a calendar
lies in the corner of a table,
forgotten,
two weeks into the New Year,
its simple pencil sketch at the top
showing at an angle.
late at night
a noise can be heard from that corner,
the sound of protesting sobs,
and a little voice
can be picked out here and there,
"all the other calendars
had pretty scenes
of mountain lakes and forest glades.
now they are all gone.
someone has taken them
to hang on their wall.
and I am still lying here.
nobody wants me.
my big, clumsy letters
are clear and dark.
a child could read them.
and my large, awkward boxes
have plenty of writing space.
I am the best calendar around
and could help someone greatly
in their struggle
to remember their place in time,
if only someone would stay long enough
to see what I am
and not what I look."

the wine of family communion
washes me clean inside,
converting my potential
to the tenets of family dogma.
the bread fills me, expanding,
to nourish me out of my image
into theirs:
no questions,
no discussion,
no rebellion,
no independence,
no chance,
no hope,
trained up to become
a member of good standing
of the Church of Wilson.

young trees
gaze skyward,
their branches thick
with a visual feast
of floral shish kabob
prepared in sunshine
with a rain marinade,
a treat
of the season.

my bicycle
moves over
a clean slate
of white-snowed sidewalk,
its studded tires
sculpting a piece
of modern art
out of winter
for the city.

a bush
greets the summer
sporting dangly new earrings
of red berries.

yellow flowers
pushing their color
up from the water's edge,
sparks of suns
brightening the shade.
             but
as the sun moves upon their place,
standing forth into the rays,
eyes opening into a solar eclipse.

squirrels scamper
along the ground
from tree to tree,
living shuttles
weaving the natural world
into the human one,
creating a paradisiacal pattern
of yard.

dragonflies lie in state
amid faded bones of grass
which keen stiffly
to a summer requiem
carried through the low autumn light
on a rattling train of wind.

as these leaves fall from the trees,
so may my troubles fall away from me.
as the woods are born again in spring,
so may I awaken to new life
from the winter of my regret.

here stood a pine tree
with broken parts,
abruptly removed
for the safety of all.
no time to say goodbye,
leaving only a headstone
of perfumed white stump
heaped with flowers of wood dust
and neighbors waving their branches
in funereal hymns of wind.
it loved to chat
with the other trees
and was a friend
to the neighborhood
it is missed
by the squirrels and the birds
and me.
rest in peace.

running
to keep up with the sun
as it moves around
from room to room,
trying
to dip my sunflowers
in a golden spell
of life
to let them weave songs
of yellow and light
in a visual symphony
into the air
of the whole apartment
until the last ray
fades into the wall,
leaving behind
a basket of flowers.

running choking,
blinded,
through emotional streets
of an erupting Pompeii of childhood,
a tidal wave of bile
swept me drowning away,
pruning me through and through
with poison
which I was left alone to digest
the best I could,
twisting my stunted growth
into a dwarf afterthought
in an oversized world
of family.

a patch
of flaming red tulips
burns away winter's body
in the crematorium of spring.

falling down
a feather staircase
to clouds below.

the crystal prism of the mind
contains the ever-present summer's day
of memory.

spring glints and sheds
off pine needles
from blowing breezes.

her verbal glance
turns my soft trust
to stone.
writhing, tortured years
of her hissing criticism
strangle the living love
to be replaced
with a dead space of protection,
freezing my potential
in the suspended animation
of living rock.
aging but not aging,
aging but not growing.
no Perseus
came flying on winged heels
to my rescue
to hold her up
to the polished shield of reflection.
I am doomed to survive
as a moving statue turned inward,
roaming a blighted inner wasteland
of fossilized emotion.

a thick delicate hairdo
of tall grass
blows in the wind
over its sidewalk,
crowning it
with glory.

a silver disk
sends storm light
through sunglasses
of grey wool clouds
down an iron atmosphere
to coat the ground below.

sharp knives
of alien family systems
cut my emotions
to pieces
and hang them
on hooks inside of me
to rot.

gnomes frolic
in the branch-cut puzzle box
of a lawn
under the white darkness
of the moon.

winter
encases lakeside plants
in thick layers
of frozen white time,
preserving them
for a thousand ages
until spring.

I bear a hard ball within me,
swollen with disease
and alive with pregnancy,
an alien thing
grafted onto me by another
and grown into me.
its numerous offspring surge outward
in crusty, scratchy waves,
flooding my system with infection
and attaching themselves to my being
to run my innermost workings
by remote control.

books
are intellectual hands
pulling me
from the quicksand of sluggish despair
and tossing me to flight
into the updrafts of the mind.

a cupped bush
holds a fresh-fallen sundae
of creamy new snow
topped with sprinkles
of tips and leaves.

a new winter world
of rich snow,
a head of fresh cauliflower
with floret trees.

a frost forest cameo
fused to a pane
explodes a winter window
into a Wild West
of diamond-spun lace.

where's my Sweetheart?
can I see him?
oh, no, honey,
your Sweetheart's gone
a long time now,
10, 15, 20 years.
you can't see him
ever again,
so you've got
to forget him
and move on.
don't think of him
or cry,
just move on
like he'd want you to
if he could tell you.
it wasn't your fault
that he couldn't
go with you
when you left.
you had to leave.
and he found another
and forgot you anyway,
so do the same
and just go on.
you can always find
another cat.

