isn't it enough that the wind
makes tumbles of the umbrellas

that dark staccato notes of rain
strike with such force that we pause
  
our busy little lives and marvel at it?
isn't it enough that the very next moment

the sky turns so impossibly blue
that we remember we all have wings?

Isn't it a spoiled life:

picking flowers on the edge --


of the precipice?

I climb over the wreckage of you -
bent rusted iron, crumbled stone.
My cheeks - stained with soot,
hair -  dandruffed with ash,
skin - raspberried from sweeping the concrete
with my knees.
I unfurl the flag,
emerging from the tumultuous cocoon
of your cannon fire.
The colors fly - dancing with the bullets
in the summer soaked breeze.
I can just make out the haze of the gate
through the thick smoke pouring
from your tempered chest.
A smirk flirts with the corners of my mouth;
The resolute defense of the ruinous gloom
you will carry in dingy bags
made from the cloth of superiority.
I will feast upon a slice of cake
in the golden glow of morning.

3 of us.
one at one end of the bar,
the other at the opposite corner,
me in the middle.
we are the ones that
didn't learn from past mistakes.

store clerk, janitor, fortune teller,
Insomniac, lost soul,
who knows.
truth is found in the silence
of minding your own business.

we didn't come here to talk to one another.

the bottle or glass
held with fingers too tightly.
the bottle or glass has a kind heart
understands
this is sanctuary
from memories stitched to bone
like shadows scattering....

(a flash of lightning, a splintering boom)

and then she walks in.
a rift in the barrier of worlds.

she bends the light, deepens the silence.

she spoke with a voice like the morning dove
with a melody that forgets your name.

she glides. each step deliberate, unhurried.

we turn, and bone shadows in a hush
whisper,
" beautiful"

and she knows it
too well.

the dream walker
lifts the veils of moonlit memory
and time unthreads
into the first shiver of love
that lures men to madness.             

and now done, suddenly
she turns around,

and walks out the door
(a flash of lightning, a roll of thunder).

the blinding white light
our hollow sky in disarray....

..."bartender, get me another double, and one,
for my 2 friends.

Charlie was in the hospital dying,
unconscious, and he says,
I'll have a margarita."

"hey, I knew Charlie."

"me, too." and then he says,
"my stock broker..."

looking at st paul’s from
across the river I see
someone looking back   ..

Tremble in the Face of Dawn-

First raucous caw of gull perched
on red-roofed house
With no remorse

And the white dog shows no fear
for the baby grey squirrel, Knowing
It shall not fall