Learning to Ride

Now and again
on warm spring mornings
low on the drop bars
cadence clipped clean

fluid transfer of force
orbiting the sweet spot
flesh, bone, alloy mesh

senses trawl a teeming sea
I still feel your hand
on the back of my seat

ragged breath your
big feet slapping
pavement as you release me
to the current, anchored

hands on knees while I recede
downstream pedaling
furiously beyond your reach.

Library

You lacked grandeur, no city hall portal,
with the footprint of a chapter book face up
on the lawn, spine a rule for tomes of cars

shameless with chrome.  A nameless perfume
bathed us in the foyer, a lure to place our heads
in your open oven, greedy for another gassing.  

Landscape of sturdy oak plain and canyon
buttered in light from a flotilla of hovering
saucers, the wind swept butte topped with glare

ice where my finger skated titles and my dog-
eared card toward a woman with cats eye glasses
lashed lightly on thrilling swell by the thinnest whip

of lanyard, yellow Ticonderoga number
two at the ready in the perfect quiver
of her platinum French twist, pert pink bud

eraser bobbing up and down with every
delicate toggle of the fat rubber
date stamp, so mesmerizing to a dewy reader

brought to his toes, straining for a whiff
of subtext, your memory a mist rising from this book
cracked wide, lolling fragrant in my lap.

Lightning Strikes 323 Norwegian Reindeer

Hunters made the discovery, stealth and *****
dabbed anoraks all for nothing not to mention
a critical downwind approach and camo blend

that rendered Frode and Jørgen or Ove and Anders
invisible against rock and lichen and cloudberry
but offered little protection against thoughts sublime.

Ove, perhaps, cursing God for poor sportsmanship,
the divine equivalent of dynamiting fish, while Anders
gave silent thanks to fortune, a freezer full of steaks.

Lost, Night Coming On

Sun going down on a six mile walk
honed our shadows to Giacometti bronze,  
three old friends, a bit of spring yet in their step,
streetlights sputtering indignation at a dismal election
more referendum on the Enlightenment itself,
casting us, perhaps, in unflattering light,
a triptych of angry white men wreathed
in the sour mist of resentment for all you knew,
bas relief of your shadowed face
a dry wadi of worry framed with care within
the folds of your headscarf.  Desperation,
oncoming night, courage in the face of our
disgraceful descent into darkness,
God only knows what drove you
to ignore the little voice in your head,
pull the car to the curb and ask
the way to the local community college
just a few blocks south on Washington, past
the first light, parking garage on your left,
you can’t miss it, finning my hand
down the street, past the bar
where soon we would huddle over beer,
watching in disbelief, news of night
coming on.

Medical History

I believe it was Churchill who said
History is written by the victors
delivered, one imagines, dryly with

a dash of pith, an ounce or two of gin,
words clipped and formed in the space above
his derbied chalk hill dome from gathering

clouds of ominous blue cigar smoke,
veddy proper, tickety-boo and all
that rot.  A life insurance policy

after all, read in a British accent
is boilerplate made sublime, all this
as I sit in the waiting room checking

off rows of little boxes, writing
my medical history, to be read
aloud in the event of my demise

by Englishmen; Bill Nighy on
the subject of my LDL levels,
Patrick Stewart breathing life into a

family penchant for colon cancer or
Gary Oldham giving a dignified
reading from the list of male fore-bearers

who’ve toppled headlong over the pale
clutching their chests.  Perhaps Steve Coogan
or some surviving Python could coax a

chuckle at the expense of my total
hip replacement, snatching victory from
the jaws of inevitable defeat.

Meeting Your Plane

The night nurse plane that ferried you home
Pulled covers of high desert blue over
The unmade bed of the day, careless meringue
In the rearview mirror, sanctification ahead
Drifting in the back pew of the cellphone lot
Dancing embers of arrivals and departures
From some distant bonfire where we huddle
Beneath a harvest moon, stars and planets
Skating holding patterns on a black ice pond.

