Beneath the mango tree
death turns slowly -
creaks the branches/
untouchable - the tears
hanging low above the ground -
slowly swinging - no more singing/
beneath the mango tree.

r ~ 5/30/14

I like old glass
with bubbles

Pockets of breath
of the dead laid to rest

I break and I breathe and I taste

Their spices
and vices

Kisses from wives
Curses and verses

Songs of themselves
Wine of their wrath

Salt from their baths

Smoke from their fires
Sweet tastes of desire

Shared sighs and cries
Dead butterflies

Air.

The waning hours
Asleep in time
A dream in rhyme
Desert sublime
So says the moon
So setting soon
Upon the dunes
Cactus flowers

r ~ 19Mar14

As water is to cleansing rain
and heat as to burning flame,
so are you to me; the same.
My fiery rain.

Fill the gutter of my mind.
Fire the coal your heart has mined.
Burn me to the end of time.
Your fire does reign.

r ~ 4/1/14

i still try to remember
to take my boots off
at the door

my feet are wet
from walking in the rain

i leave laetoli footprints
on the pine floor
-like the first man

trying to walk upright
but can't seem to
get it straight

There's a lot of empty space
in a house
so full of quiet

wishing for thunder.

r ~ 9/5/14

when my son was younger
he asked -

how old are the mountains
from where did the First People come
why does the sun sleep in the ocean
what is the color of rain

now that my son is older
stronger, wiser and bolder
he asks -

how old are the mountains...
...what is the color of rain


some things don't change.

Poetry
to me
is taking
my pain
and making
it sing.

There was a girl
I used to swap paperbacks
and spit with, once
I fixed her wiper blades,
I remember the soft dead wings
on the windshield,  pretty
as you please

She was alone in her shoes
listening to something
that kept getting darker
and glowing like morning
on the oil spilled under her truck,
she was drifting through
the rosewater of her soft red hair

She only wanted to be rolling
off a swollen river, sliding
out of a clean slip, turning
over in a deep sleep, trailing
a shimmering thread, hiding
under a pile of wet leaves

Then there she was sailing
in her river of blood,  going
white and smelling like smoke
from a struck match behind
closed blinds on a ceramic floor,
a white blouse red as a sharp knife
collecting the light of mourning.

Listen, it's a beautiful thing
when distilled to its essence;
reduced to its purest form.
A paradox and a paradigm;
a paragon of perfection.
Epic in its arythmetic
progression; poetic.
Like Chinese arithmetic,
so hard it hurts. Yet soft
and exquisite, like a bubble
of love caught in a beating heart.
That place where poetry starts.

I am wheat
I cry, I cry
Again
You leave your dead
At my feet
Oh why, oh why

At Gettysburg
We cried
Again, again
They rose and died
Below our stalks
They lie, they lie

From Stalingrad
To Leningrad
One million dead, one million dead
The Panzers came
Wheat fields aflame
They burned, they burned

And once again
You leave your dead
Ukraine, Ukraine
Oh, Putin's shame
The innocent lie
In wheat, in wheat.

r ~ 7/19/14

Caroline loves the ocean.  
Her soul sails on a Carolina breeze.
But her music's in the mountains,
and her heart's back home
where it needs to be.

I'm stuck here
in a Carolina wind,
wading in the ocean
with my heart in Tennessee,
and my mind on Caroline.

Carolina's got everything
a man could want.
Everything he needs.
It's got the mountains and the ocean.
It has a Carolina breeze.

He has everything but Caroline;
everything but Tennessee.

r ~ 6/22/14

She is an atlas
her eyes deepest
and darkest Africa

Unfolded I hold her
tracing the source
of her diamonds and gold

In search of the motherload.

Her crayola box lacks
all but two colors
-red and black-
mustn't go outside the borders

r ~ 8/4/14

An Oklahoma politician
wants to outlaw hoodies
in the hood

It's true, it must be
I read it in Fox News  :)

I'd sooner be in Missouri or Cleveland
or New York City where you don't have to
wear a hoody or raise your hands to get shot


There are other things more pressing
than hoodies in the hood
that don't need ironing

like hoods in suits
and the elephant in the room
that needs shooting.

