the way you forget
a glowing medallion
of aching wisdom

And henpecked stars  Henpecked.

a clutch of hit squad horseshoes, lucky in the dark.

the blue navel of a certain monotony
that jibes with your Apologies...
and a long Pause

A Lost -
Art
Founding the Church
of a Lost
Cause

and every Wednesday in a Box
of course.

hurrah !

white caps, near her shore
nothing more--those and voices
in the breaking waves

she alone hears,
as code deciphered,
their scribe, she is

faithful to the crashing
rhythm, in which she reads
the dance of the dead  

countless fishes' swishes,  
harpooned whales’ wailing, myriad men
mourning, as vessels foundered

white caps, waves, sand
symphony she alone hears, sees, smells
and understands as dirge

what did he miss most?
the whip of wind on his face
the unbridled buck of life between his legs
the scent of the saddle
the lathered beast?

the fast pass of the satchel
to the next eager rider, the covenant
he carried in the saddle bags; the one he made
with the Almighty to keep him safe
from the red devils?  

a new century dawned, two score
years since the hot rides were quick
made obsolete by the iron horse, the poles
and lines that brought Morse's magic,
ticking time electric

what did he miss most?
perhaps the deep, unperturbed sleep
after the ride--slumber filled with liquid dreams,  
gifts bestowed by a condign contentment
from his brutish labor

he sighted
a ****** of crows
lined on a dead oak branch  
he could see only silhouettes
against a gray dawn sky    

he closed one eye
pulled both triggers
on grandpa’s old gun;
all of them save one fell
from the lifeless limb  

the sole survivor
looked down on him,
but did not move, not an inch
not even when he reloaded,
aimed and shot again

hunched over, a brown-skinned army,
picking, the field soon to be stripped of its bounty;
they will move to the next one, fast,
before the fruit falls to the ground

"los ninos, los viejos tambien"
the young, the old ones also help, though
they are slower and tote less a load  

when the day is done, they build fires
for the frijoles, and to keep the night's spirits
at bay; they sleep in the shanties, the sheds
the master provides  

the next day will be the same, though maybe
not as hot--maybe a rain will give them respite
from their labors  

a gentle, short shower they pray,
for a storm might lay ruin to the crops, the treasure
they borrow only long enough
to basket and truck

not even a cloud visits the white sky
so the stooping, the loading drags on without relief
but from the north, a cool wind does blow

in it they hear a voice without cords vibrating,
yet one that speaks a language their hearts know well,
telling them their toil is to be brief, yet eternal: that winter
only whispers now, but soon commands all to rest

he saw him, the gun,
the uniform, not in a dream, but in between
sleep and wakefulness, when morning tugged
on him to start the day

while he lay, and recalled other mornings  
when his eyes would open to the same gray walls,
the same black and white visions foretelling
what he would see:

the time he saw his brother dragged
through a field, a casualty of some grand battle
only hours later to discover, he was pulled from a fire,  
a **** lab explosion, speed burned, ignoble

or one cold morning when he awakened
after a sensation of careening down a hill with others
around him screaming, and by noontide he read  
of a bus going off a cliff into the sea,

and the cursed time he sat up suddenly, drenched in sweat,
after his dream of a child singing morphed into nightmare,
a little one struck with fever; of course, his niece was rushed
to the ER an hour later, mercury reading 104

this morning was different, for it was he
he saw as vision's victim, running down a street,
cop commanding halt, and seeing himself hit the asphalt, just after
he felt a thud--just before the world returned to black

judicious July, two inches,
auspicious August, three; September sunk to half
an inch, but leaped to record heat for the month

October first, he was at the bank,
hat in hand and pride somewhere deep inside,
after he swallowed it two droughts ago

the banker would know, this time
he would not bother to ask--the reaping now
would be from blood, not soil

the blood of his ancestors
who fed a nation, anonymous plodders who plowed
the sod where they were now buried

he was the last; he would have to move fast
to get dollars for his dirt, before the loans came due,
before the wife, the children knew

they would soon be town dwellers--that October
would be the month "Farm For Sale" signs would hang from
his fences like mocking scoreboards

and the month he would feel like
he had drowned in drought, leaving no doubt
he had failed his father, and his sons

where the void has
it's puppets...
the cartilage
of dead suns,
and the rumor of you
advances.

all the peculiar Rhombi
bedazzle the Waste
as long shadows
fold into crashing
waves of
noise... and split seams
mend your reflection
as you gather to yourself
the whole of Creation
to microscope the dot
above your
i.