a sensual curve
to the facade

- infinite femininity -

arched above
rounded windows

- innuendos art of love -

deco of desire
climbing higher

- echoing fire -

...descending spiral stairway
home to shanty on the bay.

r ~ 10/9/14

Listening to the sea,
that dark looking glass
like the watchboy they ask
about the night, my brother,
the black mirror you see,
I know almost nothing about,
I heard a dirge of burning longboats
like the songs the dead sing
to put me to sleep, my death,
if I could tell you about it,
my Captain, I would but I slept
right through it, not dreaming.

The day came
I watched my shadow walk away
It was his time to go
Time to find his own way
along the road
I don’t know if I should cry
or try to smile
I know he’ll make it on his own
now that my shadow’s grown
And I know that he’ll be fine
He’ll be alright and so will I
as my shadow turns to wave goodbye.

There's a storm
rolling in
from the east
off of the sea,
salty rain on
my skin,
if you could only
taste me,
darling, take
and shake me
until you hear
the thunder
under the wind,
and we both see
the lightning
out on the horizon
lighting a fire
all through
the night hours,
until our tired eyes
ride out the tide,
and we wake
on the waves
of a new day.

Some mornings I wake up tired
before the fire of the sun eats
the mist covering the dust
on the long road my feet travel
each day wishing I was asleep still
just like a snake in an old tire
dreaming of young boys rolling
me over and over down a steep hill
again, forever and ever, amen.

I know you know
this universe is old
and life is but a wrinkle
in time and me, I’m
not yet a twinkle
in my long gone father’s eyes
compared to those blinking night
skies, but let me tell you
friends,  when the fog
rolls in off of Dead Woman Shoals
all damp and **** cold
as the nose on my black dog
when it calls out to the moon
its mouth a deep hole, dark
as doom, a howling for
a galaxy, a dying star born
to be swallowed
bones all ribbed and rowed
a wind chime clacking
on the back porch alone
when nary a breeze blows.

A baby's smell.
A rare seashell.
The things sublime
that make you rich.

A wishing well.
A gambler's tell.
The quilts of time
that have no stitch.

An ocean swell.
A schooner's bell.
The poet's rhyme
that has no niche.

r ~ 30Jan14

Her body is a plantation
I worked on for twelve years,
all of them solid, deep
summer, uncleared timber,
backwater, ditch and slough,
times of bad cotton, dark
nights and no crops, hard rain,
riding shotgun over my love.

No one stays long
in the house of the bereaved

The hounds are lonely tonight
but not the priest

I dream I am still
in Tennessee grieving

Drinking moonshine
and branch water
looking for a fight

The undertaker creeps out
of the farmer's daughter's room

His wife beats a spider
with a broom then sweeps

When Death beats his child
nobody listens to her weep

My mother used to beg,
Son, don't write about Death,
We'll cross that ditch soon enough

I have nothing but respect
for the dead, I said

But there is no doubt in my mind
Death is a bad dog, a real *****.

mystic line between
blue and blue
stretching yonder -

- i wonder at the wonder -

a whispering sea
confides in me

- an ancient mystery -

the plaintive song
of the baleen.  

r - 10/23/14

The chimney on top of hill
with tumbleweed surrounds
Wind-scarred handfired brick
red as Autumn's dress
Ballast stone adorned foundation
carted from far distant shore
Stones once stored in hold of ships
from even further lands
Stones mined by strangers
speaking many languages
except his own, the builder
of this chimney, forlorn marker
against the sky
All that remains of his home
Well balanced, builder
Well founded.

r ~ 23Mar14

I've only got one bar
on my phone and there's only
one more between here and home.
Ten dollars in my pocket may as well
be a thousand. Like a penny
in the fusebox, I could make it last
until the lights go out. There's a cowboy
band playing. A wooden Indian
by the door. I don't think he listens
to their stories anymore. He's quiet
on the subject. He's quite an object
of curiosity. Instead of two-stepping
all night long, maybe I should take
that Indian home. Use the last bar
to call Coleen. Tell her to put a ***
of cowboy coffee on. We'll tell stories
of our own. Sing songs in the old way
about better days when we were young.

