The moon was coming up
right over there the last
time they took you away
as I double~crossed myself
with the holy water
you swam in from the bath
though the ***** my break
the earth, but never your spell
remembering the sounds
you made when I touched you
the way you wanted me to
like a ***** loon at night
flying over a salt lake
and how you could sing
when you played the guitar
I would drown in your voice
like the river you crossed
and I will keep our troth
I swear as sure as that stone
over there I will learn to play
your rosewood guitar
cross my heart and hope to die.

When I look over
my shoulder
all I see is a star
shining through
a dark hole
and hear a strange sound
like wind crying out
through the trees
or the creaking
of limbs
a dark shape
passing over the moon
like an omen
of a mad woman
I once knew
a ghost ship
spreading her legs
like a cross
arms reaching out
her name lost
to my memory
something that sounds
much like my doom.

Moon, blow your light
my way, but don't cut my time

Let me dream just a little longer
while my eyelids shine
in the dark starlight

Let the ceremony end slow
back in my old home,
not in a cold forest near the sea

I want to see again
those three rivers that flow
together and listen to a woman
singing to a child
in her mild mannered way

But in spite of the night
and my wishes
something keeps creeping
past me in my sleep
like numbers of smoke

It was you, dark woman,
walking across the room bare
footed turning on the air conditioner
in the winter, a pair of scissors
in the folds of your robe.

I fell in love with a girl
again, at a bar
My friend said she was Czech
Hard to say
I didn't ask for her passport,
and she had nowhere to carry one
She smiled when she glanced my way
eyes glazed, speaking my language
The Czech girl, making love to a pole.

r ~ 8/9/14

I saw the sun set
between my toes
and the moon rise
with just one eye
while my mutt Daisy
looked at me sideways
and sighed like maybe
she thinks I’m lazy
and I thought, ****’t
it’s a shame when a man’s
dog makes him feel bad.

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

Dandelions stand tall
   above the grass.
Inviting, daring. Brave.
    I have the energy
but not the heart
    to mow them down.
The grass rejoices.
   My conscience frowns.
My dog sleeps on.

r ~ 7/6/14

a darkening fog
swallowing
the shadow
of a black dog

following - following
close behind

- it is a hollow
feeling -
this war
inside

at evening tide
- a darkening.

r ~ 10/21/14

Black smoke on the mountain
bends over the moon like flies
around rines all fed up
with the night, like a bloated
face floating by in the river
sleeping through
death's long montage,
that dark mistress sipping
gin on a balcony with no wind,
her curtains still as a blanket
placed over the drowned.

I like her black dress,
the way it pools at her feet.
How she walks to the bed,
spilling over my sheets.
I drown in the depth
of her eyes.

I believe there is no sanctuary
for me in this subdivision
of dreams, cathedrals
built by unknowns

I am like grass
cracking their concrete,
I was carved by a stone knife
in the mountains
where I learned to speak

I am the rider called death
bleeding in my sleep,
sitting in the saddle
with Dark, the black man
and his crazy blues

I sink down like a diver
into the deep water,
like an unknown poet
going down with his ship.

I awoke
at the crack
of dawn

to a blood red sun
-a bullet hole
in a faded work shirt

with a creak in my bones
a quick kiss and a groan

I thanked her
and slipped out
the back door

before her old man
came home.

r ~ 8/30/14

You once said I read too much Le Carré
or maybe Guevara, which could be true
but I’m really just a hillbilly at heart
with dreams of going to Chile with you
on a fast boat running guns, but no más
because you, you can dream forever
without ever remembering who I was
lying in your bed somewhere in Argentina
reading Borges, wearing that black beret
you brought with you from Bolivia, sweet
Olivia, daydreaming of nights with Che.

Underneath the painted rock
you'll find a key
I ain't much for hiding
but that's just me
There's a book of pomes (yeah, pomes)
beneath my pillow
You might find one or two
to your liking
But that's a'right if you don't
I wrote 'em
for you, any ol' way
Come September
if I don't remember
where I hid my key
That book of pomes'll be
still beneath my pillow
If you care
to take a read.

r ~ 7/12/14

Dead leaves, a dying tree;
silent in a tattered hat,
pausing in his quiet task,
reading poems of T.E. Hulme.

