Old men tell stories to recruit the young                                                            ­  
and they listen
'round
that dancing fire,
tales of heroes
that do god's bidding
with swords and holy shield words,
smiting infidels that would, if not stopped,
they're told, "violate our women",
but these very women know all too well
that the morrow will be a land of sorrow,
mounded high with soulless bodies too numerous to tally.

Old scars,
Heart contusions,
Fight or flight tattooed
On eyes
Blinding every decision.

What secrets do your lips possess
that in kissing mine
your heart does true confess
that I am *** divine.

On a sepia afternoon,
we'll meet in a rented room,
I'll have cleared my schedule.
And you, my sole to do.

once every moon
from thy flesh hilt
my sword draws blood

and

once every moon
my rank renews
as thy lord of the garter

One chappati, two chappati, three chappati,
for
fire
jump
from that fry pan
to this skillet.

one inch of snow fell,
called an "emergency" here,
Yankees smile & grin :-)

*******, *******, Where art thou *******?

Supporting experience
this communal thread
that here
and where you are
knits our beaded thoughts
into a secular rosary
that we with pleasure
interworry.

Today, a convention
within these mountains,
a cloud 'n vapor parade
displaying every pantheon
that history
and the Jungian collective
ever imagined,
morphing before my eyes,
now the Cherokee chief,
that once owned these peaks,
reigning over the D-land mouse.

Love mourner
Angst angler
Thesaurus eyer
Rip-rapper
Suet idler
Dream creamer
Cascade scribbler
Intro-***-er
Guts gusher
Endorphinater
Sonnet snoozer
Trochee tripper
Iambic lamer
Spondee sniveler
Whisper whipper
Music quencher
Apt-less  adjectiver
Yeast yearner
Simile stitcher
Metaphor monger
Exclaimationizer!

star top evergreen,
three days past prime time casts
dunce hat across walk.

in your high chair
you must have been precocious
with your alphabet soup
up there in that lofty charthouse
piloting gluten letters
through a steaming sea of blood red tomato,
making floating islands of toki pona,
"mi olin e sina"

The script,
an act of fate,
parts for all the players,
in their shabby to grand guise,
and painted faces,
some happy, some frown
for the pleasure of the crowd,
to all involved an analgesia,
no aches, no pain!
until the flood lights fades,
and drops the final curtain.

Poet,
get out of your head,
and like a preparing photographer,
rucksack your tools,
include a horn of wine and a loaf of bread,
then get out there
and alien explore your world.

Poetry is like sculpture;
one removes everything,
that is not poem.

What is the shape of silence,
the vibration of stillness,
the contour of peace?

It doesn't seem right
to own a private lake
but I've been guested
on grand estates
to more modest twenty acre piddles.
The common thread
the owners
all worry the taxes.

We are star dust,
you and I,
from a far off place.
We've traveled the winds
of dark space.
Until you and I
once again unite
there will be no chimera,
no light,
for us there will only be
the promise of the night.

The black cat,
Laying on my green bed,
Framed in panes of winter light,
Is in the purist state
Of buddha mind.

I'm eating chocolate,
the kind the Swiss
keep for themselves,
the quality kind
that can only be delivered
by security truck,
Chocolate that the Incas
would **** a thousand in cold blood,
Chocolate that's so good
it will turn a committed ******
into a ******* sweet ****.

*Touring Venice with the Chocolateer is paying current dividends!

"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.

If one could bail
all the love unrequited,
and it were wool
from shorn and shivering sheep,
and you were Ram
with the only blanket :-)

Oh, phalo skeptic,
part your wave for skirted ***** surfers,
tho, trout, tripe, and titmice thrill thrice..

Will duct tape save us?
Urge the Zamboni machine,
to microwave ice.

Quince down that pouting sphincter,
Oh, the tides do swell
on the morrow of passing fish.

Wheelbarrow pious.
Swift, awesome biblionauts,
Fire! Fire! Pail, Pail thy watered pitch.

Know this, every potato is somewhere vane ...
I'm busy now, rude duuude,
have you sweated a recumbent lout?

Indent chill mots,
Pete, I'm big in Europe, pal,
Have seen me dance the Macarena?

Fool, fool on that high hill,!
Take care when licking spiny urchins
Oy! I scare myself.

Within a veil of light rain
a redheaded woodpecker
percussively rap drills
his evening dinner.

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

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

Relaxed,
content,
all the the knots
have lost themselves looking for loose ends,
I fear the muse
will feel her job is done,
and that would mean the end of me as well.

