clothed only in electrons
insinuating beneath my skin
hard-wired into random memories
she radiates a cathode glow
scanning, scanning through
my screen-shot eyes
her pulsating presence
at such a frequency
as to appear solid
tinkling giggles
broadcast over my headset
watching my groping hand
finding only illusion

America the Beautiful is broken
into variations, reassembled
at fifteen, while your friends played ball, tumbled
after grounders.  Met her, vows were spoken,
children came, a job to feed and shelter.
Insurance, managed risk made up your days
while music filled your nights and underlaid
a counterpoint of art and home.  She felt your
dualistic muse; the age-old tale
of starving artist held no taste for you.
Forty years of working every breath
until the night your muse's heart would fail.
You lived for years with your worst fear come true,
for you had starved your artist to his death.

Walking the tight wire, 
the fine line between what is 
and what never was.

not everyone needs
a lever and a place to stand
to move their world; some
need only a listener
to reflect their words to them.

Bumblebee senryu;
stubby, plump in the middle,
stinger at the end.

Names and faces, poems
and messages from old friends
soothe a lonely heart.

I am cradled by
the very thought of your thoughts;
our shared humanity.

An online poet
rails about encroachment of
social media.

Oriental poems
whet my muse's appetites;
true amuse bouchés.

Compression stockings
bring back memories of faires,
shaping iron jaws,
prithee tell me, good gentles,
wouldst thou have me play a tune?

I think that I have never known
A hashtag lovely as a poem.

We're both aware that I'll be first to go,
but don't think for a minute that I'm done
with life and time.  Although end game's begun
there's too much left, too many things to show
the daughters, sons, the grandchildren, and you.
The few uncurdled dreams we still might grasp
and reach, the promises that will not lapse
expired, without redemption will come true
in what years we have left.  Let's make our plans,
adapt to new realities, accept
the finish of the roller-coaster ride,
dismount regretfully, again to stand
on solid ground, content to know we kept
what fragments tired love and peace provide.

I've known you only as a quiet child.
So many years in passing spoke your name,
And hearing it would bring a fleeting smile.
I've known you only as a quiet child.

You're now a wife, a mother; all this while
It took for me to stake a father's claim.
I've known you only as a quiet child;
So many years in passing spoke your name.

You were never much
for the soft word
or sentimental touch.

God alone knows
how you survived
those early years,

the unwanted hands
of the man who
should have fought off
the boys who would
maul you that way
many years later.

The elders blamed
you, a three year old
child, a seductress;
sent you and your
older sister off
to pervert another
tribe in Oklahoma,

and exiled your mother
for having the sheer
audacity
to raise a stink
about your treatment.

Small wonder you married
a white man;
smaller still the wonder
that he was white trash
and proud of it.

You told me once
that for all the bluster,
he was gentle with you,
and how you needed that.
Ambivalent
about love and ***,
you taught what you knew.

When you found the knife
your daughter kept
under her mattress
to fend off her
older brother's hands,
you taught what you didn't know.

You would be horrified
that the horrifics above
would be published;
after all, every family
has blood on their sheets
that should never be
laundered in public.

The droplets of blood
on your childhood sheets,
sequestered
for half a century
poisoned you,

and ate away
the delicate fabric of love
with which you bound
old wounds.

Your faith, your Truth
allowed no special days
save the day Christ died;
so today is just another day,
excellent and fair.

You forgave us our anger
without fully understanding
why we were angry;
it's taken years
and bitter lessons
to discover
what a difficult
gift that was to deliver.

The last memory of you:
You turned to me
as I pushed your wheelchair
along the sidewalk, and said,


I never thought it would be you, here.

softly carved
statue
shadowed
bas-relief on the
sheets
submerged
staring
sundered
stiff as stone
spasmed
soliloquy of
squeals and sighs
sublimation of
soul to steam
slinking
sinuously down my
sternum
seeking
.
.
.

I can't see myself as a whole without going just a trifle mad.

Your sigh roars in my ear as your shudder under my hands rocks my core.