Miller Moth

Promises were made
that dress of yours
yellow as a Miller moth
batting about the bulb
of a painted porch light
yearning on hanger
to caress a ***** of shoulder
ride a swell of hip
bell the well-turned ankle.
Pleat and dart pooled about
first one foot
then the other
rose to lip
a halting smile of neckline
assumed an aspect
of sail gathered wind
sung vows in the rigging
where I madly batted  
drawn, ensnared.

Morning Spider

What were you trying to say
from down the dry well
of the German coffee maker?  
A brusque “guten Morgan”
unworthy of the finesse required
to defeat the hinged plastic lid,
“****** off mate” belying
the English taste for tea,
begging bus fare for the Silk Road
transparent even without a bracing first cup.
A caution, then?  
Don’t leave bags unattended,
know the warning signs of stroke,
sleep like a baby
with two-step authentication?  
Choirmaster alone in the apse,
dwarfed by vaulting cathedral walls
soaring seamless into heavenly gloom,
where I hover on high, indifferent
god commanding flood water, bestowing
the random fly of mercy, deigning
to lower a spoon of salvation
while you weave a gossamer chorale, perhaps,
working the tiny shuttles your batons.

Mose Allison

Glottal blues sing song  
Dixie drawl behind beat, wry
as toast, work as play.

It’s the letting go,
book of your hands
forever falling open,
your words on the page  
taking flight a few downy
letters at a time, sentences
learning to trust their wings,
short forays of paragraphs
you strain to read against
porcelain blue sky,  
whole chapters lifting
off as one to wheel
by their own lights,
leaving you
to slip between
these clean white pages
with a good book,
trying not to read
too much into the author’s
soaring dedication.

Guilt

Northbound on the left hand shoulder
Even the most armored pads no match
For the glittering carpet of shattered glass
Pile shot through with steel shard, sharp
Bite of burrowing wire, incongruous
As the blue cow I placed above a yellow
Felt board moon as a child, unsummoned
Memory that galls my brand new passenger
Dour as his spear is sharp, running me through
While I watch the reflection of the dog
Vanish behind the spooling concrete wall

Night Coming On

Sun going down spindled our shadows
to Giacometti bronze,  
three old friends on a standing
six mile walk, streetlights sputtering
indignation at a dismal election
more final referendum
on the Enlightenment itself,
casting us in unflattering light,
angry white men, for all you knew,
wreathed in the sour mist
of seething resentment,
bas relief of your shadowed face
a dry wadi of worry
framed with care within
the folds of your hijab.  
Desperation, oncoming night,
courage in the face of our disgraceful
descent into darkness,
God only knows what drove you
to ignore the little voice
in your head, steer to the curb to ask
directions to the community college.  
You can’t miss it, finning my hand
down Washington
in a puny act of supplication,
past holiday lights and shoppers,
past this bar where we sit
huddled over beer,
watching in disbelief,
news of night coming on.

One Night, Late Summer

The Harvest Moon presides
But won’t presume
A promise to itself
Despite imploring wood smoke
In spite of homing embers
Rising to swarm  
A Janus face
Waxing luminous as royal jelly
A weather eye on the waning
Bound to come
Willing for the moment
To look the other way
While I haul on this lasso
Your upturned eyes enameled
With amber gleam.

One Night, Late Summer

The Harvest Moon presides
but won’t presume a pledge
despite imploring wood smoke
in spite of homing embers
rising to swarm a Janus face
waxing luminous as a loupe of cream
a weather eye on waning yet to come
willing to look the other way
while I haul on this lasso
your upturned eyes
enameled in buttery gleam.

On Turning Sixty-One

Fitzgerald’s last line,
longing rendered in

fourteen words, ode to
inevitability uttered

in any tongue. “So we beat
on” aching,

“boats against the current”
our urgent

she bu de!, she bu de!/
I can’t bear

to let go!, “borne back”
by music

in the Latin,
de mihi tempus/

give me more
time, echoing

“ceaselessly
into the past.”

