She's like a drama queen,
Plays the 'blame game' like a loser,
Fair minded as a bigot,
Wages war like drones,
As free as surveillance,
As open as privatized prisons,
As equal as feudalism,
As rich as the beggar masses,
Bankrupt as homeowners,
Socialist as the military,
Truthful, trustful as "NEWS," as propaganda,
Pagan as the manufactured Goddess 'Columbia,'
Christian as the stingy,
Pious as a sinner,
Wicked as securities, exchanges on 'Wall Street,'
Insecure as an empire,
Greedy as a fast food glutton,
As brave as a fool,
Warmongering as a chicken hawk politician,
Machevellian as a coward,
As rigged as the free market,
As selfish as Capitalism,
As tolerant as Islam,
Beautiful as a clear cut forest,
Charming as a strip mall,
Forward thinking as chaos,
Lawless as congress,
United as a belligerent crowd,
Compassionate as a swat team,
Green as any petrochemical company,
Organic as pollution,
Deep as a strip mine  .  .  .
  .  .  .

I want to know—
What only lips can know,
I want to see—
What only Falcons vision,
When they stoop from the heavens,
I want to preen and lord—
As only Jaguars can, regal,
In the tangles of purple jungle sun,
I will climb these ancient steps
Holy and of forbidden stone,
If only, you would
Surrender,
Love.

Today, a poem should be palatable, cute
As a Kiwi fruit,

Dumb
As a horse battalion's scudding run,

Strident as out of tune horns
Of basement bands where the gloss has grown—

A poem should be bloodless
As the slight of words.

A poem should be film of ocean brine
As the reel unwinds,

Cleaving as the gear greases
Spoke by spoke the light smearing breeze,

Blowing, to the temple outhouse
Exalting all the ****** functions—

A poem should be not true:
Equal too.

For all the history of vanity
An empty room and a bass relief

For lust
The keening masses and no light above the stream

A poem should not be
But mean.

.
When I was a youth, I spied a bird,
She filled my field with song,
And sadly it was, my duties began
But we made a vow singin,'
Together again!

    And a way'l we go, as I hurry the sea and—
    She waits the land.

My true love I call a nightingale,
And I myself a lark,
Together we make, two turtledoves,
And we made a vow singin,'
Together again!

    And a way'l we go, as I hurry the sea and—
    She waits the land.

    O come will the day, that my true will say,
    When all my sporting is over,
    'Do you remember the days, I waited the land,
    And you hurried the sea?'

Now, the sea is my girl and I her man,
I hear a lovers lament,
An old seabird cries from the brighty main,
And I join with him singin,'
Together again!

    *O come will the day, that my true will say,
    'My heart, you've been the world over!'
    But until I rest free, I must hurry the sea and
    She waits the land.

His hands ring in the upper classes.
There, in the morning light, his will
Is forged, bent, as truth, on ruling  
This place, underhand, underfoot.

With shuttered ears divining his voice
The dim pupils see only what is said.
The top hand schools, topples all words
Ringing hands sing the song of fools.

How Headmaster trains on the heel,  
A dagger strikes, the paper cuts
Exalted, his close minded hands,  
See a Czar in the stony swagger,

And the student body, submissively lies
With his feet.  Outside the college
The headmaster is heard. Grossly,
He is their dream and only shepherd.

Sweetest little kiss—
Touched water before we bathe,
  .  .  .  Faucet left running.

No rout, they did not let out a cry,
With veins of flame in swelling eye,
No word, could semble nor shutter,
The bumpy flesh tore into the light,

In nimbles of silence, nimby smoke
Smouldered by sidle of spent fires,
The house of future days was open,
Their ***** it hearts eternally closed.

Her eyes,
Sunken, blue
With edges of ruddy green,
Of olive, kelp, fatigue,
A certain muddy camouflage,
Bright with purpose,
Ambition and fierce urgency,
Set their twin star sights
On me and I learned a new
Word that day—
Surrender.

I fell into formation,
Saluting her stars in the fullest light
Of the falling day.
I learned how to survive
Under such searing heat
And became intimate
With sneak attacks,
Friendly fire, sudden blitzkrieg
And the nuclear winter,
The dark sheet,
Of sorrows unveiling.

Ripples lead to bows  .  .  .
After fish breaks the water,
  .  .  .  A kingfisher dives.

Circle strands of life  .  .  .
Ocean sprays bones risen,
  .  .  .  Open conches nest.

Third had grace, loveliest, angels face,
Second had music and long, lithest form,
The first was a lark, one amorous affair,
All three are now but phantasm, dream,
The forests dark, memory— lost to me.

Wine, spinning, we dine,
Candles and moon making love,
 .  .  .  Sparkle in her eyes.