Only half as smart as I think I am, and half as dumb as I look.

shall i mindless words
form into function, wander
forward without thought?

lead me on, then, muse
hushing unheeded warnings
of writer's folly

i who have no/thing
to cheer on, no one being
caring close enough

yet hundreds, thousands
read, call, respond and react
to fresh-cut poems

both sweet and pungent,
taste vaguely oriental, 
smell hints of five-spice

as american
as melting *** and quatrains,
common meter, rhymes

cheeseburger and fries,
routine, familiar and
to each their own taste

flavored by flowered
blossomed imaginations
of poets living

and dead, whose poems'
lovely bones breathe still haunting
my quiet spaces

and take tangential
leaps ricocheting into
inspired lunacy

skeleton crews man
poetic voyages, launch
flights of uncertain
direction, take reason to
illogical conclusions.

What
           ((holds)) you
to unyielding self?
Petrified
you stone your sins
and still miss the mark;
attempt to beat soul
into healing.

Fool.

Even this
nascent struggle
to understand
casts another rock.

Would you lobotomize...
****** a stick
into your eye socket
to see more clearly?

Suffering is
in the resistance;
you know,
and do not accept
grace in the hands
easing you toward
the gentle current
of Spirit
washing around you.

Why?

Entombed by need
to atone,
you cannot roll
the rock aside alone.
Stop asking for
"more weight",
Giles Corey...
you are a fearsome man
standing upright.

Understanding wears
a mask of love, held up by
a stick of kindness.

Every poet a
taxidermist, preserving
their beings with words.

Released a demon
to a friend; a dragon slain
and a voice regained.

My darkest friend who knows my darkest side,
penumbral spirit might eclipse her own;
she gladly walks my shadows stride for stride.

While living through what most would not abide
she bleeds for us through all the cuts she's known,
my darkest friend who knows my darkest side.

She feeds the beasts inside we've deified
and knows my monsters right down to their bones.
She gladly walks my shadows stride for stride.

She wades abyss's waters at high tide
and dives in eagerly to swim alone,
my darkest friend who knows my darkest side.

Sensual, seductive, sanctified,
soft as woman, hard and strong as stone,
she gladly walks my shadows stride for stride.

She writes her deepest secrets, never lies,
while keeping from herself how much she's grown.
My darkest friend who knows my darkest side;
she gladly walks my shadows stride for stride.

Wait for shoe to drop,
torn between alive and well;
suspended in time.

The rumbling cat circles the chair,
wondering what wakes me
at this hour. A reassuring stroke
or two between lines,
and she puddles beside
in tail-wrapped satisfaction.
Heir to a hundred insignificant sufferings
which scurry and gnaw
at the underpinnings of slumber,
half-awake and fumbling for gratitude,
I choose enough small misery to write.
Don't scare up ambition to rhyme
or scan, or make myself look good,
or put lipstick on the false smile
of swinish apathy wallowing muddily.
Cold, clammy soil suits and soothes my mood.
There is a hunger howling
in hours dark with early morning
for a gentle scratch behind my ears,
a soft hand welcoming my nuzzle;
a nesting ground of warm worn cloth
smelling of home and family
where I can pad its perimeter,
curl into myself
and sleep.

trace your faded prints upon the dirt
around them, mud congeals to form my hurt
failing falling stars confuse my path

I shuffle feet for miles but stay inert
all false the trails refusing to subvert
antipathetic strands to stir my wrath

The trees all flay themselves to spill the secrets
thou swore undying oath to never keepest
lest all worlds align to hide the truth

Pausing, taking breaths beneath the deepest
floors of pits that tenderly would keep us
undestined, lost and wild to know our youth

And seek you out I must, I must, I will,
at universe's end, a galaxy
where we would rest, reborn; become, to be
where every breath relaxes into still

Ever will you walk alone, until
you witness me in my entirety
Come, my unforgotten one, you see
arrival less one is a bitter pill

Another evening
darning the hole in my soul
stretched on a dead bulb.

there once never was
a man gifted, ungifted
who now lives as both

Two blots on the bar,
and double-sixes
my only hope
on an otherwise
closed board.
The back game
has become end game,
and I've doubled
and re-doubled
so the last few rolls
mean too much.
I must run for
the home board.
No time left to
leave any more blots
uncovered,
and the game is
no longer mine
to win.
All I ask
is enough throws
of the dice
to take
as many counters
as I can with me
before the match
is over.

gently
            coax
the vision
from
          the ether
nurture
              the swelling
of the shame
with a warm
compress
                  of words
it will

            drain

when not
contained.

