An online poet
rails about encroachment of
social media.

The dark may wrest your hand from mine,
from winding way I'm falling;
the sweetest sound comes just in time,
your poem, your voice a-calling.

whispering words not yet created
humming all forgotten lines
the unborn, the unfinished
cradled in loving arms
the arms that hug the sleepless
and hold off desperate pursuers
apropos of nothing, comes unbidden
as you work, as you drive, as you sleep
at the worst times possible
nothing handy to scribble down
dictation of the gods
whispered in words not yet created

So is it true that
if I'm up all Sunday night,
Monday doesn't come?

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

The day is sated,
night's stomach thunder-rumbles
in satisfaction.

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

The ocean is love.
The tide comes in, I tumble
in wave after wave.
The tide goes out, I tremble,
fear it will never return.

Some day
I'll flirt with Andromeda
staying just beyond
the length of her chains
take a hard right
at Orion's belt
insinuate myself
around Draco's tail
and join my clan
of Ursans
who no longer
point northward
on my passage
through
to my next edition.

Reticent sun, a
soft, comforting blanket of
clouds over his head.

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.

I remember passion fondly,
sepia-toned snapshots
of vaguely familiar faces,
preposterous poses
grinning at memory's camera.
Such children we were,
bloated with self-importance
raring to be loosed
upon an unsuspecting world
     (they'll never know what hit'em).
Battered by time,
small success and major failures,
a one-sided smile
crawls up my face today
as I pray
for a fragment of that fire,
a torch
to light the rest of my days.

Just three years ago
this week, I found these pages;
poet's eye gives thanks.

i thank you most for your amazing soul
;for how you heard how eyes would move when words
like faithandhopeandlove look less absurd
if gathered as a group of nothing's goal

your cambridge soul unfurnished but for love
for prosties with a heart, the gangster molls,
the corner louts in bars, and wealthy trolls
who wandered drunk through parlors where you moved

seeking answers asking questions beautiful
finding lonely large and self by sea
any/noone humans merely be-
ing flames of making burning blue and cool

you opened eyes of eyes and ears of ears
with words that shook the mountains of the years

Empathy: watching
someone draining their venom
without sampling it.

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.

Your ship, painted on the glass
of a five-by-seven picture frame
sails above my desk.
A study in blues, my favorite
as you well knew,
done by a man who knew
the blues too well.
The tall-master in full sail,
catching the reach
which exceeds my grasp.
The freedom of a craft
doing what it was made to do;
sailing in full faith
toward an unseen horizon
just as you were
when you came to me
with your divorce
and your truth.
I knew.  Your friends all knew.
But you loved children
and family so much
that for years
you could only paint the truth
to yourself
which ended up
in a closet(yes, too ironic).
When the man came out,
so did the paintings.
I look up every day
and know the world
is a better place for it.

You get out of life
only that which you Putin.

Sunrise absorbing
clouds which hug the earth closely,
absorbing sight, sound.

The tired poet
lays thirty days' burden down
and gives a heavy sigh.

Sun feeds energy
to earth; ninety-three million
miles feels much farther.

Cannonball!!!*
Diving from the tattered rope
into the writer's pool,
drenching any nearby poets
with a tsunami of images.
Remembering the sheer joy
of finding such a swimming hole,
and grabbing the chance
again and again
to drop fearlessly
into soul's center.
Today,
a toe tests gingerly
familiar water,
as hands open
the poet's chest
with cold-blooded intent
and wrap themselves
gently about
a muse's heart
and
begin...
to squeeze...
to pulse...
in time...

Spirit, please, in time.

I always give that
fickle ***** Life one more chance,
for I love her so.

I have forgotten
the song I wrote for mother
just before she died.

My problems reduced
to lengthened days, shortened breath,
what to feed grandkids.

Did not realize
how desperately my poet
wanted to be read.

Dilemma becomes:
Do I write now to be read,
or to say something?

Understand that
you lost your husband
a couple years back
to heart surgery
and breast cancer.
His ghost has been
wandering in and out
of your life since;
must have been a 
real pain
to see him sitting
vacant
next to you on the couch
in the empty seat
you left for him.
Just curious...
if you could have him back
after all this time,
would you take him?

