So much water, so much iron
Alas, no gold, but copper by the ion
Glows in my skin late summer days
And tastes of blood and flint and maize

******* salt, my spit, my hair
Breathe my tender air, my mollis aer
Anoint me with a cloak of sweat
And with my sword I will beget

The earthy side of me, you see
Nickel, zinc, ah, yet no mercury
Take my dirt, my earth, my stones
Build a castle with my bones.

r ~ 21Mar14

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

r ~ 8/4/14

From Hatteras south to Ocracoke
The Queen Anne she did soak
A'bar at Springer's Point
Where kin of Teach
Take pride in speech
And with pirate's blood anoint

On down coast by Emerald Isle
Eighteen sailor  miles
Till  sail through Tops'l Spit
Beneath the waves
Lie many graves
Of fools whose widows knit

r ~ 11Feb14

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.

Here at the end
of the continent
everyday the same
sea and sky elemental
endless blue planes
interrupted only
by a wayward bird
a flash of white
like a gull
lost out in the null
as September wanes
into Autumn's moon
breaking like a spell
casting my shadow
like a sundial
measuring my footprints
away and alone
on these wind(s)wept
bare lonely dunes.

Fire and wind
of close bullets
tornados, floods, rain
I. C. E. with eyes
sharp as barbed wire
dead souls walking
those pale corridors
with an odor
the color of bone
and skin off the backs
of the poor
in their pockets
like rawhide, they are
rolling, rolling, rolling
***** of dung along
carrying briefcases
full of batshit
and other secret
pestilence yet to come.

I used to view existential
as a meaningless concept
rendered complex when used
in sentences by the pretentious
until I came to realize that it’s
simply nothing but the shadow
of a black dog sitting on a dock
by an old man holding a rusty
old revolver to his head on dark
nights of deep water thinking
man, what a waste of a good
bullet if you pull it, so throw it
in and let me fetch it once again
just like the last time, and the time
before that, or like every time you
have a notion that the ocean is blue
only for you and your sorrow, dude
let it go and let’s go home before
tomorrow comes, for your shadow
is aware and cares for your existence.

It rains
and I think of bales
of wet hay
crushing the wind
out of children
riderless ponies
with frayed rope
tied to the pommels
I find it hard to explain
eyeshadow and dead weight
tied to the other end
and girls who would like to
go on in this world
***** by their mother's
stepsons and husbands
the men and women
of learning have left us
so much, I prefer
to look at the moon.

She’s a mystery
the slight curves
of her face
framed
by dark waves
lips shaped
like the wake
of a ship
parting the sea
as deep as deep
eyes I can see
staring back at me.

Fade to faded photographs
You know the ones
A battlefield from long ago
Broken horses
Broken cannon
Broken men
Faded broken men.

Fade to faded photographs
You know the kind
A desert scene from long ago
Wild ponies
Feathered lances
Proud warriors
Faded broken lifeways.

Fade to faded photographs
You know the places
The ones so hard to find
Clear waters
Untamed wilderness
All God's creatures
Faded fading landscapes.

Fade to faded photographs
You know their names
Seats of power then and now
Wooden desks
Feather pens
Prideful men
Faded broken promises.  

r ~ 4/27/14

she writes of the falling days
- knows them well, one can tell

simple things like string
and wrappings
autumn and swallows -
hollow places she has seen
in boxes and photographs

and so it is -  the falling days
the number of birds at my feeder are fewer
no more humming, no painted buntings
-only my homies come now, my vato birds, my mijas

the cardinal, both red and green
the nuthatch and chickadee, the titmouse-
all three
the wrens and finches, too-

and the blues still like to bathe
in the pyrex baking dish sun warmed
on a sunny day-serenaded by the mocking
one hopping from grub to worm below

- my usual feathered friends
not caring about the weather-fair or foul
and in the pale blue, a gull still laughs
at the folly of it all-

leaving goes slowly-
a spiraling, a gust of wind-
days slowly graying
shorter, lightly fading
- friends, they go

the falling days, change and leavings
leave me - well, you know...

i see the simple things
that soothe, like string
and wrappings, swallows -

- autumn, you know?

r ~ 10/6/14

In fallow field
   Where corn once grew
I chanced upon
   An old mule shoe
I pondered on
   The many miles
The shoe had plod
   In mulish style