Do you really mean
there is a lack of response-
ability in
our culture?  I don't think so.
The ability is there.

woken by hunger;
a void, vacuum leaking tears
seeking fulfillment.
not enough words in the world
or beyond that would suffice

the aftermath of
overload, a mother-lode
of familiar
mines ever so precisely
placed, set, hair-triggered, waiting

almost beautiful
when wrong-footed unwary
questions detonate
lovely plumes of cratered soul
with shrapnel of shattered love

and I'm f l  y   i    n     g   .    .    .     .

s  p  r  e  a  d  i  n  g out
poured viscousmelting into
(howslowly)
                  an after-noon
Friday notpassing
your buzz hovering
gathering time from
every
        flowering
                      moment
to meld with my
langourous liquid
honey-sweet and suspended
resisting flow
and (sundrifting
                       downdown)
darkness strengthens
defines sharpening curves
and shadows leading
                             (downdown)
into your
sweet
         ohh
                honey....

You might have picked an easy man to love;
a man extravagant with praise, effusive
with romance. Instead, you found a recluse,
a misanthrope whose heart is loath to move.
My love for you a shiny copper coin,
uncirculated, minted fresh each day;
the effort to produce far and away
exceeding its face value.  Even knowing
what small change my passion's purse will carry,
your wishing well stays waiting, wanting, open
for what pennies, salted tears I spare.
A scanty promise made: no matter where we
find ourselves, I'll wake, create my token,
drop it in, and wish for more to share.

In wistful sojourn through a thousand lives,
across the chasmed centuries gone past,
he calls her name; it never quite arrives
to fall upon her ear.  Just at the last,
she leaves the hall, or shutters windows closed.
The fading echoes rebound, fall, despair
upon the careless ground, alone who knows
how many times he's haunted up her stairs
and stood before her door, unwilling hand
hung limply at his side. The heavy years
passed by them both again; he hadn't planned
that they would not meet. This chance disappears  
to speak the truth they're cursed to know so well;
two ancient souls in broken bodies dwell.

Two ancient souls in broken bodies dwell,
a karmic double-helix twists through time.
They spiral 'round, attracted and repelled
by cosmic force, the space between defined
as two arms' lengths apart. Their fingertips
will brush by chance; the spark that generates
ignites the kindling lust, the heated lips
which speak the wildfire words of love. The fates
dictate the places, times their paths will cross;
circumstances, consequences feed
the choices made.  They've chosen fire, the loss
of reason, stoking starving naked need,
dance with abandon, passion, absent pride;
they trip light-years fantastic side by side.

They trip light-years fantastic side by side.
The pas de deux began in ancient court
of a small city-state.  He is a knight
sent by his Queen, a diplomatic sort
of mission.  At a banquet hosted by
the local King, the knight, while taking in
who might be helpful or a hindrance spies
a shaken mane of gold, blue eyes within
her stunning face, a mask of ennui
until she meets his eyes.  An eyebrow lifts,
a corner of her mouth curls up, unseen
by all save the old man beside.  He shifts,
and stands to pound his staff. The hall is still;
bound by an angered mage's curs'ed spell

Bound by an angered mage's curs'ed spell:
"Your burning gaze, Sir Knight...your smile, milass;
returned. You want each other?  Very well!
So mote it be; I'll have it come to pass.
She will be linked to you, eternally
yours, to have, to hold and never love;
to consummate and quench your lust will be
your death. And you shall lust, by Jove above!
I hereby mate your everlasting souls;
condemn you with a love like Hades' fires,
passion's heat incinerates you whole.
You'll take him, child, and **** him with desire.
You'll die for her; she'll draw you to her knees
across uncharted lands, bedragoned seas."

