I love to close my eyes
& find a stillness –
in the turning world.

My imagination wanders,
to you.
My memories make
Pleasure.

~ Ephemeral bliss  ~
Peaking in the swells gentle set.
Mid-solitudes of the vast Pacific.

Young honey lip lovers

Warmth in wintertide;
a wild iteration of summer.

Mio Amore
My sunshine in the shadow.

If you leave me
All the hangers will get tangled in the closet.
It won’t matter;  all my clothes will be on the floor.

If you leave me
The cheese in the refrigerator will turn green.
And the milk will soon be far too thick to pour.

If you leave me
The remote will only tune in somber shows.
That will be OK;  I’ll have forgotten how to laugh.

If you leave me
Dust bunnies will build a hutch beneath the bed
Where one forgotten slipper hides that I will never move.

If you leave me
The sun will shine on everything that’s not within my view.
I won’t mind;  my sunglasses will fool everyone but me.

If you leave me
Hummingbirds won’t visit the back garden any more
They’ll be blind to the red juice in the feeder.

If you leave me
I will build a house of memory and grief
And move myself inside and lock the door
                    ljm

let's cry together shy
for all the souls who are
gonna die
not knowing
the beauty of the forest glen
the fair shine of an evening sun
the smoke of fire
the mountains shoulder
the sea's vapor or
a young deer wild
loose upon the prairie
a goat baying
a horse gallop between their thighs
a river cold wash
their cares
away
the lover's paradise
that joy of a child that comes
when they look at you like god hisself
a new day unfolding
where dread or misdeed
gets put away in bright yellow
praise for
this is just another day
dead have seen as much
poets have felt
stroked
the felt of that fur
called forth to the God's the Earth's majesty
so much better
yet
it is until
I die when
I will shut up
and quit trying
to capture
this life
as well
as enjoy
it
in the meantime
let us
cry together

Owl's eyes see with prophecy
through the depths of
the forest trees' limbs
And those spirits...
Witnessing the past, present and future....
These eyes understand either
upside-down or backwards in
visions of blue
Like mirrors reflecting the sky,
owls eyes perceive the stratosphere
doorway in between light
and shadow-
Gifted as it is with a sprinkling of galaxies....
Owls eyes can see with magic-
Their pupils are portals to Shangri-La and Tartarus where ghouls  waver their direction endlessly in a lemniscate
Even in the most moon-less night
they conceive palpably those ghosts that weap as they wander.

I can feel the stars with my eyes
shut, they are like crumbs
of cornbread in their corners,
or memories like tears all dried up

When I was young
I got my **** whooped once,
or maybe twice for taking
the fisherman's daughter
into the woods holding
a lantern up under her dress

Her huckleberries were in bloom

When the seafarer sang out
if you could call it that,
the whippoorwills went quiet
and we both ran home

Now, at a certain hour
each evening
I still raise both fists
to the bloodshot moon

Remembering our shadows
how they were humming
like two lovestruck loons

But that was back then
and now it is dark
with the wind at my bow,
the front end of my boat
afloat in dead leaves.

Here in the middle
of November
night comes to the skies
early throwing it's shade
into the river, like a voice
in disguise I remember,
it's hard to walk a straight line

I've had thoughts
about a black dog
dying at the foot of my bed,
about cornerstones
I've found in the dark
with my bare feet

Forties of death
and no bearing,
acres of sadness,
the width of a breath

I've dreamed a lot
about my father
and the smell of his cigarettes
glowing like a lamp
in the window before me.

after three wildest hours
and forty four raging minutes
sitting up alone
with no witness

how can I quietly sleep
and evade to dream
any thorn-apples, foxholes
mulberry trees

in oddly detailed scenes
and the like sequence of visions
that chase me at will
shredding my precision

I better go somewhere else
but treat me well
when eyes need to rest
electric lights cannot help

so I've burn the cane
tonight on a boggy shore
and pallid fire came
and high above owl roared

dreamed of devastation,           flew miles        low

over concrete .   skeletons,      bones of the thing.



all is dust, as dust we have become.                 slow.



grey.    nothing moves here no more.          no sighs.



they have forgotten us.        we have forgotten them.



are we  now the bones of what we were?



bad night dreaming.



sbm.