was it your whisper
or mine
that put the flame out?
no matter,
we could both see
the light would soon end
with so little wax left
on the short candle.

This perfect day
was made imperfect,
in a single lonely way,
that you were not here
to share it.

upon review,
my day
was cross hatched
with many thoughts of you
that rendered
meaningful form and light
on an otherwise
unremarkable scroll of canvas.

"Raj",
      rex,
           king,
But the Raj I know is not royal,
not in the ordinary sense,
though he makes a sandwich fit for one.
Following my order we don't chat much.
We've come to rely on smiles 'n nods in place of small talk.

There are tragedies,
to die alone,
to be unknown to family,
to be unloved,
to be unloved by the very one
that knows you best,
to die loathing self.

you wait,
though I am there,
you sigh,
though I am your breath,
you look,
though I am your stare,
your thoughts have hollowed a place for me,
                                                             ­              shaped me,
                                                             ­                                 shaped me
                                                              ­                                                  so I should fit.

Want,
              a need,
found me,
                   found me wanting,
   wanting
               to fulfill.

What one believes
seems to roll with chance,
the where
            the when,
                 and to whom
                               one is born,
be it Pago Pago to the South of France,
before the current time (BCT)
                                                            or two thousand years thereafter.
What would Einstein come to know
if born a thousand years ago
in a village of Eskimos
where the highest calling
was laying upon a chilly table
a slice of seal,
                         fillet of fish,
                                                or slab of blubber.

Nothing closer than white on rice
unless, of course it writhes
then you're probably forking lice!

I remember a childhood warning
that cautioned against "impure thoughts"
as though the mind were a tidy bowl
and it could be cleansed with a johnny mop!

Alice,
There are no straight shots
                                          to the moon -

        there are going
                to be
                  in-
                 ter-
               ludes.

Nothing more useless than a poet
except in times of woe
and when yore
yens to be packaged lore.

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?

I went to the bridge
before turning in
and found you not there
tipping  a lovely
night
into
lonely
but
it's
too
soon
for
despair.

Another twenty-four hours have passed
which you and I will never reclaim
so much of one's life
is spent oblivious
to the grains
of time
swish
grit
by
g
r
i
t
thru
the hour glass.

a poem is not a ***
made of potter's clay
shaped by spinning
against an artist's clever hand,
nor as useful as a fired cup or plate,
but if a poem should fall to ground
it will not break,
should it find a broken heart
it may collect the chards
and remake a loving vase.

Few are loved for who they are,
but for how, and whom they serve.
Is your beauty, brains, or bravery
your servant that does your bidding
so lovers flock and posture at your feeder?
Unless the ill, the homely, the mental cases
have a built store of once given gifts
they find few friends and fewer still
the comfort of a lover.

There are words on the range,
and out to pasture,
in the lowlands,
and on the hilltops.
Ole Buckaroo,
what's a poet to do,
if not to ride out,
lasso, brand, and corral a few.

In the family
there was no name for it,
the sudden outbursts,
the spasmodic tics,
the "jesus chris"
that flew like bank swollows
from his lips.
Between the frequent episodes
my uncle seemed
completely about his wits.
It would take me twenty years
before I could match
a name for it,
"Tourette"

I should not be writing.
I have nothing much to say.
I told my fingers
to do whatever talking
that will be coming from my frame,
but it's clear to me
that my digits are
as doltish  as my brain.

Where is the smart money going?
into the non-making,
the uncounting,
the
       trans
                 virtual
                             soothingly
                                                nothingly
                                                                  bliss

I
feel
that
you
felt
down
today,
but
consider
that everyone
can not be an upper.

to disembody,
to be
of purer stuff,
without the
"st-ah"
and without the
"uff",
that would be,
for
      now,
              enough.

The deep contentment
of my cat's purr
seems evidence
of his not being completely
of this universe,
but in some mysterious way,
a clever bridge
to another,
that in my humble human state,
I'm not presently privy.

Oh, Joel,
I see you've gone the way
of HP vanity
with your two score & eight cantos
            pdf-ed
                         and
                                covered
in Escheresque!

============
Wishing you brisk sales and an IRS audit :-)

Is love a selfish thing
serving but one master,
each of those coupled merely daffed
believing it is theirs to keep?
But love is its own master,
comes and goes, or does a fickle dance,
though from time to time
may be prodded - poked, cajoled
to do one's narrow bidding.
In the end romantic love will depart,
then best to hope that in its place
it leaves friends that go on caring.

Every room was painted wrong,
there wasn't a stick of furniture,
even the light needed bathing,
having come through greasy windows,
the interior space begged to be outside,
each echo cringed at its own birthing,
the ceilings wanted to be the floors,
the floors resented all the walls,
and the walls told both to take a flying -
but this was but a partial molding
of the metaphors for this less than perfect day.

You are my secret love
would that it be other,
thus no mailed Valentine
to add to the clutter.

How amiss
could Eros' arrow that would pierce two hearts with love -
to the 'morrow?

no word from you
and the blood grows bolder,
I've taken to rereading your old poems
written for "last time" lovers,
the bitter flames
has me smolder,
as I shake and grow ever colder.

I had forgotten
the brilliance
of the country night,
it's firmament crystal bright,
given all those years
blinded by the city lights,
the screen crawling marquees,
the undulating neon,
the flashing photon peep parades,
the incessant gyre of emergency beacons,
the try too hard candle dinners,
better a distant star
that reminds us who we are
than the sun unmoved
in one's back yard.

I took you to the high country,
laid you out like a tapestry of air,
the mist, the whiff
of your
             pine-
                      y
                        hair,
        the chatter
                 of your brooks,
                                      your falls,
                                                   your gorge,
                                                          ­    the sheer madness of our strange affair!

Each time I thought of you
the mountains grew noticeably higher,
the trees stood appreciably straighter,
the rivers were a bit broader,
the lakes a little clearer,
my love, the mere thought of you,
is a force through nature.

These mountain cliffs
are a precipice of stone
where time is in no hurry
to finish what it began to sculpt
eons ago in this high back wash
that is a murmur of untold tales
available to a passing cloud.

I know it to be a romantic notion,
that deciduous trees in winter
should be wearing leafy clothes,
but to see them so naked against the Carolina cold
gives me cause to shiver
and change my thoughts to the heat 'n swelt of summer,
where, I imagine, the trees would be more content
were they down to bark and bone.

There is a light dusting of snow,
and now a light dusting of exhaled me.
The mountain views are spiritual here,
I know you would think the same,
if only I knew the magic spell
to transform my constant thoughts of you
into standing trees,
you would be the lovely forest at my sleeve.

logs 'n lime mortar,
the cabin hearth - dry stack stone,
screen porch - mountain view.

serpentine river
guides my eye - snow cap mountains,
blue shawl sky - white clouds.

I long for
the
shortest line
be  
    tween
                the me of me -and- the you of you.

In the time it takes to write this
fate will have selected thousands
in every time zone,
issuing there last earthly number,
"Recorded death 1:17 p.m. UT..."
For some this will be no surprise,
but to the scions
that are always looking forward,
the nudge from behind
will be jolting.

Of all the sounds
the human animal
has ever reproduced
your cries of ecstasy
would in any language
be understood.

Thank you for
the wish-you-were-here photo
that you emailed today,
so soft, beautiful, and peaceful,
your fairyland winter,
a reminder to entreat you
"please, please keep it there!"

The streets today
were widow canyons,
wooed away, the normal traffic,
by something kin to black magic,
and so to supermarkets at five P.M.
emptied by a sorcerer's spell,
but I hear tell, on game days like this,
the tide will turn
as if the moon, by chance, had changed direction.