Across uncharted lands, bedragoned seas
uncounted years of wandering, he seeks
asylum from the memory of her eyes.
The softest skin, most gently blushing cheeks,
wildest fingers raking skin from back,
ever-changing hips which ****** and thrash;
the tavern *****, the courtesan, all lack
whatever power it would take to smash
his crushing need.  An aching pilgrimage,
life spent in shameless chase to slake the lust
imposed by jealous wizard in his rage.
Now weak and old, he walks alone through dust
and sandstorm, seeking solace, final rest
in desert's scalding carborundum breath

In desert's scalding carborundum breath
she oversees construction of her tomb.
Her father started it; upon his death,
she left the mage to build the solemn room
of memory. The waves of slaves pour sweat
in rivers onto stones, their muscles scream
and ripple in the undulating heat.
Mirage becomes a staggering man, unseen
by all but she. She mounts and rides to bring
some water, some relief.  When their eyes meet,
their souls enmesh, their spirits start to sing,
his failing body falls about her feet.
They're found again, and still there's no release; 
not even end of life can bring surcease.

Not even end of life can bring surcease;
she lived another twenty years beyond.
His final gaze of longing gave no peace,
but chained her in the everlasting bond
of arcane condemnation. Her ****** heart
is pierced by passing seconds, every one
a blunted needle, mildly poisoned dart
not strong enough to stop her pulse's run.
The mage's gift to her: the agony
of life remembering her lover's kiss,
then a death too short to set her free.
It sends her toward another fatal tryst,
spun round again the universe's width;
their love a measured minuet with death.

Their love a measured minuet with death,
a dance with destiny.  They wake again
to unfamiliar bodies, unknown paths
meandering across the haunted plain
of time.  A muddy pasture, half a million
blissful stoners join in raucous song:
"...and you make it hard". Among the hills run
****** lovers who can do no wrong,
all sharing bodies, needles 'til the smack
runs out. Her shaking arms strapped 'cross his chest;
he huddles close, awaiting the next stack
of Methadone. He shivers; breathes his last.
She cries and rocks his body, they will spoon
throughout the summer's thundered afternoon.

Throughout the summer's thundered afternoon
as heavy clouds erupt on thirsty soil,
cooler air meets skin on fire, a boon
to Magdalene and lover.  The sweet oil
washes off, the rain obscures the sound
of marching feet.  Centurions approach
and ****** him from her side. "So now you're found
beside this one, whose last ride gave us such
an evil time.  We strung him up, but now
his body's gone, and you were seen beside
the tomb. You'll die just like he did and how."
She watched another man be crucified.
Supported by her love, in peace he passed
between first breath of spring and winter's last.

Between first breath of spring and winter's last,
the royal courtyard at Versailles in bloom
is laid out for the party.  Every face
is rouged, each powdered wig precisely groomed.
The hundred soldiers stand down, raise a toast,
Vive le roi!  One teasing courtier
seduces a queen's guard to leave his post.
Behind a hedge, they make love unaware
of peasants, women milling through the gate
in search of bread and royal blood, not cake.
He runs to save the Queen, and seals his fate;
the mob will **** for revolution's sake.
The oaks a silent witness to his doom
in autumn colors, reds and golds festooned.

In autumn colors, reds and golds festooned,
the twin moons rise and set, reflecting sun
upon the biodomes.  Earth shines down, ruined
by man's neglect, what could not be undone.
The population by law zero sum;
resource conservation held above
the joy of new life.  Parents here must come
to know the anguish of requited love.
She bears his child; they knew too well the chance
they took.  The court will force a choice be made:
the father or the child. A tear, a glance
as he's locked out. She watches as he fades
in cryogenic punishment, life lashed
to winter's icy shackles holding fast.

To winter's icy shackles holding fast
her soul, she proffers prayer, slogs through the sleet
toward her cloistered cell.  One chilling blast
wraps habit 'round her, knocks her off her feet.
The heavy, sodden cloth, the wind prevents
her gaining purchase on the frozen ground.
From monastery cot, the monk could sense
distress.  In thin burnoose he dashed and found
her, cold as stone, yet breathing; swept her up
and rushed her to the hearth.  His warm embrace
brings on familiar heat.  Their pasts stirred up,
relived, decision made within a trace: 
"'Tis best this time we live, and never start."
Their minds attuned, yet cleft by broken heart.