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 cold outside tonight
but I had to get out of the house
so I went walking about without
any particular thought in mind
as to where I was heading, you see
I was feeling kind of pine-boxed in
and couldn’t sleep, I needed a 2 a.m.
cigarette, so I put on my clothes, my boots
a coat, grabbed my smokes and slipped
on out the sliding glass door, it’s quieter
than the front one that has a bad habit of slamming, not laying blame, but ****
if it wasn’t darker than the inside of my
eyelids, darker than  the catacombs where
dead stars go when they die, and the moon hides away when it’s all out of shine, just
like where my thoughts sometimes seem
to go, you know, when my mind just won’t
put things behind me, and I’m feeling all
kinds of silence, it’s like listening to moss
growing on stones and wondering things
like why bees don’t die in their own honey
and a white stone in a field full of field-
stone is a pretty nice rock, but still, a rock
all the same, so I walk to the dock down
the road in the dark where a man can go to wash his troubles away before day breaks.

When you paint your walls
with nonsense, and the sky outside
reflects your feelings, sensations
tiring, discovering floors and no ceilings.

And the faceless poor man
doesn't want your tips
but your hand, he wants to try
standing, because he's tired of kneeling.

When you insure the beggar's
confidence with a dime, hoping
he will ask you to stay awhile, then
you see he's not the freak, you are.

It is your mind that is on trial,
the beggarman dying, you slowly
take up his cup, and begin the eternal
begging for just one single smile.

There’s a before
                                                     then an after

                 and the in-betweens

      which is all that really matters
  after the beginning~and the ending

we’re born,                                    and we die

                   highs
have a few
                                  a whole lot of
                                                           lows

  but nothing means not a ******* thing
  if you know what I mean, you know?

Rubies glistening
'neath light of the moon
as rabbits feast
and children sleep
'midst dreams
of a strawberry morning.

r ~ 6/13/14

canyon wren
sings her sweet song
perched upon
the piñon-

for my love
who lies beneath-
the cottonwood
twee twee twee
tsheeeeee.

:)

r ~ 10/3/14

The words between
leave not a trace
on page or screen
or time or space.

The cursive script
or font filled line
serve to encrypt
this life of mine.

Some days I'm hot,
and some days cold.
Some days I'm young,
and some days old.

I have known love,
and I've known pain.
I've been a dove,
and I've been Cain.

I have been high,
and I've been low.
I've cast the die
where few will go.

I'm hidden here
somewhere between
the far and near
and never seen.

r ~ 7Feb14

Telling.
On the news I see
in the cradle of mankind,
bloodlust  rampaging.
Killing machines laughing
as children cry and mothers
stare silently at nothing.

Telling.
On my porch I see
three birds sharing a perch,
eating seed.
One brown, one red,
one olive green.
One gently feeding the other.

Telling.

r ~ 4/9/14

Do not look sadly
at days gone by
days below days
like a river
running under stars

do not listen to priests, the blues
or that bitter veteran fool
of some past war claiming to miss
a piece of his soul, his only disease
is the rotting of an *******

the poet that forgets
in remembrance of you
is a lunatic's left hand man
a gun in the hands of a fool

on Sundays he is the acolyte
of the moon, night following
other nights, the eyes of the blind
the stranger who  lusts after wives

his tool the bitter root of a persimmon tree
and every time he draws his pen
like a knife and drawls his soliloquy
I say forget him, let us drink again

for poets do not cut their fingers
at cheap joints like ******
toasting one another's death

they do not eat the cheese or hoard
the rich black bread of their poetry;
the true poet gives it kindly to the poor.

Death is lying
in the ditch
like a hubcap
that went
rolling down
a dark road
along with
the stench
of a black cat
that crossed
my path
still following
me until
luck will have
its final say
so I've got to
keep moving
while the night
shines it's bright
lights speeding
up behind me.

it was suggested
that there be no nexus
between texas and your pal-
omino - tagging the alamo, **?

en el barrio, yo(u)-
and your gringa  homecoming
queen in tight-assed jeans
-running with ms-13?

-playing twister with your hipster
sisters misters smith & wesson
oiled up and and ready to go
- new mexico?

i found you in tres piedras
at a place called ortega's
eating huevos rancheros
- shooting jose cuervo?

-muthafucka mara salvatruchas
in a red camaro and two bruthas
on a burro with bow and arrows
-stole your palomino?

-they shoot horses
don't they?

riding the black el camino
-on the blue mesa.

r ~ 9/30/14

When the dark days come
and a man searches
for high ground

like a lost explorer,
a man going nowhere,

a wanderer with no ballad,

a man who dreams
to the beat of the dark
night's drum

playing light
of the moon, yet
out of tune

like the gloom only a poet
feels alone in a cold room.

Black Lilacs
blooming -

a blossoming
of grief -

dark fallen pollen
on the breeze -

I can see it falling
all around me -

there on the wall
for us to see -

April will be
the cruelest of them all.