There's no magic to
magick; look around, observe
daily miracles.

Water a website
with depression and watch all
the poets pop up.

when living in Jurassic Park
one learns why we become extinct
our heads are turned by well-turned words
instead of legs   when out for drinks
we'd rather chase a line of thought
than cherches le femmes   our passions shade
toward learning life and less to love
our broken hearts healed and remade
so aching, tired, we lick our wounds
inflicted by the patient years
and seek a resting place for bones
to bathe in tar the end-game's near
and offer meat to those young furry
new creatures as they hunt and scurry

Hey kids!!
Why don't we play
an exciting game of
"Who Shot the Arrow?"
while a nation
lies bleeding to death
at our feet?

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.

precious moments starved
gleaned from hungry hours
quenching thirsty thoughts
parched too dry for words
whistling arid winds
desiccated soul
\propped\ against a cactus
full of watered life
canteen close at hand
felt no need to drink
(walking past the past
sipping from your wells)
only two more days
until baptism in
these sacred salted seas.

Traveling back to humanity
from a place where there is hopelessness
beyond hopeless,
where one believes in God
and will not trust God.
Lost in a spiritual wilderness
for twenty-one days,
by grace alone not forty.
There is no fear quite like
the fear that your fervent prayers
are being ignored,
or put on celestial Hold:
"...your call will be answered
by the next available Higher Power;
estimated wait time is
approximately three lifetimes."
There are times
when I must founder,
battered, shattered
against the reef of my ego,
baptized by drowning in self-pity
before emerging, reborn
on a safe shore in sheltered harbor,
pulled in by willing friends
who miss me when I'm lost.

would you remember
if my hand traveled, nestled
down where we'd made love?

Your receding steps
echo upon my forehead
like dripping torture.

Drops of memories
patter down gently, wet your
unused pillowcase.

A gulf of unsaid
endearments erode the shore of
common happiness.

Silence, like water,
a universal solvent:
breaking down years of
bonds which held us together,
watching love spiral away.

To be sentenced
to a year and a day
of life
because one must
because others have tied
their lives to you
because you have
the only job

to plod forward in faith
alone
because the thing with feathers
was crushed beneath
the branches
when its perch fell

is to exist;

it is good to live once again,
to feel the soul branch out
and green,
and hear hope
chirping at the feeder
re-hung in faith.

I write in concrete;
find mystery in the real
and the everyday.

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
.
.
.

Suppose
life is an old man.
He's the type to thank
all the gods he knows
when his eyes first open
for the gift of another day.
Shrugs on his robe
and pads into slippers
without waking anyone
and starts the coffee.
Showers, dresses,
heads to the park
for his walk with the birds,
who flock and coo and chirp
for the crumbs of stale bread
he carries.
He has a lovely porch,
where he rests
in the afternoon
and after dinner.
He watches the neighbors
bustle and unwind.
You're always welcome
to join him in
the other rocker
and talk of whatever
the gentle breeze
blows into your mind.

Listen to him well.

The old man has learned
the small joys and adventures
fill our days
and are miraculous.

What works, what doesn't,
what words sing while others croak...
paper balled up, tossed.

Sweet spring air kissed by
amorous sunshine, building
slow heat for summer.

The road where you want
to follow me is not the
road I'm traveling.

My fear sleeps so far
tonight, cradled lovingly
in the arms of faith.

if any
one
were to be
no
    thing,
then every
one
would be
(supreme)ly
being.

Solemn silence singing
joyful dirge in parade
for bemused muse.

Now: yesterday's dread,
tomorrow's history; the
only time we live.

Let those who live in every land,
Let us break bread together.
Let freedom span both east and west;
Let us wander where we will.
Let hope and sorrow now unite,
Let the whole creation cry,
Let it be a dance we do.
Let Christmas come.
Let love continue long...
Let there be light.

There are so few true
men of Christ around; God alone
knows why Bob left us.

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....