Hard east against high tide
Black clouds and rainy skies
Straight at the breakers I ride
Dead reckoning away from lies
Taking those waves in stride
I'm dead reckoning

Lost sight of that straight line
Fifteen knots towards the rocks
First mate's empty of port wine
Siren calls back to the docks
Cutting hard portside to align
I'm dead reckoning

Dead reckoning to the docks
Blind from drinking brine
Fifteen shots at fifteen knots
Push that throttle to a whine
For now I'm feeling fine
Dead reckoning

I'm dead reckoning.....

r 25 Oct 13

There is a stranger
you see more and more of
every year, He is silt
in the riverbed,
and the water tables
of your mystery
rise to their final levels,
the spitting image
of your Death

He is selling a bed
that belonged to your father,
coming in low dumping
the boots of your brother
in the high pasture covered
deep in your last winter's snow

Like a flower in the night,
Death drifts over our shoulders
like a boat with no eyes for the oars,
no place for a man's cold hands

The Church has a record of your birth,
but Death keeps its own dossier

When the Moon is pulling blood
from all of its many lovers,
Death is caterwauling with catfish,
a bone in its mouth, shedding
all its skins and secret light,
I, like you, set out a dish
of milk before going to bed.

deleted for contest submission

Of all the rain
it had to be
this
blue umbrella
black-water
wet cat
soul-drenching
dark Georgia night
rain.

r ~ 6/29/14

shadow man-

measuring my span-
born(e) in the space between
heart beats and the unforseen

hiding on the periphery
of  crow's feet and defeat
-the shadowy me

snickering peripheral(ly)
i got yo numba-
boy.

r ~ 10/9/14

Desert pool shimmers/
   Drinking water from cupped hands
   Cool sweetness of life

r ~ 5Mar14

a learning experience
- the detailed
timing and precision

- a certain etiquette
in the rise and fall
of hands and feet

i learned the walk
- mirrored on the toe
of a spit-shined boot

shooting imaginary doves
in white gloves -

the proper fold
of the cloth
- tight and taught
with stars above

the tri-fold - not
a trifling thing we're told

the color of a mother's tears
and grip of a father's grief -
the why in the cry of a child

- sad song of the bugler
on a windswept hill
standing in the detail.

r ~ 10/29/14

I wonder
does thatTrump/Pence
2020 bumper sticker
make your *****
feel bigger,
or is it that big
black smoke belching
diesel Ford F-250?

discordant qualities
- a layered beauty
worn casually

- a complicated
pretty lady -

i paint her black
lace *******
- i praise her
on her knees.

r ~ 10/24/14

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.

We take a shortcut
through the narrow walkways
of the old village

across the cobblestones
and by the white-washed tabby wall

to the waterside where slave ships
once plied their trade

My dog lingers nose down
as if each stone has a story to tell

and ***** an ear to the wall
where the auctions were held

She looks at people differently now.

I took my name off of the *****
donor registry. I don't wish to wish
myself on any-body. I'm a hard man
to live with, you see. You've seen
the way I treat(ed) my liv-er; any way.
Anyway...if you really want a piece
of me take my heart. Cigarettes and
women haven't yet ruined the best part.

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.

Tonight the fog settles
on the water reflecting

a dark mood, and the moon
is genuflecting to the blues

resting one knee on the cold
silent sea taking off his hat

as if to say *May I rise now
and take my leave and leave

you be, for tomorrow will
surely be a brighter day?

Listen
Listen now
He doesn't sleep here
Anymore.

Smile
Smile somehow
He walks upon that shore.

Look
Look inside
Look inside yourself.

Dream
He's dreaming
You'll find him in your dreams...
Somehow.

4/18/14

My father and I
lie down together.

He is dead.

We look up at the stars,
the steady sound
of the wind turning
the night like a ceiling fan.

This is our home.

I remember the work in him
like bitterness in persimmons
before the first frost,
and I imagine the way he feared
the pain, the ground turning
dark in the rain.

Now he gets up
and I dream he looks down
into my brown eyes
that may as well been his.

He weeps and says goodbye,
my son, I don't want to
go yet, but I can't wait
around to watch you die.

Some nights I shade
my eyes
from dark dreams
like a broken hawk's wing
stuck in the hot tar
of a back country road
when sleep seems
like a long ways to go
in a bad war
and desire and desire
and desire like a fire
in my bones
won't leave me alone.

I had been dreaming
about eating bruised peaches
that grew from a tree
by the river, its water
thick and sweet as sap.

I thought I saw an old woman
shaking her dustmop,
but it was only the moon
and stardust in the dark
that never stops.

In the fields
there was something barren
like a journey
and echoes of salt
sprinkling on a table
with food laid out for a wake.

The fog from the dream
by the river was smothering;
I was suffocating lying there
where it is said a young mother
once walked into the water
with the pockets of her dress
stuffed full of smooth rocks.

I woke when I heard
shouting that tore out the light
as night came flying by
like a bird dressed for a feast
wearing his finest black feathers.