Orangutan

I dreamed of trees last night, slow sunlight
liquor seeping through stacked canopy
to pool amber in low places, bending

to my reflection, look of arch surprise
fading into ******* shadows, cast
black shell curing at twilight, blanketing

the leaf wrack, pooling about my matted
autumn robe, sending me to the highest
limbs, my long arms elegant paired levers.

Our Science Film

Autumn colors leave me
Pining for black and white
Grammar school reel to reel
Science films snaking through
Rackety Cold War projectors
Chalk motes swarming
Cones of gibbering light
Can-do voice-overs
Always a hiccup off
Read by radio men
Sporting pale miens
Pie plate headphones
Brylcreem slick
Perhaps a Scholastic
Short featuring winsome
Child actors playing
You and me
Button noses
Wrinkled in stricken
Joy at a baby bunny
Wide eyed and stock still
In an apple crate
Beneath an apple tree
Leaves schooling in binary
Shimmer on the summer
Breeze blowing through our film
An introduction to photosynthesis
Or the metamorphosis of caterpillars
It matters little to you
Beribboned in gingham
Or me flying flapping
Dungarees
Platinum hair
Whipping our faces
Sky a china white
Behind ivory billows
Framed forever
Dimpled and laughing
Milkweed exploding
From our fingers like secrets
Shared in alabaster
Sign language.

Paul Irving Precedes Me

It’s been said we process through life
leading our own parade, fronting
our second line, wielding a flaming baton

igniting black powder twists to toss
at cheering throngs, though truth be told
I prefer metaphor with less pizazz

something a bit more staid and buttoned
down, protocols clear.  As I make my way
I wish to be preceded by Paul Irving

a stern, eagle beaked fellow,  
House Sergeant-At-Arms, a man given
to regular habits, a guy who knows

exactly where we’re headed and how
to get there.  Paul can be relied upon to
part the waters, stem the flood of

well-wishers with which I must
contend every day, dragging me by my
lapels, bald head pivoting, eyes steely,

scanning the room for trouble, alert to
roadblocks, those bent on delay, keen
to deliver me to my final address.

Pendleton Shirt

Wool that never wears out  
Plaids welcome in any circle
Pockets shingled with ***** and tails
That stay tucked no matter what
Yours smelling of lanoline
Mixed with gasoline
Sweat broken unloading
Imperials in Wheeling
Dried salt scrim by Akron
Heroic buttons
Holding back the minor
Planet of your belly
Satin labels stitched  
Into elliptical orbits of collars
Shirts found
Sagging on hangers
At the end of the day
Exhausted from their work
Concealing the contours
Of a hounding emptiness.

Years after giving up the game
for good I dream of turning
up late to a match juggling
my chipped red racquet,

high-impact lenses,
salt tanned right hand
glove and two
blue ***** fresh in the can,

my dream court receding
down darkened halls,
a warren of identical doors, square
portholes slashing avocado

carpet with watery cross ties,
florescent flickers that merge and pool,
flushing me into flat light within
a white cube to toe the red

service line once again only to find
my forehand serve impeded
by a jumble of tables,
five drawer files and armoires,

packing crates, roll top desks and bureaus
arranged into the crooked lane plat of medieval Bruges.  
Racquetball,
a game of angles

gone sadly out of fashion,
is the MacGuffin in my dream
as it was in my playing days
when you were always the real opponent,

King of Center Court
running me, stroking passing shots
while I dove heedless, headlong into walls,
losing on points, nursing my trophy of bruises.

Years after giving up the game
for good I still dream of turning
up late to a match juggling
a chipped red racquet,

high-impact lenses,
salt tanned right hand
glove and two
blue ***** fresh in the can,

my dream court receding
down darkened halls,
a warren of identical doors,
portholes slashing avocado

carpet with watery cross ties,
florescent flickers that merge and pool,
flushing me into flat light within
a stark white cube to toe the red

service line once again only to find
my forehand serve impeded
by stacked furniture and packing
crates arranged into the crooked lane

plat of medieval Bruges.  
Racquetball,
a game of angles
gone sadly out of fashion,

the MacGuffin in my dreams,
as it was in my playing days
when you were my true opponent,
King of Center Court running me,

stroking passing shots, methodical
while I hurled myself heedless
headlong into walls, losing on points,
nursing trophies of bruises.