Their minds attuned, yet cleft by broken heart;
the aching need grows stronger day by day.
He tends her failing health without regard
to duty, vows.  Her weak voice strains to say,
"I will be gone before you this time. Hear
me out; this may be what we need to break
our curse.  Stay with me as my time grows near;
and love me as the Reaper comes to take
my soul, and finish with me after I
have left.  God will forgive sins we'll commit
for man alone has ****** us.  We must try
or curse ourselves, continue to submit
to endless pain, remain just as we are:
connected, blessed, and doomed to be apart."

Connected, blessed, and doomed to be apart,
they cling to every moment here and now;
the priceless beating of her failing heart,
his passions roil out in unending flow.
He gazes deep in her eternal eyes
as they glaze over, looking past his face
into the hollow stare of death.  She lies
suspended between life and time and space,
to hear an old, familiar voice sound in
her ears.  "To dance with death before him
as you rut...how clever!  Most astounding
that you'd carry out this futile whim.
He dies; you'll live, just as the curse defines,
in wistful sojourn through a thousand lives."

In wistful sojourn through a thousand lives 
Two ancient souls in broken bodies dwell.
They trip light-years fantastic side by side
Bound by an angered mage's curs'ed spell.
Across uncharted lands, bedragoned seas,
In desert's scalding carborundum breath
Not even end of life can bring surcease;
Their love a measured minuet with death.
Throughout the summer's thundered afternoon,
Between first breath of spring and winter's last,
In autumn colors, reds and golds festooned,
To winter's icy shackles holding fast;
Their minds attuned, yet cleft by broken heart:
Connected, blessed, and doomed to be apart.

what fragments lay in stone and silent wait
for sunrise creeping stealthily through dark
to back-light marbled forms who knew Petrarch
truncated arms which strain to touch and sate
a cold and calculated yearning carved
in everlasting porous rock compressed
as otherworldly beauty barely dressed
they stand exposed and gorgeous, proud yet starved
to feast on passion's fragments etched inside
by sculptors long since sated, fed and dead
who pounded love with hammer, chisel, sweat
from abstract concept into sanctified
emotion pulsing from unbreathing stone;
stories bled from humankind alone

When days will pass without a written word
or weeks go by and no responses read,
don't think that any interest is dead.
It usually means that life itself has lured
me with a hefty chunk of "in the now",
and set the hidden hook deep in my jaw,
the friction of avoidance rubbing raw
my better nature.  Losing sight of how
acceptance ends the struggle, swimming hard
against the current wears me paper-thin.
Exhausted, humbled, docile, being reeled in,
the battle ends.  Surrender's healing starts;
a loving hand removes the hook and sets
me on my way, no strings and no regrets.

I leave you
the love I have
found along
the wandering;
I leave you
the peace
of heart and mind
you have planted;
I leave my
gratitude
for all that you are;
as I leave you
alone.

A quiet park inside the urban sprawl,
it held a wooden walk where lovers stroll
and old men totter by as mothers call
their children closer, reaching hands to hold.
Sick of heart, sick in his heart, he walks;
a man not old, not young, not in his prime.
Inclines his head in passing, will not talk;
each step a war on body's soft decline.
What used to take ten minutes takes an hour.
The humid heat hangs heavy in his chest.
A bench invites beneath an oaken bower;
perhaps a moment's respite would be best.
His aching legs won't do as they are bid,
so he sat down to rest, and rest he did.

Was it something that I told her,
was it something that I said?
Cause it's only gotten colder;
you can skate upon the bed.

Though waves of heat rise from her,
timid hug is met with shove.
I'm only getting number
under covers than above.

