My neck is feeling better than it has in at least a year .
Love you I am back in Iowa now.
I will try to come back here again tomorrow night.

There are pauses in between musical notes and stops between an artist's strokes and periods in between a writer's sentences. We have come to an end. We have come to a stop. But sometimes the only way to continue is to halt. The only way to begin is to end.

- apbq, pauses and stops

544

The Martyr Poets—did not tell—
But wrought their Pang in syllable—
That when their mortal name be numb—
Their mortal fate—encourage Some—

The Martyr Painters—never spoke—
Bequeathing—rather—to their Work—
That when their conscious fingers cease—
Some seek in Art—the Art of Peace—

I just have to look
at you
to feel it.

To know it
I have to look
away.

Like the pages
of a book
mid-tornado,

Fragments of
information, the pieces
all out of place.

Still,

I believe you
beg to be
read.

Here’s a wee yin for his birthday
The hale world’s hae’in his supper
Time for a poem or a song
And a wee whisky chaser

Enjoy Rabbie’s supper
Wi that big sonsie face
And neeps and tatties
Wi nae stomach space

Every toon in Scotland
Every pub that he’s been in
Telt some odd stories
About his kith an’ kin

Telt them in auld Scots
It’s the language that he kens
If he’s got a beer in haun
He’ll pit doon the pen

Socialising wi’ pals
Whisky, beer and song
All the things to be enjoyed
An’ that cannae be wrong

They call him the bard
But he’s just a man
Wi some great stories to tell
And as many as he can.

I miss you
In the way lovers used to love
- Urgent, daring,
Desiring more than
Just touch.

Lively bright buds
Blossom towards the sun.
Frayed ends-
Of silk pedals
Hug the stem.
Saturated hues of orange,
Capture the eye’s glance.
Marigolds dancing;
Falling from the sky.
As I put a flower in your hair-
The extenuating orange
Shows your glowing face.
Marigolds of love,
Twirling in a fit of ecstasy.
Raining beside lover’s feet.
Luminous colors,
Paint true love
On a canvas of grass;
Creating natural beauty.
Marigolds dance;
As your intoxicating being-
Walks gracefully by.
I want to make love to you,
On a bed of dancing marigolds.
Fragrant smells of spring;
Soothing soft pedals
Protect our entwined bodies,
In a sea of grass, marigolds and skin.
Sweet, passionate, bright love
Is as bold and sweet,
As the golden marigolds.

Dear Father
I’m alone in a very scary place
And I’m not certain how I got here.
I lost sight of the footprints I was following
And wandered off the pathway you laid out for me.

The wind is cold and the sky is dark.
I just heard screeches from the nearby woods
And this path ends in only brambles.
Kneeling on the rocky ground
I beseech the Lord to rescue me.
He either doesn’t hear my cry
Or this is where I need to be
To learn to never take my eyes
Away from the light that guides me.
ljm

The olive dusk tents overheard,
pleated, wavering, starless,

ghostly, embossed with moon,
scratched with street light.

Cars hunt across a new ice blanket,
casting tambourine shakes

onto the pavement as they brake
in cherry arrays. Tonight I watch

my neighbors in their curious coves,
each jaundiced room a flat Argus eye,

as they bed down, break off
the lamp network, pull blinds down

over myriad invisible couplings.
I have hesitations in the dark.

I see the neon-breasted giants
towering towards midnight

in this aching pavilion.
Like prisoners we send messages

with our mirrors.
At the Christmas market,

an etched man sells fake Egyptian
canoptic jars. "Viscera," he says,

"it holds your heart after you die."
The jar looks like it was carved

last week by a bored child.
Even if our hearts shrunk

to apricot pits, abandoned,
betrayed, disappointed, this jar

couldn't hold even one.
Still, I consider it for a moment.

But the olive tent is waving to me:
no sale, no sale, no sale.