Years after giving up the game
for good I still dream of turning
up late to a match juggling
a chipped red racquet,

high-impact lenses,
salt tanned right hand
glove and two
blue ***** fresh in the can,

my dream court receding
down darkened halls,
a warren of identical doors,
portholes slashing avocado

carpet with watery cross ties,
florescent flickers that merge and pool,
flushing me into flat light within
a stark white cube to toe the red

service line once again
only to find my forehand
serve impeded by jumbled
tables, five drawer files, armoires, roll top desks and bureaus

arranged into the crooked lane plat of medieval Bruges.  
Racquetball,
a game of angles
gone sadly out of fashion,

the MacGuffin in my dreams,
as it was in my playing days
when you were my true opponent,
King of Center Court running me,

stroking passing shots, methodical
while I hurled myself heedless
headlong into walls, losing on points,
nursing trophies of bruises.

Years after giving up the game
for good I still dream of turning
up late to a match juggling
a chipped red racquet,

high-impact lenses,
salt tanned right hand
glove and two
blue ***** fresh in the can,

my dream court receding
down darkened halls,
a warren of identical doors,
portholes slashing avocado

carpet with watery cross ties,
florescent flickers that merge and pool,
flushing me into flat light within
a stark white cube to toe the red

service line once again only to find
my forehand serve impeded
by stacked furniture and packing
crates arranged into a crooked lane

plat of a miniature medieval
Bruges.  Racquetball,
a game of angles gone
sadly out of fashion,

the MacGuffin in my dreams  
and my playing days when you
were my true opponent.  Never one
for racquet sports, you ran me

stroking passing shots, methodical
while I hurled myself heedless
headlong into walls, losing on points,
nursing trophies of bruises.

Rain, Steam and Speed-The Great Western Railway
(J. M. W. Turner)

Life between the rails
Price paid for rhythm
Working its way
Into the conversation we have
With the couple from Kamloops
Over drinks in the bar car
Elongated shadows of stem ware
Clocking snow white prairie  
Dotted with one stoplight words
Nothing more
Than a few boarded up syllables
Struggling vowels of a diner
Slash package store
Emphatic final
Consonants of grain elevators
Trailing off into long stretches of silence
Stealing glimpses of the future
On grand sweeping curves
While the past rifles
Our pockets on the perfect
Parallel track of the here and now.

Rainy Spring Morning

Rainy spring morning is older now
slower, less inclined to bound
up the down staircase or greet
dawn with a drop jaw slap
to the forehead, night
somehow no longer young, drinking
whole days in breathless gulps from a pail
knobby throat exposed, bobbing
lewd and naked, heedless
of a sopping shirt, unaware
exactly when he took to sipping primly
from the lip of the minute cup
a careful hand cupped to a careless chin
catching the gesture
in the window
above the sink
beneath the sleeve
of light that smears charcoal features
and quotes from windows past
the glow that drew him
on his way to school
tucked back in the shadow of huddled
trees, new leaves sluicing rain in whispers
onto the backs of sidewalk worms.  
Rainy spring morning twists the band
on his cudgel finger
mate to the one you wear
dialing in this hypnotic spell of molten gold
a boy for a moment  
lingering in front of a house
upturned palm catching creamy light
that runs through his fingers
and pools around his half buckled boots.