The Blue Falcon, cross the spire,
Waits in the gables of the white
House.  Wounded in youth by crush
Of air, spent, a wisp perched
In the aerie dark with a view of mountains
Blue as ice under glacier.  The wooden
Church from the other side clutches
The sky but the Falcon blue is lost
In a tuft of cloud that bobs but never
Kills.  On this strike he is sheathed in stealth
The dull talons slip as they dry
In the tented air, the songbirds at play
In the high-ground underneath warble
And chide but the Falcon cannot hear
The Falcon near.  His heart is soft
And muted in the breast, his ears
Are dumb to their tickling-songs.  

Before the Falcons time, over
The tilling fields, dropped his world
In the spoils where splendour burst in green,
Rain meant the feathers ran and the woods,
A banquet of game, were bounty's breach
Fording blue currents he was
A fisher in the sun, but the sun
Sank in his drowning sky no store
From plateau to quarry the drought of days
Moved a castle felled in the dancing
Dust, his wings broke in the shuttered
Eye of the sun and etched his form
Into grey silhouette.  

Now, the Blue Falcon, jeered
In the branches of the rooted air
Above the yellowed grass, under the pines
And a great blue mountain, stirs a Druid
Shape, vaporous, in the cauldron
Of the attic in the white house
A throw of stones crossways from
The sacred yews of the steeple spire.

.
In gravest, gravels of untouched soil,
Spearhead of purple, beyond the pale,
One statue of siege upon a windy foil,
What mires meek airs in all you survey?

Like a frost of summers, you are lord,
To hold that seed in your spiny face,
Depressions of land your promontory,
All up with arms, iron clad as a mace,

Beneath you, the grown motley fields
Are desolate, all flowers bled, blender,
Spiders and birds know you unyielding
The lost aleatory scent of no surrender.

Wings beat to overtake.
Now, above you like a fire shot
In a silent film the rush begins.
Wings fold inward, the air turrents,
Streams, as a ball swirling in a tube,
Grey bullet in the barrel,
The slide to the **** and the talons,
Make their mark before the hitch.
Soft plosives bearly sounding,
Crake, blood cupped in the claws,
From the breast and the rose  
Heart, now in a tail spin,   

Nostrils whine in the fall.   
No jury just but a sup of the faded  
Heart by one raging one.   
The wilted wings are stirring  
To the last as the pointed  
Wingman ferries, the wholly bred,
Quarry of perfection, jolts  
And jilts, and His scythe of feathers
Holds sway in the whirl.
As the God-made creature
From high heaven flies
The mourning dove must die.

I sit under the ancient apple tree,
My heart is low, my head in the clouds,
The day is slowly ending, I am sleepy
When visitors arrive, little buds come,
Raining down on me— a cadre
Of red-headed finches.

Was there a word,
Plain or shimmering,
Cast of gold and mercy,
In the bathing light of forgiveness,
Tempered with down and feather,
Wrought of worthiness and pride,
The mellow flame of tenderness
And shearing morning sun,
One tabulation of saving flesh,
The tapping root of the knowledge
Tree, the forge of stainless metal
And touch, stone direction,
One healing humour, cardinal
As blood, forceful as the salt
Journey bearing the pines
Of lodestar coordinates,
Spotting the Xanadu ex
Of the lost lovers?

Your lips, soft and full,
Are tearing at my heart.
Your skin, freckled and bumped,
Is at play with my palms.
Your eyes, of water and stone
Rain, storming like fists of hail.
Your *******, are blooms, pouring
Like white chocolate cupped.
Your hair, is a loom even
Penelope could not weave.
Your little feet, are drumming
Like puddles by the sea.
Your thighs, make me mutter
And sigh into the winds.
I will, not go wondering now
For whom is master and who
Is slave, are you the Morgen
Or are you Fand my gentle
Ocean wave?  Your voice
Is song, your breath is air
And your pooling, marbled
Face, torso, hair, how they beckon
And your words, gifting melody,
Such words must be forbidden.

Above woodland birds  .  .  .
Feathered cloud on mountain top,
  .  .  .  Eagle lands on spruce.

Bull frog in fish pond—
Loud, one day I heard last croak,
Raccoon washing hands.

Hazel tree shedding,
Many leaves fall, nuts dropping,
Woodland birds fly in.

I have lost my sun,
Though I still orbit in a strange attraction.

I have lost my music,
Though I know my heart sings sound.

I have lost my vision,
Though I see in dreams an impossible beauty.

I have lost my sense,
Though this world has never tasted as sour.

I have lost my purpose,
Though aimlessly, I write in the pale drear of twilight.

I have lost my reason,
Though I chart dangerous courses without a crew.

I am the last falls of the loveliest red proscenium
curtain.

I am over, undone, a foundling, lost,
Without you.

Seabird tracks in sand,
End where mine begin, as tides—
Make both disappear.

