A book of poems –
a stunning moment’s promise,
a planet of new songs
each scarlet stanza firing
neurons at the back of mind,

a word like «whorl»
violet verses, rhythm
thumping as if with curses

Each image a word explosion
Spilling sparks on the dark,

each metaphor a painting
each simile a saying

Rhymes of psychedelic highs
Music of soft-petalled tongue:

velvet sonnet
silky sestina
vigoruous villanelle –

Perfect lens capturing
each wavelength of light,
splintering time, filling history
with slippery equivocals.

Perfect circle, irridescent
kalidescope, all colors
transposed, admired,
re-interpreted.

Invisible non-bodies –
collective elctrodynamics,
fast and furious nano-flares
of hovering incandescence.

They need no permission
to cross borders, leap checkpoints,
falsify fingerprints, scramble eye-scans.

They converse in a code
of wrangling fury, one alias
to another, true identity
unknowable.

These migrants can’t be detained
or deported, They assemble
out of nowhere, instigators
of disruption, provacators
of destruction.

There’s no stopping their attraction
or repulsion. They represent our
deepest fears, for their clandestine
agenda is not at all what it appears.

Whether…

death’s dark moons of tidal sadness

or
ferocious heaves and sighs of birth

Whether…

yellow warmth of day’s last kiss

or
dappled shadowed semi- tones of earth

Whether…

storm’s thunder in heaven’s raging brain

or
the cautious rhythm of a summer rain

Whether…

a night of passions’ lucious moans

or
morning’s taste of sweetened honey tones

Whether…

a dream’s dissembling reflexion

or  
a second’s truth of camera inflexion

No momentay frame of flesh,
No precarious green shoot,
No wink of precious inspiration
Without those secret wavelengths
of vibration.

Homage to Wallace Stevens



1. my thoughts are heavy,
    a wet blanket of gray
    like the darkening sky

2. falling leaves dangle
    leopard light mid-air
    over fields of purple mist

3. a wind-child plays
    with shadows faltering
    through black-armed trees

4. silence of shapeless black
    stretches between pin-***** stars
    and a glacial crescent moon

5. clock turned back an hour
    I feel split, confused by
    precocious night and
    early air-blue light

6. shop windows writhe
    with glittery excitement
    while I feel only
    the phantom fingers
    of too many years

7. season of between
    invisible beneath
    your gaudy disguise,
    you softly dialogue
    with death.

Silence spirited with teal
and an hour when nothing need happen,
Time gone beyond unanswering light,
hurling unheard echoes, slipping away
on the wind.

Notice the decomposing day,
the baffled bee meandering
among the season’s blossoms.

Follow the moon’s blood-red beams
and the goddess gone to fire.
She’s left cryptic messages
on the clouds for those who
care to read.

It’s useless to expect a bath or
of rainbows, a rush of angel wings.
Instead, treasure each small drought
of tenderness, pronouns love’s name
softly, and be forgiveness of the butterfly.

I learned the language of words
but also that of signs –
which lies are welcome,
which truths unspeakable,
which sentences explode,
which soothe like a cool breeze.

I whispered to hide my foreign vowels.
I learned to be seen and not heard –
to soothe my joints, white with anger,
and the yellow bruises of shame.

I practiced insincerity
and swift apology,
hoping new linguistics
might arise from generations
of politeness mispronounced.

But the years spilled into
a new millennium and
I learned – however much
you love a language,
it may not love you back.

Being grows in earth
and the water of the womb
where heaven pools
its special nourishment.

Body, once born,
is a lone, flying crane
resisting with an energy
of singular intention.

But mind must live
in the world’s garden
among a few bright blooms
of insight, many thorns
of righteousness,
gnarled roots of rage.

The body’s path is straight,
narrow, its promise certain.
But mind must choose
at each which path to take.