A stare
will become
a scar
if you don't watch it
like a hawk
and if you let it
loose darkness
will swoop
through the rafters
in the loft
while you lie there
letting night
swell into a wound
like the red moon
and your eyes
will fill with vines
of poison ivey
itching to be blind
and wishing
to pour the pain
away forevermore.

I missed my revolution.
What's a boy to do?
Don a balaclava for jaysus?
Smoke a fat havana?
Think I'll buy me a beret.
Brush up on mi español.
Grow a fumanchu.
Move fifty years down south.
Find me a spanish speaking babe
to dance the dance in a red dress
shouting viva la vida all night long
till the sun comes up
and roosters crow
at hungry dogs
in a dusty street.

r ~ 5/24/14

I know I'm not easy
to love
I never was

It doesn't take much
to please me

And when you smile it does

I know some day
you'll leave me

That's just the way it goes
like when a gentle
summer breeze blows

But when you do go
go knowing that I'll know
you were the closest one

Take my heart and run
baby, take it on home

Take my heart and beat it
women, I won't need it
where I'm going.

I remember this girl
who went to the window
at dawn when it was still
dark in the winter and she
sees we have a long time
now that her father passed on
and we know we won't have to
go to school because the bus
it can't run, she slips her slip
over her hair and places it over
the chair near the fireplace
while I unlaced the sinew
of my boots, I remember it
well how we lost our cherry,
it was hard as a rock, like
breaking a wild horse, it was
a mirage of sound as the blood
moon sunk into the frozen ground
and I realized that the times
we can bat our eyelids, and
all of our nights and tomorrows
are not infinite, like love that comes
only once in a lifetime of sorrows.

It’s a short walk from here
to Sneads Ferry Cemetery where
the bored to death are buried -
I go there every now and then
and read to them a poem by Lorca
the fortunate who died so young -
bled beneath an olive tree, a fascist
bullet to the head, no pain, I envy that
his fast demise, no boredom -
or surgeon’s knife to try to slice
away the little flowers of the grave
I would take his bullet any day -
before I’m bored, before the blade
before I claim a plot, or take up space
here in this ******* boring place.

This book is full
of my father's eye lashes
He treated the pages
rough like his sons
pinching the daylights
out of them, I remember
mud and grease
on calloused thumbs
and you can still smell
Four Roses bourbon
in the morning
through the onionskin
He would not weep
he knew most folks
never kept their word
Anyway, his death
came through
like a hitchhiker
You could see it coming
like the slow light
of a faraway dead star.

My fingers trace
your contours
in my thoughts.
The highs and lows,
your inclines
rise and fall.
Spaces in between
grow distant
from ridge and valley
to coastal plain.

Through uncharted territory
I follow the beaten path
till trail turns to sand
and desert meets ocean.

Contours fade
and wash away.
You slide into
the deep blue
and cross the border.

r ~ 7/5/14

Let this be an elegy
While he lies there
You know what I mean
Bury his body
Down by the side
Of a crooked highway
His spirit will soon flag
A Greyhound bus
And someday will ride
Right on out of our lives
Back to the dark tower
Where past power and fame
Will be hung like a black flag
Tattered and limp in his shame.

The ship is sinking
and the women and children
are still on board,
but the lifeboats have been taken
and the ******* Captain,
he ain't letting any more board.

One day soon
in this unknown country
where our dreams shout
and jump ship,
a train will come
and it will arrive full-steam
ahead, and full of resisters
looking to take the Captain's head.

There’s a 55 gallon drum
in my yard beside the deck
half full of empty bottles
black ashes from burned poems
worthless words, regrets, bad
checks, the busted up scorched
bridge of Kurt Cobain’s Martin D-18E
half finished lyrics, melted Nirvana
vinyls, suicide notes charred and scared
every-bit as sincere as when written.

Halfway down that trail to hell
He did stop to rest a spell
Barking dogs and darkened cells
Turning thoughts from black to pale

Cold as cold as cold as ice
Empty hearts no alibis
Mothers tears and soldiers lies
Predators and babies cries

The sun shined a cloudless rain
Broke the spell unlocked the chain
Washed away the fear and pain
From Red Sea port to home again

r  6 Jan 14

He creates alternative facts
for no good reason
just to be an ***
what the hell for
don't ask me
he thinks someone is listening
to everything he has to say
all the lies he tells
taking pictures of himself
through the microwave
lying through his teeth
about his taxes
throwing mirrors at stones
shattering the truth
roaming his labyrinth
fiddling with his ******
while Rome burns
with little hands all a twitter
making up political speeches
while sitting on the *******
and spitting on the floor
writing surrealist poetry
on the walls and calling
them executive orders.

