Last October I wandered a new trail
Leaves had begun to turn and fail
Some stillness 'tween the trees beckoned me,
"Come see"
But it was nothing new again
I had been there once before
So trod a little more
Familiar ground, green beards on rock
Crunching sounds, lichen liveried trunks
Can' t fathom still how
Solid earth let my body down
To stretch out flat, posed a corpse
In his leafy coffin, I suppose
Above, a blur of yellows, peeling
Paint drifting from the forest ceiling
Into slightly parted lips:
Ave Verum Corpus
Then remembering the cherished face
I yearned to see 'ere I leave this place

As a kid, my best days had a trip to the park
in summer,
when Mother had time after work
and it didn't get dark so fast

we rode bikes on the paths between broken glass,
watched for stray dogs
(and avoided the grass)
once we saw two men strolling, holding hands
and Mother said not to stare,
"They must  be  Europeans - they do things like that"

her best friend was Mrs. Cohen-Around-The-Corner
they could cluck across our rough fence out back
or toss apples to one another
were there an apple tree nearby
(but there wasn't)
so they used the telephone instead

the woman, she once told me,
"would just die"
if her only son ever brought home

"a shiksa"

I laughed at the word,
because it sounded sounded funny and ethnic
(Mrs. Cohen taught English)

she let her boy back-talk,
even express profanity
in graffiti on a bedroom door
with black permanent marker
(it could always be repainted later, she explained)

mine met reason with
quick backhands or glowering looks;
once even washed my mouth out
with soap
so I nodded in agreement

I revisited the old neighborhood,
to the teacher long retired;
showed wallet photos
and discussed our health
(hers mostly),
hearing accounts of the son away
years at kibbutz,
too busy to call regularly
or make any grandchildren yet

I didn't mention the trip to the park
which was neater than I remember
the kids played tag
(on the grass!)
until a skinned knee needed a kiss;
where I'm certain I'd seen him, now balding,
the kid from around the corner,
holding hands with a European

i love stumbling upon advice from wizened sages,
who'd 'semble the tao of writing decent poetry
into a clever, lengthy monologue

read years earlier (just a few), it might save me
a hundred odd embarrassments
that, today, bear my name

like the time my kid balled his fists up
'cause i said so
but got knocked down, again, by the playground bully

not a Quakerly thing to do...
i'm still learning, too
(maybe i didn't teach the right stance?)

or perhaps we learn more by our failures;
my little boy's muscular, a confident wrestler, now...
gets along with everybody - go figure

and he writes pretty good poetry  -
all by himself.

warm air crept over ice last night as we slept
arriving to offend morning with doubt
comforting, I think, the frigid sear that reminded once of life

because this restless fog obscures thought
and has made the world smaller, duller
I've begun to wonder, now, where the living hide

there’s a familiar ghost, that man half blind,
wandering creaking boards inside
hoping to find joys in his shoe box of blurred photographs,

researching meaning among reams
of precious handwritten notes and shopping lists,
their chapters stacked in magazine racks and bookshelves

opening the hapless, broken-winged jewelry box
remembered crisply wrapped in ribbons, love and flowered paper once,
to finger its claspless necklaces, orphaned earrings and half smiles


her old clothes are freshly laundered,
the favored sweater with holes, neatly folded
stored in the bottom drawer to savor forever


will we all live, neat, finally quiet
in boxes someday, just like this?
he chose to robe her in that special dress, but kept its matching scarf...



I glimpsed him in her mirror as he paced
and wait for mist to pass

It wasn't long ago
Paper crowns could make princes,
Dandelion hair blown to the air
Granted us all of our wishes;

When wheeled toys on the floor
Kept us playing for hours
Just like two little boys.

Oh, those joys of the swing
I made and hung from the limbs
Of the cherry tree out in back!
Eyes tightly closed, arms spread this wide,
A son once dared learn to fly
Like a nestling soon the wing,
Singing "Daddy! Push me s'more!"

Even strong trees do tire,
Branches growing too long in the sun
Now ropes and plank seat are gone,
So long since unused became nuisance.

But I miss them now,
Those times we plucked cherries
From the tree that once stood there,
Laughing like two little boys.

Isn't it strange living in another person's head?
It's like Being John Malkovich,
or Anne Sexton
as I rode along with her
wild rides into sand at the beach,
lost in Boston again,
inside a mind
that was different but still mine
because I saw
that very street lamp she did,
and in her advice to me,
that yet unborn memory
that would never be,
I heard her words in soft puffs
of nicotine-scented tickles
in my ear, warm air
before young lungs
had ever breathed in,
and I cried
because she was speaking to me,
though she never knew it
when the words clattered
from that old Remington
like a machine gun-
I was just an idea
she never really had,
a wish in soft feathery hair
on the chest of man
she shared lust with as he slept,
not knowing he would father
a specter delivered from a womb
that had closed for business.
Our walks
along an asylum lawn,
returning waves
to suspicious grass,
green oceans to get lost in
after sewing leather wallets
from our own hardened skins
as if projects could ever fix
the worlds of sin we lived in,
pandering doctors offering
officious pretense of cure
against the sweet furies
of sunrises, sunsets,
earth worms and *****.
So, can I cry
having crossed a divide
into another,
for moments residing
in the soul and belly of a mother
who was never mine,
though I feel her pain
as if we own it together?