In river bed
   Now dry as bone
I came upon
   A worn millstone
Wondered aloud
   The wagons full
Of new milled corn
   The mule had pulled

In old grey barn
   Within a stall
I found these words
   Carved on the wall
George Washington
   Once slept here
Best **** mule
   From far and near
;)

r ~ 20Mar14

Everything is asleep
and in pain, in love
and dreaming
about another life
I say to myself,
it is time I take my own
lookout, unfaithful
sailors know they can't
see a thing but they keep
their place on the prow
out there in the darkness
where boats are colliding,
oh yes, they are blind
or awake feeling the dark
like light, like those levels
of cold and heat underwater,
you know what I mean,
when you are dreaming
or in danger, that place
where fish live and sleep,
sometimes I think I understand
everything,  but I know that
I am wrong, and incredible
as it seems, the shadow I see
when I'm hung, I want to think
of hideouts in the mountains
where a man can go to die there.

Although I can’t prove it,
I think most poets work
for FEMA, writing good
lines on the side of homes.

This poem is asleep, so
don’t yell at it, waking it up;
leave it alone letting it dream.

I've been told
that I'm built like a fencepost
Kind of wiry
A few knobs here and there
A knot or two for character
I make a pretty good fence
Good at keeping things inside
Not letting things out
But now my shadow seems leaner
Not quite as tall in the morning sun
The soil around my feet eroding
Drying out isn't all it's cracked up to be
Staying straight ain't easy
The herd is getting restless
And the barbed wire on my back
is tearing me up inside.

r ~ 7/25/14

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

Her words will light a fire
underneath deniers, eye-to-
eye, take on the liars, I, too
have too long uttered silence
while our children quietly
despised us, we, even me
who knew, choked it down
the unclean smoke unspoken
yes, how dare we leave this life
behind for generations to bare
our crimes, and yet they rise
above to breathe fresh air
the clean O2 of burning desire
searing, shouting utter truth
to wake the world, to sing
and single out, to recognize
a lie when it is a lie, FIERCE
like fire, beautifully reactionary
aflame, to inflame, now is here
your time, rebel, my rebel child
fight for your very life, your future
children, species, for all mankind.

There is an actress
who always plays the dark parts
in my dreams handcuffed
to the moon with black seams
in her stockings asking me
to paint her behind
the scenes in the fifty-est
shades of red
you've ever seen.

You are my wedding
reception for death
a heart beyond doubt
floats in your neck
like a compass
past lovers
holding close
a stethoscope
to my chest
and the final mist
of mourning
in your eyes I
am wondering
will I be missed
or just another
season in your life
passing like
summers turn
to autumns' leaves
falling one
     after
               the
                        other.

Life's not so bad
until just before morning
when I see a dark man
driving a black Cadillac
take a cigarette from his lips
and throw it out the window
watching it go all to pieces
all over the road.

One night soon
someone
will strike a match
on a stone
and read my name.

She came from a favela
Steep ***** above Rio
Color of dark chocolate
And vanilla of mestizo

Worked the narrow streets
Walked them like a queen
Bad boys knew her beats
Her stir did leave a sheen

In translucent woven sheets
Swaying hips and pouted lips
Bad cops along her favela beat
Always whistling as they glimpse

Flava of favela became queen
Said so long to to steep streets
Tin built hut and streets unclean
Became the Queen of Rio

r  18Sept13

You walk across the room
in your black *******,
a cigarette in your hand
and turn off the fan
in the open window,
like an undertaker waiting
by the door for the headlights
in the driveway debating
another swig from his flask,
like a ***** blowing smoke
in the dark flicking ash.

Hey God, scoot over a bit. I'm feeling kinda tired. Would you fluff that cloud for me?  Ah, thanks dude, much better. My head's been feeling heavy. The closer I get to the end of the road, well...makes me wonder why bother with the rest of the show. The endings are all the same.

To be honest, it hasn't been quite all it was hyped.  We start running low on that joy thing and all of a sudden it just seems so ...pointless.  I find myself wondering if my dog is going to outlive me. ****'s that about?  I've had a dozen or so dogs and this is the first I've ever worried about whether one would be sad if I checked out tomorrow. Another sad lonely old dog ain't going to be the end if the world.