I made you of breath
of shadows and sunbeams
of boundlessness
of folding out and in like wings
of fallings and risings
from the gravity of things
I am your leaves without
limbs or leaving
I am the circles and spirals
your body carves from air
your leaps toward heaven
when you most love the earth
I was before you and will be
after you, I am the center
and the circumference
I am within and without you
And I am your comforter
when the cold winds come in
I am the point on the line
I am brief and desirable
I eat oranges and watch
the Northward flight of geese
my being roars like oceans
I rock myself in the cradle
of self doubt and other emotions
I sometimes let take control
I rock the world like a baby
I kiss the air like my lover
here and here and there
I embrace you, World
I am your second Moon
that rose from the South
I am your eyes, your mouth
your star, your tree
and something else
I am sand, river, feather,
grass, moth, l am forever
yet lost and not found
and I am something else
and I always will be
something to someone else.

Sometimes at night

asleep by the firelight

I dream about them

how they died

some are singing

and others saying what

they no longer see

walking fencelines

limping as if in pain

some of them handsome

and some mysterious

silent but not

for long they tell you

men scarcely know

how beautiful fire is

and old stories

they can't remember

unless you can

still look them in the eye.

She hides her smile
behind black lipstick.
Her voice is low
and in between.
She smells of loneliness
and cigarettes.
She sings for me
when she is high.

She gets me higher
than I can go.
She takes me low
and in between.
Her heart's on fire
when she sings.
Her voice is smokey,
full of pain.

She sings of loneliness
and broken dreams.
Her dance is low
and in between.
She gets me high
and lets me down.
She kisses me
with black lipstick.

r ~ 4/29/14

Love is like driftwood
coming and going
with the tide

Love is a hurt animal
breaking the quiet
of the night

Love is like smoke
through a spiderweb
hard to hold onto

Love is pleasure, love is pain
like sunshine and rain.

At dusk I hang up
a worn blue work
shirt that smells
strongly of love
of dirt of the earth
melancholy, sweat
yesterday's brews
the blues, regret
twenty cigarettes
black breath
of the bone moth
old blood, moon dust
spring pollen, summer
grass, Autumnal ****
winter's cold blast
sea salt and pine needles
mountain laurel, desert air
my dog's hair, I swear
I can't bear the thought
of washing or throwing away
all the stains, the growing pains
the laughter, the sorrows
these history lessons I need
to get me through tomorrow.

Led down from the tower
Head high and hands bound
Blindfold declined against the wall
Black square pinned to his heart
Eyes afire and shining proud
He sang...

He sang of Caruso, Townes Van Zandt
Pavarotti, Bocelli, Mercury,
Carreras, he sang of Antoine,
Of Sinatra, Lennon, Morrison, Redding
He sang and songbirds paused in flight
He sang like them all

He sang a song of himself
Of leaves of grass, of second comings
Of Byron, and Bharti, and Cummings
He sang of Neruda, and Plath, Tagore
Dickinson, Kamala Das and Naidu
Oh, he sang of them all

He sang of art and beauty
Of Mona Lisa and starry nights
Girls in green dresses and pearls
He sang of Van Gogh, of Picasso
Of Rembrandt, da Vinci
He sang of Michelangelo

He sang of sadness, pain
He sang of My Lai, Sand Creek
Of Guernica and Krystallnacht
He cried and sang of Wounded Knee
Of Katyn Forest, Sabra and Shatila
Oh, he wept as he sang

He sang of history and wonders
He sang of Olduvai and pyramids
Machu Picchu, Tikal, and Angkor Wat
He sang of a great wall, the Taj Mahal
Stonehenge, Easter Isle, Mesa Verde
His song took us to them all

He sang of courage
A song of Bunker Hill, Gettysburg
Of the Alamo, Normandy, Stalingrad
Of Lincoln, Guevara and Dr. King
He sang of Bolivar, Bhutto, Ghandi
He shamed us with their song

He sang his song...
As women sighed and peasants cried
He  sang until the rifles fired, he died
Songbirds fell from the sky
Soldiers broke their guns on stones
And marched into the deep blue sea.

r ~ 4/12/14

Night,
I love you
like a bride
loving her body,
the madman
the desert,
like the horse
loves its shadow,
the sad the lighthearted,
I love you like
a wanderer his ballad,
a poet his dark room,
like the moon.