As it happens I did not buy this book
of collected poems in St. John, New Brunswick or
Charlottetown, P.E.I.  I didn’t pick it up
in Yorkville on a long weekend in Toronto,
nor was I delighted to spot it in a window display
on a stop I didn’t make for coffee in Kamloops, B.C.  
No doubt Halifax has its share of bookstores,
none of which I’ve visited on the road
to North Sydney to catch the ferry to Newfoundland,
where one imagines happening upon a salt cured,
weather beaten mom and pop clinging to life
quayside in St. Johns.  
The border with sleep lies just up ahead
where soon I’ll be borne across
on thoughts of the boats of these poems
lifted on the rising tide of the U.S. dollar,  
Billy Collins buttoned up for the night
inside a tent pitched upon the calm seas
of my chest.

As it happens I did not buy this book
of collected poems in St. John, New Brunswick or
Charlottetown, P.E.I.  I didn’t pick it up in Yorkville
on a weekend spree in Toronto, nor was I delighted
to spot it in a window display when I stopped
for lunch in Kamloops, B.C.  
No doubt Halifax has its share of bookstores,
none of which I’ve visited on the road to North Sydney
to catch the ferry to Newfoundland,
where one could imagine happening upon
a salt cured, weather beaten mom and pop
clinging to life quayside in St. Johns.  
The border with sleep lies just up ahead
where soon I’ll be borne across
on thoughts of the boats of these poems
rising on the tide of the U.S. dollar,  
The Rain In Portugal a tent
rising and falling on my chest.

Red

Open Jeep
That raptured us to the bottom of
Cherokee Hill

Aunt Shirley’s
face, nails, her flip flops, elastic
band that

barely tamed
her whipping hair, weeping  
bead work

my knee aflame
reopened on blacktop
only minutes

before sirens
split the sun ripe afternoon
Red

Bank
Baptist Church at the apex of a blind
curve

Beetle
helpless on its back, cans of
Bud

scattered
empties, some full ones
church key

perhaps
thrown clear with the passengers
blood

pooling
beneath the pinioned driver
everything

except the snow
white sheet I could not help
but imagine

drawn gently
over my astonished
fevered face.

Morning Spider

What were you trying to say
from down the dry well
of our German coffee maker?  
A brusque “guten Morgan”,
unworthy of the finesse required
to defeat the hinged plastic lid,
“****** off mate” belying
the English taste for tea,
begging bus fare for the Silk Road
transparent, even without a bracing first cup.
A caution, then?  
Don’t leave bags unattended,
know the warning signs of stroke,
sleep like a baby with two-step
authentication?  
But your solitude, small bare bulb
of abdomen, put me in mind
of a monks tonsure, choirmaster
alone in the apse, dwarfed
by vaulting cathedral walls
soaring seamless into heavenly gloom,
where I hover on high, indifferent
god commanding the flood waters,
bestowing random flies of mercy,
deigning to lower a spoon of salvation
while you weave a gossamer chorale,  
working the tiny shuttles of your batons.

The Last Bed We Buy

Grateful not to find myself
disembodied hovering high above
this stark cake of soap, gazing down
laboring to put names to faces, the couple
so familiar, side by side, palms down, still as

miller moths displayed on pins, I drift off  
to the drone of Bill or Ted, rumpled as
a morning after motel king intoning
soft or firm versus memory foam
or pillow top, hypoallergenic …

the last thing I hear before we fall
fast asleep spooning on a plush queen,
not too soft and not too hard, but just right,
satiny raft to ferry us the last stretch of river.
Waving like the Queen we float past the last new

roof over which we will preside, nod in solemn
recognition of our high efficiency gas furnace
apt to burn on years after I’m gone, applaud
politely what jolly well may be a farewell
drive north through the Tunnel of Trees

some biting October afternoon, weep
softly for our old squirrel chaser sawing
soft imprecations to hips gone tender some
blustery April night dog years from now, blow
low Bronx cheers in a fond adieu to life mediated

through screens. Even Bill or Ted knows that grace
lies just ahead around the next oxbow, leaves us
to dream, two dormice cupped in a leaf, rills
and eddies bearing us seaward, buoying us
downstream on softly rolling shoulders.

