This elegant bloom
forgot the season
came stocked for summer idylls
picnics by the water's edge
scent of mowed fields
scent of love's flowering.

Pitiful rose
how did you become
so lost in time?
Nothing now becomes you.

So I carefully cut
the stem
placed your ******* vein
in a slender jar
filled with
the last spring's freshet.

You came to life
for us
at Christmas time.
A meager blessing
in a time of pain.
A frail totem
in a time of dread.

I wake each day
with despair eating at
my good spirits
the specter of
a new political order
crouching in the darkest corners
of my place of rest.

******* it!
Send that orange horror
into oblivion.
******* monster
robbing my nights of peace.

There is no sense to this life.
There is rhyme without reason,
pain without relief.

Just the same
I will slog on.
One foot in front of
the other.
Repeating as necessary.
And then letting it go
through the latched gate of time.

This simple dance
revolves around itself
repeating intricate figures
until its inevitable end.

And then?
A riddle wrapped
in the loose skin of the night
beckons to us all
the certainty of death
leaves us wondering
while stumbling along this frosted
winter shore.

A thousand times
a thousand ships
have sailed daily
and sent nary a missive home.

The signal fires are burning
on forested headlands
here along this rugged coast.
Dark and solemn capes
gather the pelting rain
into their skirts.

The signaling smoke
from fir-fed fires
wraps itself in salt spray
serves as a beacon for the lost
a message to the departed.

Yet not a word
not a message in a bottle
from those who have set forth.
180 degrees of the compass
and not a sail.
The sea splendid and empty.

If no news is good news,
then bliss is our birthright.
If no news is something else
again,
then simple silence
will be our wage.

Is it my priestly duty
to be denied?
love—time and all else, at all cost!
while he went home alone to watch a movie?

Another victim  
sacrificed
having squandered all my pieces in his game?
Trudging home
along the river
slow, in snow
I parse my losses

At the outskirts of a homeless camp
I pause below a viaduct
hauling passion by a leash
warming hands
avoiding hovel-eyes
Flames flicker on our faces
receiving absolution over embers
of a burning embrace

There trace
in glowing holocaust of skids
in human bleatings and crumblings
our smoke rises— pure   obscure
Appease with *****-blur
the icy, stinging God of winter stars...

G’nights inaudible as blessing

Am I derelict enough to be worthy?
Fallen far enough?
from the porches of prosperity?
to escape it all?
That wedding white
the newborn’s head
that numbing denial of decay?

Am I depraved enough to make it?
to the pages of your tragedy— minus poetry?

But the angel said
“The poetry’s more!”

Than leaving me—beyond you

...in the shambles of my words

Before kids we drove
a blue Chevy Corvair.
No seat belts (of course),

so you could slide next
to me in the bench seat.
We rolled the windows

down to escape the gas fumes
and the staggering smell of oil.
But oh the sound of the engine

roaring behind us in the trunk
as we accelerated close together,
the streetlights all turning green.

We leaned into loose curves,
navigating to the straightaway
where we would open up and fly

like lovers from some Springsteen
song until the road became nothing
and the car disappeared and it was

just you and me hurtling to this place,
suspended by our own combustion,
carried by time, married by velocity.

transparent seeds
nest in winter hollows
the future reflected
in all-knowing eyes
an internal compass buried
in each golden heart

dappled forest light
on the natal stream
memories of salt
ingrained within
the latent lure
of open ocean

our destinies are silver
a return to clear waters
transformed revenants
glassy-eyed and gasping
on the gravel bed
that birthed us