Sunup
expectations low-
another day aimed my way

- till the sky became
a color never named
and changed my world - again,

a new day.

r ~ 10/12/14

a pentagon study
determined that putin
is an anti-social control freak
kind of vermin

(really? this required a genius
kind of keenness? really?)

darpa should stick to cool things
like the internet and invisibility cloaks
and drones armed with pork parts


a rodina rodent in the grain
needs spankin'
with more than just sanctions

cuz knocking out their incisors
doesn't make them any nicer

- a rat with no teeth
is still a rat.

Abraham
Where is your son
He's lying dead
On a street in Lebanon
And the God of your fathers
Has left you alone
Wrap him in a white shroud
Cry out loud
Any sensible God
Took the first train out

r

i still straddle the fence on this
immigration reform manifesto

i see both sides of the story

it's good to have the grandfather clause
for the immigrants in my bloodstream

- the scrappy scots-irish-ingles-welsh
in me - but too late for the cherokee

behind the old fences of history.

r ~ 11/9/14

She constructs by hand
Seven circles in the sand
A seed of life
Part of the flower
Of her life’s power
In word and art
Oscillating vibrating
Harmonic healing
Sent to me
Sacred geometry
r  
1 Aug 13

Gonna move to Qatar
ride in a gold Beemer
playin' songs for the Emir
on a ruby studded guitar.

Live in a silver highrise
go skiing in the desert
eat caviar for desert
singin' about the disenfranchised
and ruby studded guitars.

I'll be an expat in Doha
drinkin' with the monarchy
speakin' absolute malarkey
playin' tunes for all my brohas
on my ruby studded guitar
in Qatar.

r ~ 6/14/14

She likes an archaeologist
cos he does it in the dirt

and the older she gets
the more he likes to flirt

She likes the way he smells
in a faded work shirt

hard and lean
but not mean
just a little bit assertive

He still let's her roll
her own cigarettes

and handles her gently
like a gold statuette

while they dance
with the shadows
down low

you know.

Oh, sad Poet,
cartographer
of the heart,
mapping the geography
where sadness
is the topography
of your soul.

Oh, Cousteau
of the changing tides,
like an oceanographer,
an admiral  spying
the enemy on the horizon.
Your sorrow comes and goes.

Oh, builder of sad dreams
in your house of many rooms,
but one door. Like a grave,
a casket shellacked with
black paint, a mural
of a shadow on the wall.
Architectural sorrow.

Oh, you sad Poet,
open your eyes,
paint us a poem of a rose.

While Zafar takes his crop to town
Businessmen snort ******
Teens buy bundels to fill their veins
With housewives Oxycontin reins

The Generals demand their Percs
Technocrats love Dilaudid's quirks
While drones fly over Zafar's field
Counting flowers for next year's yield

r  9Jan14

It's not the rain
that makes my eyes wet.
It hasn't rained in forty days.
Nights are long and quiet.
The silence cuts to bone.

It wasn't rain that quenched the fire.
It hasn't rained in forty nights.
The well is dry... so am I.
Nights I sit in silence
while it rains.

r ~ 4/19/14

It only takes one bullet to **** a king
But you can't **** a dream

The talk is talked
And the walk is walked today

It's a shame the bridge is named
for a hood who wore a hood

The good General turned grand
in the land and time of dragons

that feasted on Sundays
and still would
if we let them

Or maybe not

Maybe it's a fitting reminder
A bridge to a kinder
gentler place

Because we're better than that now
Aren't we

I dreamed of my father
crossing the fields
on his one-eyed tractor
mowing acres of sadness
heading east of a moon
that'll be gone tomorrow
and I waded the creek
beneath a ridge
where my mother is shearing
dead roses and the smell
of those flowers floating
to the foot of the mountains
reminds me of her hair
and my father's laughter
disappearing across the hill.

