slipping past my bones
deeply over the rim

nightfall liquid rushing
through the crown
of my head
eyes wide, a-glow
            with new vision

Yes. I will meet you there
in subconscious phosphorescence
pools of knowledge
forming between
the feather weight
of our lashes

wait for me
for I am floating
stellar-dipped arms
outstretched,
feeling the particles
the soft space between our
eyes, aligned

Come
let us receive each other
in astral ease
a rocking delight
of non-physical
until we can one day

touch

Two poems got away last night when I was dozing
bolted out the door
before I knew it
laughing like fools
Stole my last two beers
and they were gone

“Ya see, officer,
They didn't have their names yet
so they don't know themselves at all
or to answer if I call
They misbehaved and
Never learned there's rules out there
I'm a lousy poet parent, yeah,
I know
I shoulda been tougher on 'em
Half their words 'er scattered
twisted, misspelled, unreadable, inept
with rhythms all askew 'n weighted wrong

They will surely fall over their own lines
and into big ****-trouble
***** little scribbles!
sorta clumsy like their mother"

Meanwhile, the grammar cop is thinking,
“They do not pay me enough for this!
I'm looking for children of the village idiot and a *****”

"...Across the yard and down the alley
They must've run
Hopin' they didn't figure out the stick
on the Toyota

I'll never see 'em again
Pretty sure they got my keys"

The cop is nodding, bored, polite
but I notice
He's written all this down

We walked in with the snow
Carried on drifts
Talking to the ghosts of those
We had left behind.
The sun fought in contrast
To the biting air of  the frozen landscape.
Our breath visible proof of life
As we trod crystals underfoot.
Strange monuments marked our journey
Charred sculptures of wood
Dotted throughout the forest.
I searched for you
Halting the path of strangers
All to no avail.
We passed boulders of burial grounds
Heads bowed in silence
As we continued to follow the spirit paths
Of these haunted lands.
Walking towards the future
Where we only met our past.

They'd lived on the flats, humdrum home in a prosaic town.
Those gabled edifices perched on hilltops
Beyond their means, perhaps,
But certainly beyond their needs;
Their children had cribbed at the foot of their bed
To the detriment of sleep and other night-time activities,
And they'd later shared a room, learning early on
That life was often a make-do vocation,
But could be rife with joys in spite of that.
The kids moved on, to mirth and mortgages of their own,
Their parents resolute in their desire to stay put,
Eschewing the siren song of some trailer court in Sarasota,
Some gator-patrolled condo in St. Pete,
Choosing to confront the seemingly never-ending residue
Of stubborn low pressure systems
Lugubriously wandering up the St. Lawrence valley
For weeks upon end,
The humidity and mosquito-laced all too brief summers
(Though, on those nights where no pop-up thunderstorm
Threatened to chase them back inside,
They would sit on the porch, peering at the gravelly old hills,
And he would whistle some tune from some long ago,
Perhaps pulling her out of her chair,
Dancing a slow and somewhat unsteady waltz
While he did his damnedest to stay on key.)

I remember this girl
who went to the window
at dawn when it was still
dark in the winter and she
sees we have a long time
now that her father passed on
and we know we won't have to
go to school because the bus
it can't run, she slips her slip
over her hair and places it over
the chair near the fireplace
while I unlaced the sinew
of my boots, I remember it
well how we lost our cherry,
it was hard as a rock, like
breaking a wild horse, it was
a mirage of sound as the blood
moon sunk into the frozen ground
and I realized that the times
we can bat our eyelids, and
all of our nights and tomorrows
are not infinite, like love that comes
only once in a lifetime of sorrows.

When you appear (as we all shall, no doubt)
Before the oldest judge in the world,
Take care to notice his appearance;
You’ll see that his robe is frayed about the collar,
And that the cuffs, though expertly repaired,
Are worn and threadbare,
For he has been upon the bench for what seems eons,
(Case files scattered about heedlessly, his gavel mislaid)
And though you beseech him
With your borrowed chants and learned pleadings,
It is unlikely that he shall do anymore than look up imperceptibly
Dismissing you with a short, disdainful wave of his hand,
For your case is like a thousand others,
And your entreaties and supplications
No longer interest him.

I can understand, then, you would find such thoughts
Sobering, Indeed disconcerting;
It is not necessarily pleasant to realize
That we are but as toy boats which,
Once pushed away from shore by some small boy
Soon distracted by other, shinier trinkets,
Drift aimlessly across a pond
Which offers neither shelter nor safe harbor.
We are, then, all on our own,
Misbegotten creatures linked together
By nothing more noble of purpose
Than our own self-interest;
Oh, do not misunderstand me,
For I am not advocating (Heaven forbid!)
Some wholesale violation of commandments:
The spectre of patricide,
The hair-trigger roiling of the blood brought to bear
By the untrustworthy business partner, the faithless lover.  
I merely suggest it is wise to remember
That as we float along the stream of this life
(It being rank and  befouled, chock-a-block
With garbage, broken bottles, discarded condoms)
No hand is on the tiller save our own.  
But enough of this dark and dour philosophy!
Let us finish our draughts and return to our rooms,
There to sleep the sleep of the just,
During this long winter’s night
Which seems all but without end.

a dimple of great sadness yawns wide,
a timid fawn, eyes and ears small pearls

and it exists only in my body, mourning
lethargy. morning becomes lethargy,
a heavy predator. without commander
or command, it commences. flowering
into living sleep, i obey, when it beckons

primordially. the sky’s cerulean fingers
all sag. backwardly, blossoming
into muteness, all color
is fed to the inescapable

darkness. hand-fed inwardly, it is a gaping
thirst in the sea of unquenchable
hunger. i do not love it; it mimics

moonlight. the limpid doe,
a crystalline annihilator,

havocs the flower
to furlough the meadow
into the silence,
and into the black.