the problem with my dreams
is that they are long pictures
not just long videos
they are emotional gold statues in a garden
not just dancers who's arms flow out
they are mouths that stay their tastes of water
not just songs feeling the canals through to the ending
they are arms sticking out of a box
not just feet muscles pressing on the pedals of daydreams
they are hearts scratching the glass of windows
not just a hand rotating a thinking wooden stick
they are knees near flattened ankles
not just bent elbows tensing and untensing punching down, writing on desks
until it's time to run smaller
they are a rotating big idea
inside a tree.
And the problem is they don't just make me feel ashamed
of dreaming again
they make me feel new
like the old ugly winter tree believes, and then on his old frame
new things beautify him
and it is only with the old and new
that I am so reverent so sacred so with tears in my eyes
about my dreams
and it is hard to know so much

Time and I don't sit together
at the end of day readings
where the old head of god bobs very slightly as he peacefully writes
and reads at the same time
remembering everything in a log
talking so slowly for the words to kiss me and time.
We avoid the eyes in our faces though while
We explore our bond collecting in our foreheads
A straight line binds us across the wind in the air
Across the papers of words
between us
He doesn't like the clock hands stuck in me, off such wingy arms
that don't have enough room in my chest to click around
My clock is always waiting for a bigger wall, for its arms to spread
and the energy cycle of the little go in there is like a skirt that doesn't twist when you turn
no color splashing the air at each little movement
My wing arms need me to lift out most of the feathers and turn
And then it'd be a better clock than time
I don't like his viscious breathing, and the colors on his wall only dark grey and blue
At least my wall is red
But I want to be friends
I want to take his hand and let the minutes come, behind us
I don't want to push the future far away     with my eyes on the rug
my shoulders fallen without feathers to be free
Please don't shred my slow dance rolling towards god's arms for him to make it lighter
I wheel in pain while I bend my broken knees to turn, of all your torture
It's a weighty golden skirt from all the fire
Love me first, then tell me something wise
And lighter than the heavy turning to the sides you've designed
Sit next to me in the middle of the story Grandfather clock
Then we will both be looking forward
Listening to the book of the long
Opening the folded air of today, tomorrow, and the ones that made them
Writing with a clock hand, and an eternity pen
Giving to us what we wait for
Lifting our names to move and make a turn
Me and time making the parting between the pages and the hill of them,
for several walls of clocks
several scars
several backs of life
a central spine strong enough to dance to the beat of so many more pages

Your effortless lungs take a chance while you draw in more breath like room, to branch into white air
Awake eyes sharpen your joints' old gold and your neck twists like an earthy stem, soft in the air
the ocean of clear air brushes back its weightless arms for you are its paint
motion and sounds are fresh in color and drip, like the rushing of pine trees in the airiest blue and at dim blue, and your silver breaths each one perfect in the moment above in the sky
the air darkens wide where you've gone clear from colors, after the day washes into night
your heart was the wings ahead of the sky itself, and its the night blue wearing your back now
you are heavy within with breath and the sky opens your lungs and rolls in, because she rolls trees
and her lungs turn to ashes the brown leaves, on grounds that hold the trees in every change in the sky
the folded layers of earth billow out with every new big wind above because it's a sphere, a round bed
you are tossed and turned, you sleep, cry, believe, and exhale

Red fire wakes up at night and curves tall with flowing ends, roaring across the blind sphere
running just past the edges and rims of rivers and trees windows
pushing forward in a plain north, rings of black and light turning to their sides on their arms
black trees open their throat and swallow, and stars burst inside
for stars chase the soul and with great wind kiss the diamonds in the walls, or glow rich brown color
and emerald leaves that make a ringing sound

the eTablet is not happy
across its sleek glass;
and the paper book too is not happy

the eTablet has seen it
so has the paper book
the latest tip in the Health Section
in today’s paper – online and on paper:
“To sleep easy and well,
do not use computers or eGadgets
at least an hour before bed;
read a book instead”

The eTablet is not happy
about its banishment from bed
And the paper book, always too smart
for its own good,
is not happy too:
“So what are you guys saying?
I’m so boring I put people to sleep?”

And now eTablet glows
across its sleek glass

Tree,
your veins are in your earth
my veins are inside me
the years are old in you and your leaves are fresh
you remind me of the tree part in my right foot
My bedroom's in the bushy head in my mind in my solar brain,
my ankle is the shoulder to the stumpy central branch of my leg
heavy layers of red aged mountain, my earth is the most pages
the place where nerve lines swim again young immortal creases through thousand piles
a networking for only the soul, the mind, the heart
geometric thoughts that string out the tongue
making crosses between finished rock, hardness too late and fresh like skin
I am more inner than stone, thinner, longer, loopier
nerve lines tiny things turn into staffs in the air in my arms
different than tree parts I am rimmed and mudding with water
my rippling veins at the bottom of my foot, is the surface of my sea upside-down
I bet you feel good I'm calling your earth the sky
I am full of stuff, the way dirt packs together to create things without hands
and your earth is where some of my veins should stand up too
I am always alive like you
the lines in the earth of me and my earth holding up the living wooden door
standing from my ankle
walking on the earth like my veins are not there
like you stand on the earth like your veins aren't even there
yet you are the earth, brown and green
and you base the earth starry
swimming in the deep black earth