A chimera ground
of profound sadness
enframes a deep field of arabesque red
split in two,
as Salomon would,
by a thick bleeding bar of black 'n blue remorse.

winter loneliness
wise men know
is only right
that gray will stack upon gray,
that brown will fringe brown,
that lust's fire be dormant
is only right
that all things should cycle
that tender green will shoot
from hollow promise,
wise men know
is only right
that hibernia is but a season,
that low light's grip need not hold,
that there is an end
wise men know.
that dogs bark in advance of posted mems
that seed, seeded to glossy paper,
that will be read on china thrones
it is only right
that rows and rows first be planted
in dream gardens upon the vernal gardener's crapper.

To see art
                    and shed a tear

To view a vista
                              that brings on despair

To meet a woman
                                   and be moved beyond repair.

A yet known lottery buyer
has a ticket
in his possession
that entitles him or her
to $336 million dollars.
I wish this person well,
that the money itself
will be the source of extinguishing
all future thoughts of money.
That this new found wealth
will be a sustained source
of personal growth and fulfillment.
To accomplish this laudable goal
will require a carefully laid out plan.
Should you not have the requisite skill set,
Then let me be the first of many
To offer you my professional services.

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.

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.

The night is a ship of wonder,
and the bow and stern lines have been tossed to the shore crew.
The harbor pilot has checked his folio of channel maps
and sets a course that's true.
You and I, in our bark of dreams,
have an untethered universe to be.

Should passion be such
that it drains the sea
then I will find inland lakes
to give to thee.

Should devotion be such
that it exceeds times day
then I will find the extra hour
to give to thee

Should poetry be such
that you need to breathe
then I will lute 'n lyre
and sing to thee.

If your face were a barn
You'd have swallows
Coming 'n going out a ya nose.

And your hands:
If they were a bridge
You'd have pigeons
****-walking 'n cooing
In the web's of your skin.

And your hair!
It's already a nest,
Fringe all around
With a crocodile egg topp'n ya up there.

*Exaggerated physical illustration encouraged

Similes are weak
like a rusted link in a chain,
stronger with authority, the metaphor,
that hammers iron into maille.

Infinity
Is
Exhausting
Because
It's
Infinite.

December,
   the whole year,
                     actually,
has whittled my world

d
o
w
n

to a lap
cat
older than me
in fur years,
and this misnomered,
smartphone,
from which
I strain to shave marrow
from stolen bones
in the manner
of a single tooth
                            wolf.

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...?

Soon spring will grass,
high snow melt,
creeks and brooks begin to swell,
birds not seen in months
will find the fittest mates,
what then --
will our feet be treading mud,
or be toe to toe beneath the sheets?

the mind vacations
before the body,
lingers while the body returns,
so to, the soul,
i've heard.

I'm a divided island.
Cleaved by a a wide sea.
My two halves communicate by note in bottles...
But the currents are inauspicious,
No word arrives from either shore,
Nonetheless the split isles persist,
"Legs, good morning,
Let's get out of bed."
"Head, we've got to **** and **** down here,
Direct us to a toilet and be quick."
Thus said,
More unread flotsom
Is added to this tangled gyre.

Would that you and I
be spiritual dervish
whirling centric
forever heart to heart,
as if two slow spinng tops
were capable of occupying
the same soul centered spot.

Let us go ewe and I
When with bleating out against the sky
Like patent leather renowned in fable,
Let us go, though uncertain quartered feats,
The mutton retreats
Of restless nights in fun house hotels
And raw dust l'enfant motels:
Bleats that bellow like hideous ungulates
In unheated tents
To bleed you to an ouvre question ...
Oh, go ahead and ask, " Feel my ***?"
Let us go us two misfits.
...

*Apologies to T.S. Elliot

Someone, somewhere
Is busy stitching
Clothes I've yet to buy
And, of course, yet to wear.

The shirt, pants, and underwear
I'm now wearing,
Someone, somewhere
did that stitching.

Out there somewhere
Someone's planting
Seeds in furrowed rows
Waiting for a month, two, three of sun,
To green and bloom that fruit,
Then swift harvest hands,
And Trucks, then vans,
Somewhere,  somehow,
A portion will find my plate.

If there is a way of expressing thanks
To those someones, somewhere
It's to stop a moment
And simply think!

Step off the bank
into the oxygenated flow
of silver flashes
leaping upon,
in flaring rise toward
interior spawn basins,
catch one in the maw 'n claw
before it breeds a million cloned others,
only then to die a quick and fitting death.

It's 9:30 p.m.
and the CSX train Jericho blows
its Doppler horn
across the black flow
of the Cumberland River
skimming  the rafts of rippling light
lapping the west bank of early revelers
gathering  in the streets and bars and ***** tonks,
spun together by an invisible attractor they're calling
"Happy New Year."