Saturn is in
line with
Venus tonight
but, nothing's easy
when you're down.
The clowns walk
around, dressed in
yellow; fast food smiles
and cheeseburger
souls, and nothings
easy when you're down.

The dancers with poles
and sadness, that Halloween,
fires burning, childhood
perfumed dreams,
kind of sadness fills the
navy blue night.
I can't find the North star,
and the jack-lanterns lie rotting
in the streets of Nebraska
and Kansas, and the candies
all gone, and the kids wait.
And I can't find  
the deep blue shirt I bought
at Goodwill, and Billy Burroughs
is filled with worms and earth,
and Bukowski looks at Satan
and says, "what do you
mean, we're out of whiskey?"

I've never been much for the stars,
and family and Thanksgiving are
painfully overrated,
and nothing's easy when
you're down.

design your body next to me,
close the blinds let’s sleep till three.

choreograph heartbeats
and rendezvous in our dreams.

rewinding roads above box springs,
your toes curl tight around my feet.

when we esplanade under sheets,
high thread counts don't mean a thing.

It begins with light
slanting through the seasons
and an azur sky
filled with emptiness,
a crane floating softly
among the clouds,
drifting shadows on the earth.

There are days I live,
frantic with life,
others where I float
inside a bubble,
breath moving quietly.
I hear the music of
the ancient pines,
filled with poems.

Something touches me
from that other place,
thoughts I don’t think
to say, reaching through
the high, still air –
silence washes away
the past as I breathe
quiet mystery into myself
« with a mind that’s forgotten
mind. »

I used to play this
game
with my second 
wife.
It was called,
guess the fruit.
We did it in
the morning,
that way, we had
breakfast and ***.
Succulent and sensual.

She would lie naked on
the bed-blindfolded.
I put a Miles Davis CD
on, then went to the
kitchen, and roughly chopped
various types of fruit:
Peaches, Pears, and Pomegranate.
Avocados were too messy.
I would grab a handful of
various types of berries, and
assemble them all on
a plate.

By the time I got back to
the bedroom, she was 
squirming around, and squealing 
like a squeaky toy.
I'd take a piece of fruit and
lightly rub it on her neck,
she would yell,
"Banana"
"Nope," Id' say.
I would dart it across
her lips, and work it
down her neck...
ease it across her pink
left ******.

She coos, "Peaches."
"No baby, but you are close."
I would make light stabs
down her belly to the top
of her golden mound.
By this time she
would softly moan.
"Fuckkkk...Blackberry."
"Yes! You got it."
Then I would pop it
in my mouth, savoring the
juice and the sweetness.

The game would continue
back and forth until
we finished the fruit.
By that time, we were more
than ready to make love.
We went at it like
dogs in heat.
the sweat and fruit juice
mingling on our bodies,
illuminated by the
morning sun, breaking
sad through the
window.

I am single now, and poor.
I can't afford fruit.
And even if I had a woman,
it would be hard
to play, guess the Mickey D's
dollar menu item.