Many were their numbers
Living in city streets and slums
Brothers and sisters torn asunder
Gathered up like bums
Nineteenth century’s answer
Created by Children’s Aid Society
Indentured servants to farmers and ranchers
Shipped in cattle cars like  propriety
Struggling in their suffering
Confused used and oft’ abused
Terror in their wayfaring
For being parentless accused
The disruptive ones placed in chains
Scattered to the winds across the land
The far west and the Great Plains
North to Canada and south of the Rio Grande

Billy here, Danny Boy there, and Sally who knows where
The Children of the Orphan Trains

r  13 Nov 13

Blue the mountains
holding close in view
sacred smoke of yesterdays
blue fog shrouded trails
beneath the rhododendron

falls of sweet blue water
replenishing the rivers
sapphire lakes reflecting
splendor of the bluest hills
above the peaceful valley

hear the sacred music
of the blue ridge mountains
magic in the songs of old
forever blue my appalachia
blue the hills I used to roam.

r ~ 7/4/14

Last night I woke up
to the light of 1000
dead children from other
places where faces have
forgotten how to smile
in ***** white shirts
and smudged skirts
holding up lanterns
like lost miners looking
for answers in a dark hole.

as fragile
as a songbird -

her hands

knotted and spotted
from many winters


november came one last time -
i held her hands in mine - gently

- gently, she flew away
to where songbirds go
when it's cold in the mountains.

r ~ 11/18/14

ants lean left more than right
it's true, it must be

i read it in Fox News

especially the red ones
that wear berets
like Che

the impertinent invertebrate
arsonist fire ants

who tend to get stepped on
by the man
who exterminates

according to anthropologists.

:)

tinted postcards
from Vienna-
Munich oils on canvas-
a self portrait
on a stacked-stone bridge-

rejected, the painter painted
yellow stars-broken glass
Judenstern and Kristallnacht

no starry night,
no van Gogh-
der Führer was no master,
Mein Kampf no masterpiece.

r ~ 8/25/14

Nights like these
when the moon floats
on the creek, all pale
and swollen, I try
to sleep without dreaming
of a small child, still
and not breathing, like
a leaf felled too soon
during the season
of the monsoon rains,
heavy as the pain of a father
looking here and there,
everywhere for a daughter
somewhere in all of this water.

Blue as the geography
of footprints across the dunes
quiet as the white music
of a silent moon
like the wind blowing
the soul off the water
the shadows go out
and are lost in the evening
I conclude the hypothesis
of sundown making no sound
while night climbs the vines
where lowing sadness abides
the ritual of tides pulls me under.

Here, and over here -
The fortunate sons

Those who made it home
To fields and hills of native tongue
In the soil their people toiled
- They listen quietly when we come


There, and over there -
Beneath crossed lines too many

Still - they man the trenches
Along the Marne and Somme
Below the woods of Belleau
And the forest of Argonne

No sonnets in a foreign language
Rendered where they languish -
The distant rest far and away
In a cold November grave


We should remember
Here and there
The old lie -

And the young.

r ~ 11/11/14

deleted for contest submission

I'll give you shelter
before the rains come

September's settling in
like a setting sun

I can see the dark clouds
coming your way

Let's sit out on the porch
and watch the day fade to gray

There's lightning on the horizon
and thunder under the wind

Why don't you stay here awhile,
it's good to see you again

We'll go inside and light a fire
when the night gets young

I'll give you shelter
before the rains come.

r ~ 9/22/14

I find solace in the clouds
-she brings rain
to cool my brow

tranquil in my fever-
I close my eyes
and leave here

solace in tranquility.

r ~ 9/4/14

that trendy ******(e) addiction
becomes you- and your fiction

goes well with the pale
-skinned thin western booted
blue-eyed shooter
riding sidesaddle
on your scooter

does she kiss like me
and bring you coffee?

i could lay you both down
in the in-betweens
and make heaven-

til hell is heavy as a monday
track day in albuquerque
while she sells your jewelry
in sante fe where it's trendy

-i'll be waiting
on the blue mesa.

r ~  9/19/14

everyone's talking
about freedom of speech

as if it should come at no cost
like something you teach

it's never been that way
and it never will be

we need to be reminded
of what it means to be free.

Water wives live sheltered lives
Amongst the coves where pirates rove

Daily catch is makers match
Where red hot stoves hide fresh baked loaves

Water men are thick and thin
So often strove where shipmates hove

Water child is often wild
The treasure trove where pirates roved

r ~ 19Mar14

Your eyes-
coal black fire
mirrors of my desire

Your mouth-
warm bath of oaths
bespoken for

Your *******-
rouged red-bullet tipped
honeysuckled bliss

Those hips-my reins
move you the way
I need you most

and your kiss-
like a hiss from a dip
of a branding iron

burn me with your lips
and make me yours-
ride me into the abyss

-of sighs.

r ~ 9/25/14