Alone in his dark apartment
black dog asleep
the sound of children playing
in the street outside his window-
children of color, his housekeeper says,
not quite seeing the distinction
only hearing happy voices-
an old jazz number on the radio
as he stands and dances slowly
with his cane tap, tap, tapping
to the beat and dreaming of a girl
he once read about named Helen
in a book of braille.

r ~ 6/6/14

For a long time
I've been dreaming
of being the younger me
my heart leaning
into those dangerous places
like the wheels on a road grader

Nights to remember
seeing big lips in the moon
blowing its black and bad sax

Dreams of night sweats
and my lost loves
dancing in the fields
where the moon, a white cow
goes to chew her cudd

Dreams deep in other cities
and towns where photographs
all signed love are slipping
out of the frames of many mirrors

Dreams of an old soured pillow
waiting for its case to be called
shanghaied by the cold sea
a long ways from the mountains
where I once found young love

Dreams of a storm coming
still many miles away
hearing the wind in the trees

The thunder wakes me
like a backfire on a moonshine
run with two trembling fingers
finding me riding shotgun.

November comes
with the wild geese
in their V like memories
of an arrow flying
too close to the sun
and their feathers shining
as their wings beat as one
drum in the distance
signaling that winter
is coming, and the cold
days will keep us inside
warmed by the fires we crave
deep in our caves painting
and dreaming away.

I gathered all
  the driftwood
of my love
  and built a fire
at high tide
  watching the ocean
rise from the smoke
  in so many eyes.

It is almost summer
and the hot night
seems so quiet
as the wind on the water
lifts the sails on that ship
sailing west like smoke
from the fire I lit
to burn the driftwood
of my dreams and desires
until morning comes like
that sad-eyed Moriah
I've admired from afar.

Some nights
the moon throws its light
like an old man
who can't hold his liquor in
and spits blood in the morning

Someone ought to kick some sense
into me, if they did I'd hum
like the body of a fiddle

I propose we all strip down
and take a swim with my friends
the dragonflies, but no one will listen
to what I have to say when I throw my voice
like an empty bottle deep in the forest

When I think of all the dark
and swift things of my rivers,
I wonder why time the old boot -
legger hides his maps and goes
on traveling the low roads

Alone I can tell you there is so much
beside the point of the thorn of the rose
and why the moon is with me always
whenever i choose to go it alone

I drink from that blue jar of time
and breathe the breath of sweet infants

Believe you me the dead shepherd
we sent up the river in a faraway land
in a time so long ago still holds us
all by the holes in his hands

You can see the dark clouds up ahead,
my cloisters I am always walking through them
with you children of the lost dreams,
and with you fifty-something snow-headed men

We have just collided with our lost sons
on the high road of morning, we are rising
dust like the dirt on our children's graves
saying nothing to our brothers the stones.

Dulcimer...
play me a song
'bout all the wrongs
that I have done.

Sweet Dulcimer...
in your strings and swirly grains
lie my life's story
and the way my river runs.

Ol' Lucifer...
leave me alone
for it's a long, hard road
that I have gone.

My darlin' fair...
in your sweet and lovely face
I see longing... I see despair
I see sorrow and despair.

Somewhere in the misty moonlight
I hear her music play
Sweet Dulcimer
take me home.
Sweet Dulcimer...take me away.

February 2013

Death can do strange things,
like time-lapse photography,
undress those quite bored, or
make a patron saint out of a fool,
turning sleek idiots into monks
more mysterious than Rasputin.

What a place to drink, the casino
death runs, nothing fancy or beautiful,
a blind man called Dark Island
taking requests on a piano with keys
worn dull as bone handled knives.

A place the lost can find work, graceless
and not made in America without a living,
all these odd jobs death can do, like art,
factory smoke blown in the eyes of women
in Senegal making overalls for Walmart.

Years disappear
under shifting dunes
of days and endless nights.
A quiet cloaks
the ticking house
as summer falls
slowly on the crystal coast.
Evening tide is running out.
Days get shorter by the day;
moonrise comes early
above the straight blue line.

Through the faded curtain
a lone ship far out to sea,
a gull floating on a breeze,
driftwood on the shore.
A young boy casts his net
and pulls it back once more.
Catching memories
discarded in the sand;
another dune is born.
He turns his back upon the ship
and wanders home.

r ~ 8/5/14

From time to time
I sit outside
and watch the night sky
deep in its shadow
and dreaming
of a dusky woman
with black hair
and a sequined dress
riding high on her thighs
until my eyelids
grow dark
from the starlight.

A blue guitar, twelve pieces of silver-
ware, some feldspar, an essay on The Art
of War, two pine bookshelves, fifty-four books
about the past, a stone axe that must have
belonged to the last of the Mohicans, fifty more
books about bones, stones and famous pomes,
a sliver of glass from a mirror that shattered
the last six years like they didn't matter
plus one to go, a shitload of old liquor bottles,
a fossil of an inner earbone from a killer whale,
a spear-point older than 12,000 years+plus,
a tooth from a shark as big as a ****** bus,
dust marks from missing pictures of us.