I gave up a life
I didn't know I had
to chase a mirage
of approving family
and human caring
that never was.
now the lake has vanished
into the desert noon of reality
and I am left mired
in the abandoned sands
of poverty.

one night
the moon shone down on my balcony
in full glory of liquid light.
I was busy.
I thought,
I will see it tomorrow
or the next night.
but the next night it rained
and the night after also,
and when the full moon again rolled around
to the house
I had moved from that place forever.
who would have thought
that I would never again be able
to stand on my balcony
and see the moon?

a day
is a temporal dragonfly
disappearing
into the wide-open spaces
of infinity.

sunflowers glisten
from a windowsill basket,
bright butter
melting into the light,
enriching it
and dissolving a little
of the hard scab
within me.

tree branches,
wet with rain,
swayed by wind,
glistening silver
in the glow of a street lamp.
                but
moving, creaking in the night,
becoming feathery spiders' legs
reaching out to seize their prey.

distant apple trees
in full bloom,
white popcorn brains
that will soon burst
to reveal their kernels
of fruit.

fragile heralds
burst out from a tangle
of green confusion,
trumpeting the morning to the day.

I have the sun within me,
a smoldering furnace,
something,
from which something must come.
like the sun
which shoots out flares,
nothing to the inferno of their origin,
my sun of unrest,
forcing outward
jets of formed feeling
that, molded into words,
give an inkling
of that from which they came.

a torrential river of sadness
flows through me.
here and there
among the churning rapids
glint chunks of emotional gold:
happiness,
contentment,
fulfillment,
strength,
peace,
waiti­ng to be caught
and hauled to the shore
of my consciousness.

a rocky scab
cuts across my center,
weighting down my soul
and slicing me in two,
shrinking me
to half-size.
a crusty stone top
caps off a mysterious blackness
of simple existence
and no intelligence
where none has ever been,
where shapes of smoke
glinting through the darkness
gather strength,
swirling against the sides,
bulging it upward and outward,
as a something
strives to unite with me
and break through
into the light of my being.

asteroids
land on primitive earth,
*****
to fertilize a giant egg
into life.

melting icicles
are hypodermic needles
injecting spring,
drop by drop,
into the world.

needles of terror
pierce my emotion sacs
which leak and spill over,
staining my intellect
and distorting my vision
to see only impossible choices
which drive me
into emotional psychosis
totally divorced
from reality.

A November tree
spins a spider's web
of branches
silvered with a dew
of morning sunlight.

early one Halloween night
a witch was riding
up to the nearest star.
as she crossed the moon
her broomstick brushed against it,
leaving a trace of magic
that grew,
as magic does.
as the moon rose higher,
its wizard-laced beams
spread over the sky.
where the sky was clear
the broad white rays
blended depth with the darkness
to form a translucent infinity
of seawater,
with flecks of star salt
and evergreen tree seaweed.
where the night was cloudy
sharpened needles of rays
etched a delicate picture
of cameo clouds on a shell sky.
this celestial vision
lasted until the dawn rinsed it away,
hatching its own peacock magic
into the world.

I  lie here on the path,
my body covered with sores
and my eyes blinded,
but I am Tyrannosaurus Rex
and I shall prevail!
I shall overcome this weakness
that leaves me splayed on the ground
weak as a prey animal
and rise again!
I remember warm, sunny days
when I followed the trail of prey
strong and sighted and pain-free.
I shall be so again!
I am Tyrannosaurus Rex,
lord and master of this planet,
and nothing can defeat me!
not a fireball from the sky
nor this wave
that washes over me as the ocean tide
and pulls me with it.
I am Tyrannosaurus Rex
I will not go!
but...
I cannot stay...

chestnut trees
raise lamps of flowers,
kindling floral flames of red and white
to guide the planet
into summer.

a dark emerald mass
of a thousand
mottled leaves
sparkle
with sunlight sequins
as they rustle
in the breeze.

bars of moonlight
materialize through shuttered blinds
to dissolve my pillow
into the prison dimension
of dreams,
slipping in and out
of this reality.

ethereal silver
dents the blue tranquility
to produce
a liquid mosaic
with boils
of bubbles
against a harmony
of frogs
wrapping sight
in sound.

on the distant side of life
I squandered it unheeding,
careless of its passing.
now,
facing a receding mirror
of mortal time,
I count the dwindling years
like a miser.

flames of red leaves
burn a trail
through the forest floor,
setting the ground
alight with cold fire.