I am a collective
an ongoing collaboration
a group enterprise

I revel in my diversity
sit in its lap
while being carefully groomed

Nothing becomes me
like agreement among friends
Nothing fills my sails
like the wind of good company

When all my words
are stilled
when every breath is drawn
then you might come near

When every tale is told
and when myth
becomes gossip among friends
then
and only then
will I willingly depart.

That's the day,
friends,
when we all meet
on that distant shore,
when sweetness dissolves
into the dark.

I have one foot
in the beyond already.
My ticket is punched
my resolve unmatched.

Give me your hand, my friend,
in good cheer
for nothing now will leave us bereft.

Never yet alone
never yet divorced from grace.

Amen.

I surf through a crowd,
click, click, click,
am I slick?
Am I sick?

The faces cascade, each one like a molecule
in a waterfall of desire and liars and fire.
Do we sit here to burn or to yearn.
Do we ever learn or feel concern.
It seems I will never tire to conspire
against my own soul on this wire.

I'm wired.
The screen crackles a strange glow.
The bits and bytes tell me there's hope.
Ones and zeroes like so much knotted rope.
I hang on her every word,
oh, my shame is ethereal.
I want to stop seeing her,
but my hunger is serial.

She whisper's, "But wait...
...
...
...
... there's more..."
and I die to be born her prisoner.

In lust we trust,
the internet anthem,
the trumpet of the millennia
our senses abandoned.
The cascading fire, behind the screen,
the ache inside: my mind? my spleen?
I must be rotten,
how could I not be,
their alluring words and forms,
imprison me.

Can I break free? Qui-qui? Hehe!
It's a total lie, there is no greener grass.
So I hunger for more of the poison that made me;
I seek to drown myself, like a manly baby,
"Gimme more! A little more!"
They stand in shock,
then retreat to their bottles,
ignoring the ticking clock.
Back to her and her and her,
the ones who will never love me,
who've ensnared me to drain me,
me and me and me.

There are different kinds of blindness,
many we will never be ****** enough to see
but when the blinds are open,
can we really change what we see?
Do we come awake to a ruin,
a festering, aching, screaming lump of chaos
that we are but fingers to... this abomination.

I surf the crowd
and when she comes again,
I'll just change the channel,
and a new face materializes,
her beauty renders me thirsty
I smile my sleekest smile,
I recite the uncanny words,
"Mirror mirror on the wall."

Black, Swiss cheese hulk on horizon
The James Longstreet
immobile old freighter of the bay

Towed to the ignominy
of its last commission
in the curled arm of The Cape
Tides flex their muscles against it
But The Longstreet is steadfast
in its dark purpose

Standing target for practice

A sortie if planes home in on its bulk
Honing their skills
on this  “fish-in-a-barrel”
Thunderhead-etched pyrotechnics
Booming follows the miles over water

Against The Longstreet’s silhouette enduring
even God fixes sights
firing bolts across its bow
taking aim at our futures

Standing targets for practice

Vietnam? Cape Cod?
No difference to teens
before life’s ocean of conscription

Sand is cold beneath dunes
Beach grass rustles
to the pulsing surf
to the wind’s whispers
just below hearing
as if there’s a secret
that must be kept

We are targets for practice
We are meaningless din

Pulling our sweatshirts and blanket closer
The Supremes sing thinly
from transistor
“Stopped for a moment in the name of love—

Thinking it over”

When the moon hovers hallucinated
on the post canal
breaking in bubbles of fish breath
the white widow of the night
revives her long dead tongue
to lick the scales of your skin
pulling you into her bed of nails
making love with you the whole night
leaving you bruised and insatiate
when they find your shadow
scouring the edge of the canal
with her name on its lip.