What if water were made of flowers
the air on the lake would smell like thick honey
they would be taken up onto strings
and put around people
Everyone would be beautiful
And there would be so many different kinds that could cover the sky
everyone would cry
An old man would smile at all the people
Children would be flowing like nature
thinking someone has given them a gift
Their thanks being in how much life they feel
A homeless person would tie a garland into a bow
and put it on a bench
Women would make patterns holding them near the face
God would blush

Tall people would think flowers look like hands around the sun
Heads would need hats and skin would sunburn while petals
would run down with the waves of one pair of eyes
the stem planted in one heart
if taken rips staying in the background
a beautiful beloved bouncing in a thieve's bag
A hundred treetops combing their inner crown with the brush of their lowest arms
A ballad would play for the reflection of beauty in a mirror
the reflection of skin, in water
We are skin
If water were flowers the reflection would be God
And we the image of God
God would blush

our fruiterer is a riddling prankster
who jumps up from every corner
and tray and stacks, with any old silly riddle

(1)
“Looking at apples, eh?”
he approaches Sandy
“What did the apple say to the bug?
Oh – stop bugging me!”

And he laughs at his own humor
(or lack of it)
while severe Sandy rotates
an apple in her left palm
and he ventures to the next vulnerable customer,
who is me

“How, my dear man,” he proceeds to ask
“do you fix a broken tomato?”
I shake my head, bewildered
and he unpacks his own riddle:
“Tomato paste!”
And he roars with laughter
his chilli-sharp eyes pointed
at his next customer


(2)

And off he goes with his riddles –
with his booming voice, no pause
and wrapping his answers in cracking laughs

He jumps to an old man
and he says:
“Why, do tell me, do bananas
never feel lonely?”
“Cos they always come in bunches”

And the young couple he regales with:
“Why did the tomato go out with the prune?
Oh, come on…simply cos he couldn’t find a date!”

And to an old woman he says
in  near-Oedipus style:
“What did the Dad Tomato tell his Kid Tomato?
Ketchup!”

And as in a light musical
he turns about and whoever he finds
he unleashes his final:
“How do you fix a cracked pumpkin?
Easy peasy – you use a pumpkin patch!”

Ah, our fruiterer is a riddling prankster
who jumps up from every corner
and tray and stacks, with any old silly riddle

A tree has grown very slowly in my bones
inside my fingers dark paint thicker than my fingerbones
a mess of sticks inside cloudy bushy leaves
brushing the ground from the top
long strong pieces inside creak
it is the foundation and strength
sturdy pops in the musical hearts of old pianos.
the oldest things are trees
you can hear their waists without hipjoints standing in the wind each year
they always sound hard and alive
wood is lightly round and around and thick
the color of coffee and light cream
they are oldest because of the new leaves
significant colors from ugly knobby wrists
the wind in them sends a slow s freshly
a strong lullaby that touches low height
grounding the air and my legs.
A tree has grown in my bones
my legs curve in heavy waves and gravy in the ground
and my face that twists on the trunk of my neck
is the back of a chair for a bird's pillow
the sight of a bird looks like it's free though it belongs in the sky
so while it sits
is feels like it's free though it belongs in the sky
so they are free on the sides of my house
whispering into my mind
on my branches because only something
with foundation deep
and brown
can have ears where wind blows through
tall enough in the air for the mind to breathe
my mind bending up from pressing out to breathe for me
a nest where bones and milk press freely through the leaves

It was the early days of the organic food craze
and my wife, ever a slave to the latest fads
(which disposition sometimes benefitted me pleasurably
but mostly cost me dearly)
made me run on an errand
(like: “Fido – go, fetch!”)
to get some organic vegetables
and arriving, I blurted out to the produce guy, stumbling:
“Some ****** for my wife” –
and that wise guy, Oxford-educated as he was
(though a failed Professor, so ended up at the greengrocer’s)
he said: “That you must induce or encourage in your wife, Sir;
I cannot and will not be of service in that connection.”

And I slowed down and I said:
“Well, dear fellow – for my wife, have you any organic vegetables?”
And Oxford-educated as he was, he did not understand such fads
having mostly a sedate and Classical demeanour
and he pointed his most English nose to the air;
and so I attempted again to sensible-phrase my inquiry:
“Are your vegetables -
and this I ask on account of my esteemed wife -
sprayed with poisonous chemicals?”
And the Oxford guy apprehended now, and he pronounced:
“Poisonous chemicals for your spouse
you must procure yourself, Sir”

Now, that was an idea. I knew Oxford-educated guys
were smart in some way or other.

And since then I have been free of my wife.

I have no need to run on errands for no baby, no more;
though I do have to count bars,
limited as my numerical skills are,
as is my verbal proficiency.

And the Oxford guy, meanwhile, I have it from the grapevine,
has set up an ******* Food Chain Store, worldwide;
I knew he’d go places, sooner or later, far and global

(poem not for the modest)

1)
Susan is envious about
Mr Ron’s rich-red tomatoes
just over the fence;
and Susan asks how he does it
“Oh,”* says Mr Thorn, “I expose myself
twice daily to the tomatoes
and they blush and so they are red
Try it with your vegetables, Susan”

2)
It’s three weeks later
and Mr Thorn asks over the fence:
“Hey Susan, how are your veggies now?”

“Well,” replies Susan, *“tomatoes are the same
Oh but you should see the cucumbers –
my, how they've grown!”