Setting Spring Alight**

Dog and man, leashed by habit,
retrace all the old routes against
a backdrop of calendar pages
ripped clean, carried off by thieving
wind graduated from soft breezes  
once played across fresh baked faces,
recalled when thoughts wander off lead.  
They pause here and there to rub
trace memory from galley proofs of grass,
take in sooty crews of robins, incendiaries
touching down, setting town alight.
One warms to waning desire
to give chase, the other burns
through days as if spring still hung
lightly on his shoulders.

On Turning Sixty-One**

Fitzgerald’s last line;
longing, lovingly

rendered in fourteen
words, ode

to inevitability
in any tongue.

“So we beat on”,
aching,

“boats against the current”,
our urgent

she bu de!,
she bu de!/

I can’t bear
to let go!,

“borne back”
on music

in the Latin,
de mihi tempus/

give me more
time.  

Songs echo
“ceaselessly into the past.”

Lines Laid Down By Others

Days of measles spent cloaked in twilight
Veil of curtains and dime store sunglasses  
Between me and a sun gone dark with evil intent
Hell bent on robbing my sight while I was busy
Looking inward tallying wage against sin
Bedeviled by an itch that needed scratching
Hands sheathed in white tube sock condoms  
To ward off nails rendered poison as the fer-de-lance
Snake that glared back from a steamy jungle
Overlay in the World Book Encyclopedia
Shelved for the sanctuary of a coloring book
Prophylactics and perpetual twilight incompatible
With proper grip and waltz of a crayon  
But the germ of a lifelong refusal to stay
Inside lines laid down by others.

Rock And Roll Memoir

It was too **** loud
I never liked Bobo
our first drummer
            or
was he the third?
The riffs?  Stolen.
Lyrics written
by a callow youth
still torment me
to this day like a
                                            s
                                     w
                                                a
                               r
                                                     m
                                      of
                          b
                                        e
                                                    e
                                    s
My obituary
a bit of boilerplate
written by interns
at Rolling Stone
lays waiting
patiently
for the call.

I don’t remember
      in any particular
   order
the origin
                                             of the band name
                     the outcomes  
                                                   of
                                                             the lawsuits

                                            what happened
           in Houston


penning “Love Carburetor”
                                                                             on the bare
***

                                   of a groupie named Skyyy

                      

           writing
                    a song cycle

                                           about the Laps                      
riding  
  
                                 in ambulances
           limos


helicopters

or

                                                                                     punching
Bill Graham

on the sidewalk
                                                               in front of

                                                  the Fillmore                                
                                                                                                    


                                                                                                    East.

If you say
we played Farm Aid
twice, well
I guess you would know.

I can’t ****
standing up
or hear a word
you’re saying
and my doctor says
we must get
a handle on my liver
before we think
about replacing my
knees
hips
corneas
heart and lungs.

But I’m booked
to a ten night stand
at the Beacon
with the New York Philharmonic
performing our first album
in its entirety
with our original bassist Ian
somebody or other
plus interviews
on Fresh Air and Morning Joe
to promote a concert
film by Jim Jarmusch.

Rocks

I threw them for no reason
Other than Old Harrisburg Road
Ran thick with crushed limestone
Inexhaustible at a languid pace
But finite as my patience with the pious
When I threw them fast and furious
At the window lights of the old school house
Or poor cousin Reesy
Out of plain spite
Rage cupped
In the palm of my hand
Fired sidearm with topspin
Until my arm ached
All those sharp edged consonants
Nuggets of vowels
From ancient pages of seabed
I threw them for no reason
Other than mindless thrill
Heedless of the crunch of words
Beneath the wheels of the morning milk truck.

Roger Angell In Central Park

My wife was game to change
direction when I wondered
out loud if you were the man

on the bench in the sun
minding his own business
beneath a Mets cap, perhaps

contemplating yet another
major league season or
daffodils and Spanish bluebells

blooming on Cedar Hill
enjoying his solitude on a fine
spring morning much like my

long dead father glimpsed
moments before basking
shirt off in the Sheep Meadow

the sanctity of privacy
and nothing more
I tell myself, steering us  

across the 79th Street Traverse
toward the teeming refuge
of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

**** of Summer

Summer is dressed in her finest, a day spent at the beach
Shoreline stroll in black burkini, a walk out on the reach
But fall arrives with a nightstick to roust out all the crooks
Take it off gals or go back home, give those nuns the hook.

