I heard one ole boy,
back in the hills,
chopped a Chrysler Aspen
And married it to a 60's Rambler,
He worshiped that hack,
called it his Asp Ram

A thought had me
but melted away
then another
that failed
to hold my attention
then another for just a second
that promised
insight
that vapoized
into a scattered inattention.

I think of you
crocheting words,
quietly,
unobserved
by your husband,
watching TV,
in **** gray socks.

Tomorrow,
like an earnest lobsterman,
I'll head out,
regardless of foul or fair seas,
to hoist my first ***
expecting to find a word from you.

Do you suppose
within the blizzard
of transmitted text,
packed in bytes
and individually addressed
in such a way
that your emoticon kiss :*
and mind *: to you
may have met and smooched
in cyber space
before they 1 & 0'ed
the computer codes
that displayed on screens
our mutual affection?

The ultimate hoover,
a black hole,
(blkhole),
the event horizon,
the equator
of all things possible
delineating
an infinity of nought.

Imagine looking at a brick building
And intimately knowing
Everything about each brick.
Deep, deep knowing,
Every particle and grit knowing,
Back to the big bang knowing,
Personal with each atom knowing,
Intimate with each electron knowing,
Down to the limits of infinity knowing,
A total embrace knowing,
A bent knee and weep knowing,
Imagine there is but one knowing,
Imagine knowing this!

His name was Earl,
but everyone in town called him "The bicycle man."
He was hip before hippies were tie dyed,
a  bohemian of sorts, a loner, a quiet man.
Lived out at the edge of town in a self made house,
some would call it a shack.
Ole Earl use to scare me a bit
with his gray beard, deep set gray eyes,
low deep voice and the clothes he weared,
But I learned a life lession from that man.
He said, looking up, "See these here spokes,"
pointing to the spinning wheel of my three geared bike,
"they's all got to be in off set tension or else the rim will be warped."
I've noticed over the years that rule applies to a lot more things than wheels.

Let's be Frank,
Bruce, or Wally,
You're in the loo,
A modern lad,
You want your jollies,
In one hand you scroll you're iPad,
In the other you're texting,
"? what I - M doing?!"

The distant train whistles,
the lap ***** purrs,
in low light, before me
my fingers dance like two spiders
typing,
"Good night, dear."

Nothing matters in the end,
but not so in the envelop of time we have,
and there is that karma thing
where the sins of the father
come to roost on the heads of the spawn.
So if inclined to live in an untidy bedroom,
think again.

I pen my thoughts
upon the bottom of a hidden lake
that reflects a moon,
in the way old men shake
with quivering lips
that worry bead
each any every breath
that zoetrope lives mislead.
I too rise each day to a cellophane sun,
that tricks and flutters
vertigo dreams
upon a bed of Hazelnut wings.

Were you and I
to breathe that high on alter sigh
alta volta,
you cresting that last little tremble,
and I, a little withered,
held you making us a pair of linen hills.

You're wearing a long black skirt
with a split side vent
from which flows a shapely leg.
Let me compare thee,
take your pick,
the Nile, the Seine, the venerable Ganges!

You are my harem's thought Siren.
The eunuchs have cleared all the others from the palace'
I've instructed them to draw you a warm scented bath
and light ninety nine candles to aureate your lovely skin.
Upon the hour I will join you and light the remaining one.

A sheer cliff pueblo
Hollowed out of city air,
Sun baked, rain washed,
Where there is no glow
About a communal fire.
No medicine man
To blow healing smoke
Over an ailing soul.
No gathering of elders.
Where story telling is machine work,
And watch listeners,
Can barely recall a flickering tale.

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.

I'm shopping for a good death.
I have an unknown, but finite amount of time.
But I've yet to sort and list what a good death may be.
Precipitously quick, and unexpected would be nice.
Clear head pain management would be a god send,
Saying personalized goodbyes to family and friends
Ranks high.
I've read that 100 billion humans have thanotopically bridged that divide.
I pray that when the time comes
I end in the ranks of the top ten.

Your basket of words
were in the bulrushes.
I'm holding them,
still moist from your pen.

When I went away to school,
I lived in a town with an upper and lower main street,
on one of the slanted connector streets
there was a storefront church
with a white cross sign above the shop
that said, "Jesus Saves".
Just beyond, and next door,
hung a lower sign reading "Green Stamps".
Not sure whether anyone else ever noticed,
but tickled me near death each time I saw it.
And I've been juxtaposing ever since.

Would that life could be this simple,
that a poet could dip his pen,
write a poem that paid his mortgage princ'ple.

Our times are filled with wonderment!
Today, the news announced
that a same *** couple
would soon be able
to inseminate each other.
No, that's not right.
Please excuse the foolpaux,
My facts are in Eros.
I'll start again,
Today, scientist announced
that they were able
To stem two mice cells
Into a wee one,
Which holds the promise
That some day
Two committed gals, or guys
would be able to have a little bubala.

I soar in your wake,
just below your cruising attitude,
a glowworm alight in your reflection.
Dude,
I'm looking at you!

My arms wrap my body
as if I were a mummy
and in the way that mummy's are stiff,
so to my paralyzed carcass,
a living entombment of wishes
that wither by noon
then baled into flop sweat shivers
for the wet wash cloth
of the next day's care giver.

