Take your sweetness
and bury it deep,
for now is the time
that fire is needed;
hide the tenderness
where you'll remember
to never forget, for
the only fear to fear
is the wild running
through your veins;
take your boldness,
your coffee black nerve
and steady hand squeezing
a hot coal without a flinch;
take your bravery,
your sea legs stiffened
against the storm
of indecision;
take your bright eyed stare
into the dark clouds coming,
take them and nod your head
with downturned lips
at all you were afraid to be.

It may be just a Picasso
blue period
I’m going through.

Or maybe it’s only
Winter’s darkness
not letting the clouds part
for the light of the Moon.

Why am I so sad at heart
whenever I write of you,
my woman of sorrow?

You, wrapped in your robe
like a blue, blue Picasso.

There's a Route 22 near you.
A licorice asphalt road,
Twisting as opposing currents of time,
With anticipation and apprehension,
From home, to unknowns,
From comfort to expectations.
A rural ribbon of signage,
And milestones.

I traveled mine yesterday,
In an overdue Spring,
From Melrose to Bright's Grove.
I writhe and bend with its winding,
Former times arise like heat waves;
Mirage puddles flood my head,
Always just out of reach.

I recalled hitchhiking through Warwick,
As I backtrack,
And almost stop
For one today on the curve
Where they sell the garden gnomes.
I once looked wryly at them
When waiting across the road.

Sprawling upright over the northern landscape,
Towards the Co-ops of Arkona,
And the beer store in Thedford,
Wind farms thrive like techno giants,
In a mutant Utopian world.

****** Mary's red sign no longer hangs
Outside the white house in Lobo,
Where she could bring you in touch
With your dead.
Poplar Hill's trees no longer snow in the summer,
The water wheels are seized, barns are exposed.
The lofts collapsed.

I had to stop near a culvert, to listen to the sound of run-off,
The melt reflecting the transition under the sun,
Converging at Black Creek, Pulse Creek, or Cow Creek,
Carrying forward to the St. Clair River and Lake Huron,
Then onward and back.

Weathered iron fences enclose pioneer graves;
Settlers who cleared the dense Lambton forests,
And made the first ruts along my way,
With wagonfuls of backache.
I know well how you fared on our Route.

i.

moon bird,
fire song,
tremoring desire,

dreams of love
soft as a cloud
carrying the grey rain.

ii.

a gorgeous winter sky,
the deeps tattooed
with light,
the sea a soft
shanty waiting
for the summer
breeze.

iii.

sharp breath of air,
lips like soft petals
of rose,
legs loud with longing

carrying love
like a cloud carrying
rain, crazy in love
with your heart
i'm your shiny mistress
all gold like the weak
winter sun.

iv.

i melt with desire,
black rock and
sighing sky,

i ache in your arms
a storm cloud before
the blowsy wind.

v.

iron sea,
breaking waves
in a watery harbour
of light,

kisses and sighs,
slow dance,
loving you
like the blossoming
light, like the
sea sweeping down.

They are wild things
Sometimes, I swear
I need a shotgun
but so as not –
to hurt the words

I hack them out of weeds
Break the ice to drag them out
Throw rocks at them in trees

Turn around three times fast
and collapse
Sometimes I catch one
still spinning dizzy
floating circle-words in breeze

I command nothing

The poems always have their way

I command nothing!

Not love –  Not time –  Nor hate
Nor sun –  
but the moon-rise –  
maybe

...in dream-light

texas blondes shotgun size

hurricanes can’t survive where northern boys rule,
it is just a national geographic magazine truth,
everybody knows the slow frenetic taking is a compromise,
my tongue parachutes inside the dome and the soft down
comforter is on the floor in the hotel room with a view of
fifth avenue and central park and the occasional glance outside,
a landing zone for the  V-day parapoets

room service delivers in god’s love we trust.
i teach you my mastery and you laugh
texas blonde shotgun size

is that the best you got
and I laugh
cause we don’t got hurricanes in manhattan
unless they are man made
and the shower handle won’t turn us off

in what time zone is it am4:29
and you feed me verses like long legged spaghetti lines,
and i say too fast too fast and you say too bad too bad
northern boy
that how texas blondes shotgun size write poems

4:29am