Some nights
the Moon is ivory
and the sky ebony
like Liberace's
white piano
and some nights
it's blue
as my worn out
work shirt
the sky black
as dirt
I've dug from
the Earth
or maybe
an empty plate
howled at
by a hungry dog
a woman
in a yellow dress
she lifts
wading in the sea
an empty ship
sailing west
its cargo of diamonds
having scattered
far in the wind
but some night soon
it'll be the nightlight
on the wall
across the room
from my dark
shaded window.

Tonight poets will find the words
to color their life and dip their pens
in wounds that aren’t even their own
and some will stare at the moon
seeing an empty plate, hungering
for something without a name
or a clock with no numbers knowing
time carries a dagger and a sword
for the hours that wound and nights
that cut throats, arrows that pierce
hearts fiercely until they lie still,
cold and bled out on a bed all alone.

On a night when nothing better
was likely to happen, a beat throbbed
out just the right line, and a bounce woke
up in the toe of a boot, and everything
in the night sky was sparkling light,
which is how I found myself one time
at the local VFW where they played
the same tattered tunes over and over
until the need to dance drained out
of a lonely sad woman there like suds
from a dripping beer tap, and so
she steered me out onto the back deck
where a hard-boiled moon dangled
from the power lines looking something
like hope warmed over; we untangled
ourselves when the sun finally shined.

Throwing words
like tossed pebbles
at his window
in the clouds-

no one home
but the rain
and the wind
that blew once-

once for you-
I threw pebbles
at the clouds
just for you.

r ~ 7/10/14

Cold Mountain's calling
Winter days die young
Cold rain is falling
Black cloak has been flung

Carve my face
upon Cold Mountain's ice.
Chisel a trace
of a smile around my eyes.
Cut hard lines
deeply soft beside my mouth.
Send my heart
on a slow boat headed south.

Cold Mountain beckons
I'll be there too soon
Cold river reckons
Cold rain hides the moon

r ~ 3Feb14

You big bonehead.

My tired eyes and red
glow on the tip of my last
cigarette tells me it’s way
past midnight again as I
try roping a star smoking
on my porch by the light
of a big old yellow moon
and I could have sworn I
saw her riding by wearing
black boots, her tight-assed
jeans and a blue bandanna
heading  west to Montana.

Silence
is sound
that comes between
sounds

It moves
upon the waters
between the waves
and is good

Do you hear it?

There’s a kind of grief
in a long leaf pine
with a scar cut deep
in its bark from lightning
that shines beneath
a winter’s moonlight
all alone out there
down by the water
like a man in a wheelchair
grieving for a daughter
at the end of the dock
hard and gray
old as the rocks
and cold **** waves
that break in time
along this god forsaken
piece of coastline.

Lady in a gray dress
calling this a wintry mix

A coastal low with rain and sleet

I reckon so, but it sure seems
like the winter blues to me.

You carry your memories
shaped in sadness, and the glad
yellows of suns setting
into seas of blue thought.

The ache of the weight
of your life, the bareness
of fatigue, the soft depression
left by sorrow, a soul embossed
with a notary’s seal, the truth
that can be sworn then lost,
a kiss in front of a stranger.

Sad that you have forgotten
the what, or when, or where
of Neruda’s beauty of a sonnet.

Yet you know the dark
space between the shadow
and the soul, the slowing
of eyelids closing.

You who build hopeful temples
to possibility, mirrors of light
to warm yourself by the flame
of offering, a dance born in sweet
smoke, the incense of conciliation, supplication, the medication of desire.

Rest my friend, wherever you are
and don't forget to remember
when you get older and colder,
it is only the winter of a new world.

Heave away laddies
sail away you ladies
let us lift our glasses
to that one-eyed spy
aloft in the dark nest
looking down to what
we have spelt out in
the fires of driftwood
drinking to the light
filling the silent sea
wooing its bed right
below my window,
and to the memory
of the rusty revolver
held tight in my right
hand I keep beneath
my hard, cold pillow
O, night, you old sailor
your victory, I salute.