My ruby looks on stones to see the light.
While amber stars are flashing in her mien,
She forges facets with her eyes and mines
A rocky grave.  To bear as such, the sun
Un-sung, she could caul parhelion to dust
And still doom to shadow those fireworks
She alone ignites.  Here then lies a truth;
My ruby looks on stones to see the light.

Times tackle on the threads.
We beat the strand seahorse
Dashed, unfurl the curling
Toes, your body twists
In the boat, only ribs
From the spirit waters.  
Your fish fins from the net,
My rod pins on the pine
And the hooked meat, your barb,
Reels as it plays the swampy
Moan of the gutted bait.

Woodpecker drifting,
Starry red-head loves old trees,
His wandering bark.

I have seen her playing
With light, edging her hair,
In crescents so fair.

I have watched her fingers
Twirl and twine, beaming gold,
Threshing precious hold.

I have witnessed the taming
Of the sun's rays, captured,
Spinning in rapture.

And I feel for the pale moon
Who offers his frail, vestige light,
While she sleeps at night.

In the house of the unsaid
Tears are glass beads that drop
The ***** on the bone china

Blood spittles the lips, hair
Raises the dead the cut
Rosary roils and dents

Harmony’s rumour spouts
In the sink. The clock’s twitching
Strikes a mongoosed hour.

And the scattered stations run
The rude wood splinters
As the unsaying are floored

Clouded eyes pain the glass
Outside the house, bare
Trees are leaved with ravens.

Snow capped mountains,
Bald flights of soaring eagle,
Dual forms Godhead.

Your eyes, flooding me,
Your anger, rousing the skies—
Rain drops with my tears.

Loon, moans in distance,
Grey mountain smears the pale sky,
  .  .  .  Not even moon breaks.

Grizzled-brown sound of tuba walking,
            In the way of circles you wobble step, inverse,
                        As does a broken waltz, bearly graceful.

You sniff your way a crush alpine meadows
            And making sense for you are lowly berries,
                        Rude as any intruder might be in the foothills

Of the Gods.  'More wine for the great Polyphemus,'
            Say the drunk brambles, brighty doomed sailors
                        All a wash by behemothing jaws which hang

Them over.  Yet Ursa, if in minor you must play
            By the cosmos' stilted view, great major, it is they
                        Who glare more distant, as if you really cared.

She came upon a meadow, then she undressed;
And when she was naked, the meadow blushed.

Softly she tread, floating above the clover
Seas.  Suddenly lost, bold honey bees forgot
The scent of flowers blooming.  Iridescent wings,
Humming birds, monarchs, dragons, flying in
Procession and the mushrooming dew now rising
Began to swell, raining upwards into the mystic
Blue heavens and the trees beyond that clearing
Stood longingly amazed, so green their spying
Gaze, when all the myriad flowers loosely fell
And all the gathering of colours faintly dimmed.

She came upon a meadow, then she undressed;
And when she was naked, the meadow blushed.

And speaking to the western wind,
In the sped and turning time of the revolving sky
As a top unwinding like a dropped fable;
He dreams of taking leave, unraveling the coil
Upending his foil
Of listless sights as daylight creeps one more tread
And sweet belief breaks down once again:
Days that are ******* like a sad hunt
When the tracker is bent
On tragic orchestrations that only lead to a duel . . .
Undoing, Oh must it be, "Must we fit?"
Let us know and get on with it.

In his bed the women are only dreams
Phantoms, iridescent sirens.

  .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .   ­ .

Yes! I am not King Lir, nor could ever be;
Am a child cast out, transfigured, remote
Innocent, prey to the white flaming truth
The growing down, that clothes my name
Inconsequential, sheathed with shame,
Polite, capricious, calamitous;
Empty of all, it is unanimous
Nor even the memory of ripeness
Invisible, a drop in the pool.

I am weary . . .  I am weary . . .
I shall whisper to the newborns when I am old.

Shall I build upon the strand?  Have swordplay with the sea?
I shall tear my hair, mutter to the moon, bury my wounded knees
I have heard the Selkies singing, sailing with the breeze.

I do not think they will give their skin to me.

I have known them gliding beyond the ninth wave.
I still hear them sing so sweetly, weaving sorrows, on my back
Carving the blue waters as the waves are turning black.

We come and go in cycles with the moon, as tidal waves
Seep and seethe, foam and heave, lone captains setting sail,
In folly with a capsize brimming, before our boat has been bailed.

              

                                        ­                     ­                                               — after Elliot

Gnat is mucky king!
Little lord thinks he matters,
  .  .  .  Buzzing above *****.

.
In dusk a cloud moves,
Barely are there any stars
And the sheet drops, sinks,
As lovers we came to this
Gentle pond without guile
Under the willows green,
Set on the banks of whin,
In sight of a stone bridge
And settled in to watch
The swans arrive and go,
Like windy arcs of bounty
Under great falling blanket
Of indigo and gold sparkling,
Enameling eyes of the heavens.