Donald Trump is off his meds, his rocker and the rails
Breitbart soars in media-world, alt-white the color of its sails
Ugly game within a game, give Hillary the ***** prize
Trump aims higher, Orwell-land, where two plus two is five.

Hillary Clinton wants my vote, got it stashed in a pickle jar
They snuck in wearing bandit masks when I was at the bar
Ransacked the place, her gang of thieves, Bill and some Wall Street thugs
She got my vote but I drew the line when she came back for a hug.

Our Revolution, rally true believers, Bernie’s still our man
Hot like a blintz on Clinton’s ***, but for Wasserman, it was in the can
Jeff Weaver at the wheel, twenty-seven dollar donations on the gas
Can’t this thing go faster? Jettison staffers and top it off with cash.

Seven Foot Sickle Bar Mower

Lifeless on a patch of Wear farm swallowed
up by time marked in jimson and honey vine
milkweed to the eyes of a city boy, worse
a northerner, shoeless, shirtless, tanned but

for pale omegas of a low tide flat top wreathing my ears
white shading to blue at the temples, prayerful snakes
sleep late coiled around clutches of my nightmares.  

Oil can like the oil can that lubricated the Tin Man
brandished jail break file in the other hand
grandpa circled the scorpion striking at the lethal tail
silvering edges of serrated teeth, eyes shadowed

by the brim of his pith helmet, liquoring bushings
gone dry in the heat while I sat watching
from the open palm of the Ford NAA Jubilee tractor seat

bearing witness to the honing of blades against high grass
bearding the branch, touching but not touching
my father’s face swimming naked in the quarry
pond of grandpa in profile, angled low above

the linkage mechanism, steel on steel, shadow
against light, my hand rolling fine red clay dust
into thin snakes against my smooth cheek.

Short Fiction

Before sitting down to write a story
I’ll think up a character with a few
miles on him but not so many as to
put him to sleep by nine leaving our eager
third person narrator little to do
but describe the layout of the bedroom
furniture of uneven pedigree
clutter enough to suggest spiritual disarray
well within acceptable limits
but worth keeping an eye on
suggesting sotto voce a second character
someone with a few hours to ****
in Wiesbaden or Banda Aceh
poling a spoon through black coffee
gone cold in a spider vein cup
the slightest shift of a knee twisting
the plot around the discovery of a memory
stick taped to the underside of his café table
“Marnie-LA” labeled in red.  
I write some muscular verbs to wrestle
him onto to an overnight train to Split and shift
to an unreliable first person singular
narrator who finds himself wincing
into a coffee cup at daybreak
feathery words crumpled on the grass
beneath the window
confused by their own reflection.

Sixth and Alexander

A temporal fold
at the northeast corner
I never bother

to map, a cleft, benign
despite the dogs  
lingering skittishness,

to drain off
all but the moment,
we slip inside

to shed this load
our house a yellow beacon
through a veil.

Sixth and Alexander

A temporal fold
at the northeast corner
I never bother

to map, a cleft, benign
despite the dogs  
lingering skittishness,

we slip inside
to drain off all
but the moment

shed this load
our house a yellow beacon
through a veil.

Sleep Arrived

She arrived early last night
for the ten o’clock shift
frock on the hook, bag on chair
moist kiss of no-nonsense shoes
I like to mimic from behind
the rim of my glass while you stifle
a snicker until it falls in step
with the papery cadence of her starch
whites and muttered imprecations.  
It never ceases to amaze, the ease
with which she heaves us
over her pillowed shoulders, knees
cushioned on those ample *******
arms dangling limp to the rolling
sway of her kneading haunches
stealing a good night kiss
behind her dray horse back
as she bundles us drowsy up to bed.