Silence comes
  from bones
that rot in the Earth
beneath a wet stone
with a carved name
   white as good teeth
in a hard jaw.

Silence is
  a homerun some kid
hit in Tennessee
in 1973 and a father
remembering the ball
  going like a bullet
deep into left center.

Silence is
  a brother grimacing
whispering your name,
through salt
  and tears on his cheeks,
one last time.

Silence, it just is...
  quiet, like pain.

Farewell is a good word
it often returns

in the dark like Charon
floating by in my own
listing imagination

I hold light for his boat
and echo goodbye

like the long nights
follow days, without pain
death is only melancholy

she said you'll have to say it
soon, you know,
to your child and your wife
and, yes, even to yourself.

His dog died,
and that’s all there was to it.
Except it wasn’t.
Those words in between,
the missing of a friend,
the times relived;  companion
dog that did him in.  Joyful.
Bit his heart and made him write
such words so right,
that I went home
and kissed my dog
and played with her in the garden.
And we both lay down in the dirt,
and will again tonight, and every night.
Until she sleeps.  And I with Daisy.
All because his dog died.

r ~ 18Mar14

So you lost your innocence
    in a darkened cemetery in Fallujah,
do you go looking for it
     on a grassy, sun-drenched hilltop in Arlington just because the
light is better?  No, not you.
     You return to that dark place and break every marker, leave no stone unturned, disinter all  ghosts tossing them to the wind and shout     
     "Want more?".
 Marching upright/quick-step/head high
     back home to Bethesda to find your peace.

r ~ 15Feb14

The sun
rose again
today.
God sighed,
looked away.  
Jesus wept.

r ~ 5/18/14

Walking home
ripped I tripped
on a dead dog
half-in the ditch
hard as a log
and stinking.

I said *Scoot over bro,
come morning
there won't be a spit
of difference between
you and I in the eyes
of the buzzards
and the beholders.

Baseball was my passion
that year when the world
still seemed like a safe place
to hang my hat.  Dad was
buying horses left and right
while Mom shook her head
and kept her silence knowing
this was just another one of
his wild-*** hairs that seemed
to get a little crazier each year.
Credence Clearwater Revival
was hot and singing songs
about rain on the radio.  
School was out and I would
go over to the creek to swim
after I finished whatever chores
Mom had me doing those days.
Sometimes I would lie on the
Devil's Bed rock next to the
little falls where the biggest
trout liked to feed and listen
to the bugler from the Army
burial detail playing taps for
that days funeral. I wondered
what it would feel like to be
the son of the soldier getting
buried up on the hill having
to wear a suit and not cry. It
always gave me a lump in my
throat. My brother said it was
a shame and Johnson should
be shot instead. I always agreed.
We all watched the nightly news
together after supper and before
Hogan's Heroes came on.  The VC
were handing it to our guys in
a place called Hue and Mom cried
when a South Vietnamese officer
pulled out a pistol and BANG
shot that dude in the head
right there in front of god, me,
Mom and everybody. I went to
bed that night and  decided that I
wasn't going to pray any more.
We lost every game for the rest
of the season and I didn't care.
I've never forgiven that officer
for shooting that guy dressed
in black right in front of me,
god, my Mom and everybody.

r ~ 6/3/14

Solitude found a friend in me
Winter stole the rest
Wondering where my heart might be
While soul is sinking west

A paler shade of night comes 'round
Moon forgets to rise
An empty lamp of light surrounds
A view of starless skies

With eyes shut wide to lonesome light
Dreams escape my thoughts
Silence awakens fear of flight
A journey all for nought.

r ~ 4/16/14

Now I am tranquil-
ized with the low light
of a fairly good star
planted serenely
in my Atlantic
and out there where
a lonely gull cries
dipping a wing
to the sea singing
a sleepy lullaby
in a language that Vargas
and I know so well
so, goodnight my angels
tomorrow will bring us
something akin to
a new day we can say
in one voice, Hallelujah
I am alive.

White linen,
needle sewn.
Worn denim,
fades too soon.
Horse venom,
evil rune.
Hard water,
silver spoon.
Dead daughter,
red balloon.

r ~ 5/6/14

The night
the moon
that woman
in tight jeans
the brave
and the lonely
drifters
we all drink
from the same pool
so when we meet
let's go down together
sane, ******, drunk
whatever
like those indigo
dragonflies
of spring
who will be
here right soon,

My ink may run
as black as coal,
as dark as
a dark night
of the soul.