Now, I come to visit alone,
Only memories gliding slow,
Love has fled near after song
The sweetest spring awakening,
How time unveils dark truths,
My hair, it falls in the wind
With the groping willows,
The godly eyes of the skies
Are now mere stars that flash,
My love is betrothed to another,
Still, the cool white swans at dusk
Ride in waters turned shallow, murky
And black as their eyes in day fall,
And yet they remain wondrous,
White rose of my soul,
Drifting away.

One for each of us,
I offered her little rings,
  .  .  .  Heard only silence.

Sea town from the bluff,
Early autumn snow flakes fly—
  .  .  .  Sailboats ply harbour.

When I was a youth, I spied a bird,
She filled my field with song,
And sadly it was, my duties began
But we made a vow singin,'
Together again!

    And a way'l we go, as I hurry the sea and—
    She waits the land.

My true love I call a nightingale,
And I myself a lark,
Together we make, two turtledoves,
And we made a vow singin,'
Together again!

    And a way'l we go, as I hurry the sea and—
    She waits the land.

    O come will the day, that my true will say,
    When all my sporting is over,
    'Do you remember the days, I waited the land,
    And you hurried the sea?'

Now, the sea is my girl and I her man,
I hear a lovers lament,
An old seabird cries from the brighty main,
And I join with him singin,'
Together again!

    O come will the day, that my true will say,
    'My heart, you've been the world over!'
    But until I rest free, I must hurry the sea and
    She waits the land.

On that western isle, bathed in gold-
Drenching sun, my only, giddy love,
Weaved a daisy chain and crowned 
Herself, above the clouds and purple-
Violet seas, her grace, topping yellow-
Sparkled weeds, to flower, marching
In fealty, round her red, reign of crown, 
Soon, after new mornings impromptu 
Coronation, misty, bluer, eyes felt slow
Distant dread, the subtle, burning fate,
The inevitable nights of overthrowing
And fade of love's noble, corona light.

Were I shaper of dream, I would build
A grand labyrinthian castle of granite 
Stone to contain that day—  I would 
Conjure a moat, impervious to shifting 
Time, the mute corruption of sorrows 
Waking.

.
I have come to the temple
Of your body.  I kneel and prey
Like a sinner.  The holy water
Beads low on your forbidden
Tabernacle, sears my touch
In cleansing flame, what I do
And what will be done is all
For unrepentant confessions
And penances.  Let me truly
Learn the sacraments of flesh
Before I bathe in your wicked
Innocence and commit my sin
At being mortal in your nimbus
Chambers, let the mercies rain
After the fall of my fellowing
Creature, for this night is blood
Sabbath, and sacrilege under
A Pagan moon and let the dawn
In the rising sun of mute morning
Be my absolution, our benediction,
Let the moving waters enfold us,
Pure as lambs, as washed babes,
Baptismal.

Hopeful maiden,
Mistress of cotillions,
Depthless, devoid of culture,
Unquestioning, incurious,
Seeks her warrior-beast-of-burden,
A man's man, a sportsman of sorts,
Yet sensitive and without ego,
A staunch provider,
Seeking beauty for its own sake,
A coy, coltish fawn, un-artful,
Un-fawning, who cannot keep a house,  
Hold her tongue nor navigate
Social gatherings, one whose passion
Is only on offer, never proffered,
She seeks an old fashioned man
Who appreciates her
Mannish manner and business
Acumen— artists, musicians,
And above all penurious poets
Need not apply, I wish
To learn to cook one fashionable
Day, I am working on
Being famous, it is such
A burden being lovely,
Beautiful.
Are all the good
Men Married?  Gay?
Professional athletes,
A-list actors, incarcerated
Felons wanted, perfect
Listeners needed,
Kryptonians preferred.

Her fine hands are gentle
With lithe and spiny fingers
Of bone and fin.

Her eyes are opal,
Essence of emerald and topaz,
A hoard of treasure.

Her hair is sea gathering
And dances in the blue currents
Deadly as the sea snake.

Her skin is coral,
Made of mineral and sorcery,
A fatal beacon.

Her lips are urchin,
Set in a whirlpool of face,
A spiral of doom.

Her voice is dream,
Rocking the lost wrecked ships,
Ground into sand.

Her long tail is fable
Of paradise, beyond faraway seas,
Cyclones and waves.

Helios ****** his seed of light— Phaethon's act,
Pleasures born of pain, in the balled glass eyes,
Frees a moat of grey matter cloud, light crackles,
And one blue silent flash— mirrors zodiac skies.

The soft rain is drumming with the brook
And the owl is moaning with the loon,
The early sun shines on the lake waters,
Each of these things distant — I am happy.