Old Charlie,
you left your widow
too poor to buy you ground,
and shy of burning you to ashes,
so your Elvis hair,
and your once
Johnny Cash build
was willed to science,
though
I don't expect
they'll find the big heart we knew
when they explore
beneath your ribs and cartilage.

mind is mirror,
god of the puppet show,
string dancers prance
to their reflections
within this bony theater,
kissed at birth
by the lips of Venus,
and eternally embraced
by the arms of Elysia.

Redtail hawk, pigeon,
raptor, prey, blood spill, city walk,
pigeon flew away!

I know this clearing
where the berries burgeon,
but blind to covetous birds,
though one still hears their sweet rill.
They, the berries, are ripe with sun kiss.
We'll make a day of it.
I'll bring a wine basket, a blanket -
You say,  "I'll find the pails?"
If all goes well,
we'll have little time for them.
Let's be off, my dear.

to grow beyond swagger
to sort pain from wager

to explore canyons that mislead you
to collect a duffel of dots
                                             and permit them
                                                                ­              to connect to...?

The sea moved closer
      today
by way of moister air,
          the clouds too
                      were waves
                      of ocean
             with crests of gleam and gloom
generating an undertow
       of spring hopes
and wails for winter's doom.

Standing
between me
and you
are many untested
assumptions
and
assumptions
that we
are
not
consciously aware,
were we to meditate lotus to lotus
would that clear
                                the air?