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.

if you like this poem
send a dollar
to my Paypal account.

Paypal is a trademark
owned by Paypal.
A cash cow,
mooing dung piles of lazy loot
tucked away in thousands of accounts
like stormed tossed buccaneer's ate.

Within the night Ravel's Bolero,
within that arcuate tremble,
within that instant passion fuse,
within that instantaneous release
release of self.
relief,
No I, no I, no i,
The bliss, the bliss, that is now us, and that lacuna moment.

In youth,
Love expressed is mother tongue,
But in age wise love is polyglot.
Words of youthful love are hot,
While in age intricate talk ensues.
Youthful love does natures bidding,
But in age love is free to love itself,
And thus be one shared by two.

You were an heiress,
inheriting a life time trust fund
from a fortune made
manufacturing waxy kid's coloring thingamajigs.
Your mother drove you each school day,
in a classic powder blue Mercedes coup.
She was beautifully coiffed,
high bred serene, great skin,
And you were blond, blue eyed, smart and smiled.
When I saw you I always felt -
I felt not worthy of living on your planet.
A few years after graduation we met,
I had had a few beers so I told you everything.
I am sorry for causing you those tears.

Why is near perfection more alluring
than perfection itself?
Perfect teeth,
perfect smile,
perfect, hair,
perfect skin,
perfect shape,
perfect carriage,
testify a sheltered doll,
and the makings a of boring wife.

Vestigial  seas
Pumped briny red
By chambered hearts
In pulsing waves
Lub dub
Dub.

The carpenters want a raise
just to ***** the roof beams,
for whom do they toll
if not for their grapes of wrath,
for me it's mutiny on the bounty,
I'll see them all forty leagues under the sea,
oh, the good earth, the rising sun,
it's a leather stocking tale, Natty Bumppo,
It's a wonder Alice, a pure wonder!
Give me deliverance,
from the common crowd that implores me to
go tell it on the mountain,
with the weather up there,
i'd be gone with the wind
as sure i'm a hand full of dust.
a bride's maidenhead revisited,
no, native sun, never let me go,
for i am the power and the glory
of the ragtime rabbit run.

I dare to feel,
with searching fingers,
a bifurcated wish
to take the path to you
or the one that leads to me.

I dare to feel,
asking only
from you, my sweet,
your thoughtful understanding.

My naked vulnerability
to your alluring charms,
that I,
that we,
could be washed with rain,
As if lust and sin
Could be so easily entertained.

I dare to feel,
I dare to feel,
the disappointment
I know will come,
will come,
as our bridge decays
with the vanity that is your way.
Or is it MY WAY?

In this light,
bisque white cup
lit right,
shadow left,
two-fingers+thumb loop
loop south,
mug chamber,
shadow side inside right,
top edge,
defined to the eye,
as a light gray oval trace
with refection highlights
at 10 and 5,
unseen bottom,
one gulp left of cold black coffee.

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.

The old sod house,
The west wind
chit, chit, chatters the hinges,
The door creaks to 'n fro,
Vermin music to the denizen within.
The old sod house on the hill,
The windows were broken long ago
Like old folks who've lost their 20/20.
And the memories too have leaked
Through that busted fenestration.
Where most the year the wind is weir
And long ago caught the laughter
That onetime surely resided here.
Hard to know who did lived there.
There's only one that surely knows,
I'll ask the wind.

*This poem is a collaboration with joann alabsy who inspired its creation an contributed generously.  Any and all short comings reside at my door.

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!

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.

I had a terrible dream
that I was Ethan Frome
and you lived in Vermont
and it was cold as hell
but you were hot, hot.
You were married and I was not,
or was it I that was married?
"Knock, knock"
"Open up it's the sheriff,
there's been a terrible accident."
"Knock, Knock"

**** the rhyme,
**** the reason,
the oceans swell
from one finite water well,
frozen fjords melt, disrupted weather spells,
One ******* big piece of trouble I'm here to tell.

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.

I'll be Butch Cassidy;
you be the Sundance Kid.
We'll jump together?!!

You are my night shaman,
you lead me deep
into primal chambers
where life's mysteries are manifold.

the steel on steel clank
of a canal lock gating
is a lonely sound to hear,
and so too your parting words,
though wise, gentle and reassuring,
it is our channel that's closing
and I do whelm - what feels like tears.

Is it wanton?
That my eye should drift
upon thy cleavage
while we speak
in Notes of Cliff,
when I pull you down
upon my broad bed
where we studiously study rapture
in the very hour before our test.

You may take offense,
were I to compare thee
to a common vetch,
but if you knew your history,
that Rome's legions were lentil fed,
I would be speaking in your defense,
my little Piscum.

Being a man's man
I don't wear a locket,
but when I read your poems,
I sense I'm wearing your cameo heart.

Mass, weight, inertial potential
universally networking
all
into Indra's
bejeweled net.

Standing in this drawing room,
eighteen foot ceilings,
Battery Street windows look out on Fort Sumter
still protecting Charleston's slave trade bay.
No rockect's red glare tonight,
but a musum cocktail party,
awed by the riches that slave trading
  did generate,
though the word "slave"
never came up.