Even poetry's not doing much for me. Face it, mine's fallen flat, and with the exception of a handful of golden pens on HP, it's kind of gone to hell. Oh, I don't blame eliot. That's what happens when us old ***** play around with technology that the youngins know more about. Algorithm doesn't know **** about poetry, and all I know about hash is how to smoke it. Think I'll just stay up here and rest a spell. This fluffy cloud is feeling mighty fine.

r ~ 5/23/14

I'll wake up
Mundy morning
dead tired
from restless
dreams about
the forbidden sound
of fish on ice,
a harmonica
full of ants,
cat paws that fall
in the night,
the breathing
of waterfalls,
the depth
of mountain roots
and falling soot
from the fires
of Viking pyres.

The willow weeps
While widows sleep
All alone in their dreams

A baby's cry
A lover's sigh
In the dark of the night

A tear that's wept
Promise not kept
Memories forgotten

A picture framed
A sorrow named
For years or forever...

r ~ 21Jan14

Your family home
has been sold
to the cultured,
the old vultures
feeding on the garden
thick with rabbits
and your father's dead
daughters, you sleep
in a pickup, tired
of work near the water,
fond of the instant,
you travel through
the country you know,
farm long forgotten,
the word free written
in red ******* your arm.

ripples in the pond-
  fat toad on a skinny rock
  i wish he would croak

r 6/26/14

She wears the sea
in her eyes
and dances with the sand
beneath her feet

I would swear I could hear
the sun playing on the ivory
keys of her smile

and at night when the wind
is right across the sound

she runs her fingers
through my waves
and lingers while she plays

Für Elise on a black piano.

Night fell around me
like a wounded animal
in a garden of statues
closing their eyes,
not dreaming,

they are blinded
by the moon
as it cruised by
like a ghost ship,
or a sack of ashes,

the only sound
the quiet humming
of sleeping souls

and a shovel
clearing ground
for digging
the deepest dark hole.

When I think of those days, I only
remember gathering wood in the cold
in my black coat so I could get a fire going
in the cast iron of a gray early morning;
I dream what it is to be a man lying
beside a delicate woman, sad and quiet,
playing the mandolin, looking at her as
if she were a couple of plums together like
a cluster within reaching distance on the branch;
thinking of the lunar dust of her face, and how
her fingers were like feathers; I heard
the silence of the mill wheel not turning
in the stream and the wild turkeys not drinking;
I knew they had hypnotized themselves wide-
eyed and staring into the steel ax of the creek.

first love, a blue coyote-
- first heart, a red red moon

first day's not dawned-
love sings a song
a'top a desert dune

genesis of loneliness-
indigenous to wistfulness
- first cry of love
against the first night sky

blue coyote sings
to a red red moon.

r ~ 10/3/14

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

Oh, those poor
peasants
without a ***
to **** in
who celebrate their
thin-skinned twittering
king ascending
in his gilded elevator
of gold stolen
from the empty plates
of those
who do pay taxes
with real axes
to grind
it boggles my mind
just what in
the hell
could they have been
thinking
I mean, Sweet
Jesus, we'll all be
refugees
in the end.


Where e're we go, we celebrate
The land that makes us refugees,
From fear of priests with empty plates
From guilt and weeping effigies.

--Shane MacClowan, "Thousands Are Sailing"

Near morning
by the sea
where I tangle
with the shadows
like a cage of sad tigers
by a grave I find a rope ladder
left by a thief
as the tide steals my eyes,
prisoners of time
without a hammer
trying to drive a stake
in the ground
and this is my crime
living and dreaming.

i still spell gray
with an a

not an e
in my po-etry

does it matter
to the grammar?

hoo's to say

says the owl
to the vowel

it's a gray area.

r  ~ 10/17/14

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.

I long to meet a Guinevere
So many poems I'd pen
Like Guinevere by the Azure Mere
Or simply, My Sweet Gwen

I taste the sound of Guinevere
Tis salt upon my lips
Perhaps she'd be my Gwenhwyfar
Sweet wine of Arthur's sips

Smooth and fair my Guinevere
Of her so many songs be sung
I'd love you o'er and o'er, my dear
Tomorrow I'd have ye hung.

r ~ 4/22/14

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

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.

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