Or flow red hued
like the morning sky;
as red as love,
or red man's blood
on hard-baked clay.

Yellow ink hues
my many suns,
my moons
the color of
dry bone.

Blue-inked waves
may wash my
blues away,
or sing the blues as blue
as muddy waters.

Gray ink clouds
on a fog-shrouded
empty highway
take me from here
to the Blue Ridge
mountains.

White-capped sailors
sail the arctic
as lost as
my white ink
on a blank page.

r ~ 5/13/14

all these years
of digging square holes
and i still don't know
why we stopped building
round houses

a mindset
is a terrible thing to change

square houses, graves
and hospital corners
are harder to maintain

circular places
make an impact
less direct
and more peaceful

an earth lodge
on the knife river
can teach us
to feel at home

we lose sight
of small things forgotten.

r ~ 9/11/14

The mist in the collard greens
is moving like an old woman
in dusty lingerie making sparks
with a *** where it lays tired
and the moon looks right odd
like an albino hawk in a dead
tree -  branches of solemnity
and worn out blue guitar strings -
while that old locomotive
of darkness  blows its steam
through my back porch screen.

Soldiers dancing in a minefield
Why aren't there any protest songs
Doesn't matter how their minds feel
As long as they can't sing along

History has shown us the rhyme
Taking again our Khygar Pass
One more ****** foot at a time
Praying to God that it's the last

r  13Jan14

The hangman
Riding town to town
In his creaky dusty black buggy
Sleepy eyed old mule pulling
Long-tailed fat round pet rat
Riding beside him
Both dressed all in dusty black
Neither smiling or frowning
From Tennesse to Missouri
Oklahoma then to Texas
Back again across the Mississippi
To Alabama or wherever called
Tools of his trade neatly bound
In back of the black buggy
A cheap hotel and clean black suit
Bow Tie tied neatly
A perfect knot and long coat tail
Takes the tools he needs for day's task
From black bag beside sweaty bed
Heads downstairs for another day
Just another job
Humming a sweet hymnal
As he climbs gallow stairs
Loops the noose tight 'round
Poor neck and offers cigarette
Politely as expected
Pulls black hood if requested
Awaits the nod and drops the trap
To cheers and jeers and sobs
Collects his bits of silver
Packs his gear and bags
And long-tailed pet rat
Has buggy hitched and hits the road
Dusty, humming hymnals
In his creaky old black buggy
Without a thought to next job
Down Georgia way
The hangman and his gear
Long-tailed rat and sleepy mule
Another day another dollar

r
6 Sept 13

He must be deaf
God, that is
I've been cursing him for days
And I'm not dead yet

Sitting up there on his throne
Eating cheese on Ritz
All gray-haired without a care
Not hearing my pleading tones

Maybe the choir's making too much sound
Or perhaps he's jamming with Townes
Possibly; passing a bottle 'round
Gettin' down to Snake Mountain Blues
With Townes Van Zandt. Yeah. That's it.

r ~ 5/16/14

If I close my eyes
maybe you can’t see me
and I won’t have to lie
here, still and silent -
on my side
of the great divide
that’s come between us -
the quiet nights
no longer dreaming
go on and on -
living, breathing
beating hearts, forgotten
seasons lost -
in distant canyons
we once walked
our paths entwined -
companions once
leaving shadows
aligned in the sand -
in the canyons
where we left our hand
prints on a wall -
side by side
you and I.

Rolling
over and over
and over again

wrapped tight like
a Birchbark canoe

mute starlight
tapping and scratching
at my window

sleep, that dark
river I seek

night, oh holy
water, sink me

drown me deep
down in the black
mud below you.

Dragonflies and Damselflies
Symbols of good fortune
From water nymphs
To flying orchestra in tune
Beauty in symmetry
Fragile Forktail
Ebony Jewelwing
Common Whitetail
Eastern Amberwing
Autumn and Amber Meadowhawks
The Common Green Darner
Such beauty in variety
5,900 species of wonder
Ode to the Odes
Dragonflies and Damselflies
Another splendid nature code
Filling my skies

r  
4 August 2013