Material items in black window reflection
The day under scrutiny , beleaguered mind correction
My heart's beating four times for every tick -
of the clock , wearing boxers and black socks
Spending imaginary lottery winnings
Helping everyone I see , then such -
daydreams return to bewildered me
Chugging cold coffee
Airing my days with poetry
Throwing paper airplanes against the wind
Making amends to fictitious friends
Looking for a high in a medicine cabinet
Scoring music , feeding old habits* ...

Pretty birds sing away pain
An old friend this evening returns once again
Shadows of the coming night -
are beautiful along the open plain
The dust of hard labor quelled by a gentle rain
I say Hallelujah for the disappearing day  
Hallelujah , yes indeed* ....

It's noon in a postcard town
Pedestrians gather on tidy city squares
All I can do is stare
I've nothing to offer save for a song
A tough performance before a bitter throng
Most people need nothing but a beat
Like this monotonous street
Where heartless people haphazardly meet
Walking head down , focused on their feet
They've no time for meaningful lyrics
It's a sad time for music among these urban cynics* ..

A girl stood before me at the supermarket
a few random items littered her basket
pink socks poked out from her sneakers
they were covered with little creatures
an inch of flesh stood between
those ankle high socks and her jeans.

Nice socks I exclaimed!
she turned around inflamed
looked at me and said
I have a boyfriend
her face now red.

Are they his I asked?
her face broke into a laugh
sorry I got so defensive
guys make me apprehensive
I don't really have a boyfriend
sometimes I just like to pretend.

*I know how you feel I replied
in embarrassment I've often lied
and whenever I'm struck by beauty
of someone new I meet
I can't look directly at them
I look towards their feet.

Evergreen soldiers at the whim of Alraus
I've had a recurrent dream of the enlisted warriors
abandoning their post , occupying the fertile grassland
in a chess type move to gain control
Free of shade , of root-bound thirst , of choking
moss gathering unchallenged in overpopulated arbors
A celebration courtesy of the Robin Knights , the Chickadee troubadours ,
the Cardinal gentlemen at the Court of Queen Chestnut
Slash , sugar , loblolly and white oak
Persimmon , hickory , honey locust and dogwood
The myrrh of gardenia , magnolia , honeysuckle and tea rose
Earthen red clay , white sand , black loam and kaolin
Grasshopper cellist , cricket flautist , a chuckling crow with a
Spanish guitar
The toad trombones , a bluebird violin solo , a mockingbird reads
a touching poem that even sways the worker ants into a brief pause
The Old Forest becomes pasture and the grassland young woodland
The dove cue the night , the katydids croon to the moon ,
the bullfrogs 'pooka-dooka' and the lovers swoon* ...

Fall afternoons are colored with black charcoal
on gray canvas with orange marmalade moons
Red tail lights divide the young night
Cool ceiling fan revolutions , artificial porch lights , well water and
tangerines , steady poetic resolve , security bulb luminosity
My religion stands ready , a plectrum , four forty tune , a chorus
has proposed marriage to its verse
Day is such a betrayer
I long for the night where I flourish* ...

out of your comfort zone
is the opportunity
where everyone seeks new love

the opened heart
pioneer
a frontier less travelled

here the rose in bloom
all the fragrance of lovers
lips smeared with honey.

The dividing line is no paycheck for two weeks ,
three nights without food , four days of worry in a dark
house , five months of one's dignity systematically stripped
down , six hours into a Winter night sleeping on the ground* ...

Night concertos under the starlight hush , across the squash colored valley of moonlit Indian paintbrush
Of twilight ceilings that bear a million freshly painted , Milky Way wishes
Songs of the piedmont tinder- brush , delivered by mercurial , curious midnight Thrush

Regrets settle on a memory
like dust on an abandoned cobweb
out of reach
to wipe cleanly away.
It's an eye sore
you ignore,
but it's always there
when you try to overlook it.