The hands are laid,
the light has blazed
and scales tumble
from oblivious eyes.
Believe
it or not,
the thousand-mile journey
still awaits
your first trembling step.
Vision?
If you can see
where your foot goes next,
that is enough.
Faith shuts the door behind,
trust leads you forward;
pray for the guidance
and willingness to follow.
Along the path
are placid pools of conscience;
points of depth and reflection,
murky darkness beneath
brilliant image.
Neither surface nor submerged
alone will save you
from the torture
of unfinished awareness.
Look into the eyes of both;
their wise, sad gaze back
will tell you that the 
thousand miles
are a lie.
"To know, and not to do
Is not to know."
Always more to know;
always more to do.

My dreams have always
been writer's dreams: colorful,
vivid, ironic,

visionary and
heavy with foreshadowing.
My early twenties

a sodden nightmare,
drinking away love, children,
family and home.

In dream of chaos,
Spirit I had not yet met
led me down the Way

I had been choosing;
brought me to its granite-cold
game-over ending.

Read my name, saw the
year of birth, but was taken
before I could read

the full final year.
But it began with nineteen.
Waking, shivering,

I could still feel the
achingly frigid tombstone
beneath trembling hands.

Despite the warning,
I carried on as I had,
fearing, ignoring

my destination.
Time was too short in my life
to be concerned with

anything except
living as I ****** well wanted.
Kept suffering deep

and often, wondered
about those friends who shook their heads
at me, and kept theirs.

Came the day when the
wonderful awareness awoke
the Spirit in me

to receive the love
the Universe had flooded,
floated, immersed me

in my entire life,
as I slaked my thirst other
ways. I drank my fill

of freshened water,
the first of many rebirths.
Pulled to solid ground,

slowly by slowly
I stood on my own again,
learning how to live

as the child I was,
adult in years, juvenile
in thought and action.

Sixteen years along
my journey brought me to a
terrifying day:

The thirty-first of 
December, modern era
nineteen ninety-nine.

I went home early,
away from Amateur Night
revelers driving,

and locked myself in,
calling friends and asking them
to call tomorrow.

I watched the ball drop
for the first time in many years...
and cried like a fool.

My Way is not yours,
and can never be.  My time
since is borrowed time;

I sign off on the
loan every morning I'm here.
Eastern spirit has

burnished my tarnished
soul, shining not removing
the dents and scratches

it's picked up during
the trip. Why Oriental
forms? You might have guessed.


Why write of Spirit
and of flesh?  Both are with me
as I carry on.

I must share borrowed
time for it to have meaning.
Blessed I am, having
found a place, a peaceful spot
and people with which to share.

Time's a passage that will narrow
as it's traveled; clashing rocks of
past and future crush the marrow
from the present.  Nagging clocks will
count each second of the numbered
days that still remain, and sound the
buzzer rousing those who slumber.
Those unwary fools who founder
on the unseen reefs of time have
never noticed how the hours will
quicken, forced through finite lives to
frothing waves, then crest and still.

Rename a street
and believe you've
preserved a man's memory.

Close government down
for a single day each year
and dream that you are
perpetuating freedom.

Remember first and foremost

that

until every human being
is free in heart and mind
from the tyranny of color

two men
murdered
nineteen hundred and
thirty-five years apart
were killed
in vain.

I find a heart that sings eternal song,
inspiring dance from sore and stumbling feet:
a beacon which has never steered me wrong.

In days I felt that life strung me along
a greater Spirit surely found it meet
I'd find a heart that sings eternal song.

How fortunate to have a faithful throng
of friends whose voices never lie or cheat;
a beacon which has never steered me wrong.

Music leads and leaves a path so strong
my soul is stirred to marching to its beat.
I find a heart that sings eternal song.

Inspiration strikes me like a gong,
the ringing out which time cannot defeat;
a beacon which has never steered me wrong.

The fresh, green spring of life returns among
your words by turns so rough, so true, so sweet.
I find a heart that sings eternal song;
a beacon which has never steered me wrong.

Life revolves; a door
which spins from my heart to yours,
soul to soul to soul.

A hard lesson learned
by proud, independent man:
For help, one must ask.

Chemo killed cancer
and my immune system too;
slowly rebuilding.

The louvers of the
windows to my heart are shut
to the storm of love.