Spice Rack


I will make eggs in the morning
coffee in the cold back room
windows on the feeders
epicenter of an explosion
of birds on film run
forward and backward
a mad scramble of egg layers
iron skillet butter crack and whisk yes
to toast salt and pepper in shakers
simple gifts a hymn to a humble meal  
yet the spice rack hums with fiery powders
waiting for the chance to ignite
the rocket of our morning  
crushed red pepper curry cayenne chili’s bristle
but alas cumin just a pinch my hand
stayed a cook wise to incendiary breakfast.

Spider Hatch

Charitable in her critique
my hope this morning
soap in eyes, steam
rising to buffet
the asterisk
on the ceiling
that qualifies a tepid
first impression or
dispatches me with a silken
“it’s much worse than I thought.”

Spring Set Alight

Dog and man, leashed by habit
Trace and retrace against a backdrop of
Calendar pages ripped free, carried
Away in wind building to crescendo
Soft breeze of youth still playing
Across fresh baked faces when thoughts
Wander off lead, pausing here and there
Rubbing trace memory from reborn grass
Taking in a crew of robins, burning embers
Touching down, setting town alight
One warming to waning desire to give
Chase, the other burning through days
As if spring hung lightly on his shoulders.

Stem

Let them flare against saucer blue skies
School on biting wind, rattle bones to ward  
Off waves that claw the breadth of reach

West of Spray Falls, drunk on summer liquor
Flush and masked for a night to remember
Letting go beyond them, my final act a mercy.

Still Life With Apples

Cezanne would ignore the grain
omit the quarter moon flute
burned quarter inch deep
pay scant attention
to your recollection  
of the barn in Armada
rinsed to a rumor of red
listen politely as you paint
a picture of the man who ran
the orphanage for bedsteads
wardrobes and sideboards
steal glances at his watch
while you play both parts
retelling the horse trade
eyebrows frantic to escape
gravity
your own straining
to lift off and boomerang
around the circumference of the table
lighting on the ordinal
points of countless dinners
apples
in the mind’s eye of the artist
flocking like birds
defying gravity
on the dizzy oval of oak.

Sunset

Remember North Manitou
years ago? pressed up against
the portside window
on an overnight flight to Dublin,
spilling dye downtown
above the left field bleachers,
finger painting the suburban skies
of my childhood racing
to beat the streetlights,
floating fire on Lake Superior
too many times to count, Malibu
two nights one July,
sashaying drunk on magenta,  
going off to pout in the dark
when I called you a show off.
You’ve seen me at my worst,
I know your all your florid secrets,
little wonder we’ve grown
to resemble one another,
incandescent palettes leached
wicking gunmetal horizons.

Sunset

Viking pyres sinking
by degrees from North Manitou
annealing the portside window

on an overnight flight to Dublin
spilling dye downtown high
above the left field bleachers

finger painting suburban skies
of my childhood racing
to beat the streetlights

floating fire on Lake Superior
too many times to count
Malibu two nights one July

sashaying drunk on magenta  
going off to pout in the dark
when I called you a show off

you’ve seen me at my worst
I know all your florid secrets
little wonder we’ve grown

to resemble one another
incandescent palettes leached
wicking gunmetal horizons.

Sycamore

Three syllables
No less pleasing
Rolling off

The tongue, yet
Possessing
A soupcon

Of economy more
Being four
Letters lighter

Dense as devils food
Lacking elbow room
Between the last

Two beats
Ninety feet
Bottom to top

Eighty
Odd years
Young and leaning

Against
Our house
Telltale

Leg of a timid
Giant trying
To squeeze himself

Into a moment
Ragged leafy breathing
Giving him away

English Plane
My tree guy
Says sideways so

We crane
Our necks
Squinting

Up at undeniable
Quiet dignity
Where shabbiness

Once prevailed
Rule Britannia! shading  
All of our tomorrows.