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

Shine on you blacknight
like the dark light of a dead star

deep as a black well
drawn from my memory

clear as a mirror
over the mouths of the dead.

words in a blender
too slushy
pain behind the eyes
frozen thoughts
lime green
exorcised projectiles
turning heads
with demon smiles
and whispered snarls
in a dead language.

r ~ 8/1/14

I was thinking
about back then
before I thought I
heard notes on
flutes made of reeds
when there was
no young bird
beating its wings
inside my chest
no light in my eyes
but this was long ago
before the shadow
of darkness came
to command the land
back when the moon
was the blind eye
of a fish in cold water
in the back of a cave.

I miss the holy ghost of her smile.
The silhouette of her head in the night
on my pillow. Her beauty alight.
  
She was rain on my fever. Rain
through my window. An innuendo
of heavenly morning light. Heart heavy
as the moon on its way to Montana
  wearing my blue bandana.

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.

Gray permeates day\
   Bluebirds dancing in puddles
   with raindrops splashing.

r ~ 16Mar14

I was ten when
I got caught stealing
blue chalk from the pool hall.

My daddy wore me out
with a black leather belt.

He said *What'd I tell you
about writing sad poems
on the back of the stones
at the orphan's graveyard?

This bed
is a sad cafe
and morning
a table
I drank from
like a legacy
of one who once
loved
a woman
in a blue dress
draped
on the floor
like a rug
by the door.

you came to the rodeo
with your latest portfolio
of sidekick apparatchi(c)ks

colorful lily - a realpolitik mariposa
and gloriosa - tall like a ponderosa
while i rode the appaloosa-
cool like - little joe

do they make you hum
a sweet song like i do?

sitting on your spanish saddle
booted to skeedaddle
when i beat the buzzer
while buzzards circled-
beneath a purple sun

you came that time
when i rode
-on the blue mesa.

r ~ 9/24/14

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

A fading shade; built with care
once bright, now reminiscent
of coming winter.

Time-bent frame; piney dreams
of summer days, gone
now splintered.

Binding rings; stretching link
rusted chains, cold rains
blow bitter.

r ~ 5/12/14

This was a fishing village
when people were speaking
the king's English, dead
like the fishing industry
Now the tourists have accents

Truth be told
this was a fishing village
long before that
But we don't speak about
what those folks spoke
Something Algonquian
or another dead language

When the tide is out
I walk the shore and look for remnants
Pottery and stone tools, and such
I find a lot of plastic
and bottles, plenty of those
We've been a drinking people
for a long **** time

Once, I found a child's shoe,
sodden and filled with sand
It had a blue lace,
still tied, and a smiley face
as the tide was going out
Kind of sad, really.

r  ~ 8/28/14

Sun hid his smile away
on a cloudy day
o'er Carolina

Moon she cried
thought he had died
for a love he left behind
across the line from Carolina

At night he dwells
in her emotion
an ocean of the bluest tears
that ever fell on Carolina
on a cloudy day
when the sun forgot to shine.

r ~ 8/9/14

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.

I asked the bone colored moon
Why
He didn't know
And doesn't care
He's just a hunk of bone
Up in the sky
And me
I'm just a bag of bones
Down here
Looking up at the sky
Asking why
Waiting around to die.

r ~ 7/7/14

Last night I rode
that dark train
through the hollows
of my childhood
on the black wings
of a swallow fleeting
beneath the eaves
of long ago evenings
where bone moths
were breathing
their last breaths
while dead children
slept well up the hill.

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.

I took a walk before dark
after the rain broke and had
to pass through the park
choked with winter briar
empty vials needles dog ****
piles and broken pieces of slide
rusting out beside a swing set
frame with rusty chains holding
up empty space while the whole
******* place looks like it could
use a tetanus booster if we hope
to have any kind of future clubs.

Night, that old sinkhole
of the soul, climbs
the dark stairs of despair
who knows what the moon
is thinking behind that one-eyed
stare clawing his way through
the pines outside my window
carrying bootblack in a blanket
when it's colder for shining shoes
that go with my black suit
and the red rose on the pillow
I burn before the morning.

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.

it isn't all black and white
the choke-hold of history

shades of red and brown
paint the scenery, too

the documented imagery
forgotten in the fray

a little big horn playing mournful
songs as the cavalry marches on
to the tune of galleons and guns


no passport required
when the port was young

émigré and immigrant
displacing native sons

who also once were pilgrims
breathing in the sun.