Where to put the corruption -
fluid-filled half-lungs
choked on their coughs;
until fatigue made them
tentative motions
lived on knives' edges
slipped to flesh too often;
medications eased our pain,
tubes ******* up questions
we didn't want answered.
there were no more procedures -
clinical masks hiding fears
under dry medical terms
could finally be abandoned,
traded for tears shared with the window

Death waited to steal in the room
when our backs were turned;
we let lights burn in daylight
and night to scare away demons
even for a mind too tired to read.
every word yet put to page
had been made irrelevant -
she read mountains in distance,
climbed apple trees
at home again in Pennsylvania,
savoring redness of skinned knees;
sat on dusty mesas and prayed
for things no men had seen.

The child, still afraid of darkness,
begged "if only you would eat?"
but she smiled weakly,
as if embarrassed her secret
had been discovered
and asked me to flip the switch
so she might sleep;
son, always the obedient one,
turned off the light before he left.

settle, then, in serpentine
words once heard when
mixing roses and turpentine -
tales spun again in oils
flung on canvas sheets
always stretched too tight.
tonight a frail frame
might break
before colors make pictures.
It's only cheap pine
that holds it all together,
old bones with thin skin
you'd see through were
it not for the layers of
pigmented emulsions of
emotions trying to hide
the white, wordless,
grinning death waiting
underneath

Oh decry the weakness of our condition,
sets brother on brother,
us versus them
as we march under banners
we’ve made to define us,
hurling words as stones
to defile and ****** the other,
huddle and glorify those loose strands
of similarity that bind the camps
we choose to be in

There is no such thing
as peace we've ever made,
only those lulls which prepare us,
tracing shapes
of the next enemy faced,
togetherness an ideal for armies
marched in lockstep.

Good God!
Were we ever in His image?
Recalcitrant, misfit
creators of the better death
Then suffer so, those who love the weak;
they own multitudes of sins
never answered,
intent yet to invent one
which will make Satan quiver,
finally prove mastery of all universes.
But they are our kin, so love them we must

Try working in a nonunion shop
******* on bottle tops
in August heat, begging the boss
to use the phone in his air conditioned office
to call home,
check in on Mom,
even on your own dime
at lunch time;
working on the bottom rung
among sweat-stained princes
who get to drive forklifts
because they're so much better than you,
dreaming that one day
they'll be allowed to push buttons
and throw switches, too,
which is why they don't share lunch
with the ******* who
sweep floors
and paste labels on boxes;
but the cool air
never made it out there
where any of us worked.

The Lawncrest Acres State Hospital for the Incurably Poetic -
I think dear Granddad, the good doctor,
once practiced there as a clinician
(and as patient once, too)
his writing otherwise confined in public eyes
to those horribly dry tomes whose titles began
"On the practice of..."
whereupon he may have gone
on to expound the virtues of religion in psychiatry
as measured in cross sectional study
or harsh parenting as inherent to induction of pathology
But at home he would write
the sweetest poems to us
on birthdays or just because...
he never wrote one for me, oversight I'm sure,
as I roamed the floor
in his house, same as all the others.
So maybe that's why I secretly try
to be a poet like he was.

I see her lips curl in grimace
A purulence of old meat
Put off too many tomorrows
Air touched disinfected, rescented
An insult in time forgotten.  

Suddenly recalled with that face
Appearing amidst the street
Girlish want of it since disposed,  
Dead flesh wafts again, decayed, fetid
Memories of it since rotten
We look away and walk on

I think I should invent
a GPS for life -
Little dots on a screen
Showing where I've been,
With bold yellow lines
Defining safe paths
Through its strife.
Technology that'll calculate,
Then efficiently navigate
Roads blocked or doors locked.
Better to enjoy times
Spent flying along
Distances lying between
Beginning and end.

I've read far too much psychiatry -
Now knowing from ear to there
Many mysterious processes
That make one's mind blink -
Acute chemical reactions,
Therapeutic medications...
But academic texts
In their dryness
Seem to lose
Life's realness,
Why we think
As we do.
That *****
That comes loose
To throw one off course
Could not be all chemistry.
So academically written are words
To those authors who don't live them.
I'd rather imagine some error of cooking -
That tarragon substituted for basil
Or marjoram instead of sage
Gave that strange taste
To the sauce of my life
That salt could not
Cover over.
A wife
Imbalanced
Wasn't my choice
As young lovers married.
Yet in time I heard the voice
Mimicking demons, evil in cycles.
Excused and forgiven as nature's vice
At first  - then when wrath affected children...
A man can only accept his own scars
As the consequences of his living,
Entered into wide-eyed, willing.
By knife's nicks I've survived,
Callused skin is tougher.
But to save the tender
I think I'll give up
Cooking.

Insanity isn't contagious
As go diseases,
But as butter
It does
Spread

in the city where they rise now,
weeds waist high in summer times,
aglitter under with still-luxuriant diamonds
when the sun shines just so,
even in winter
before lost under snow

all that's left of the window
from which a sweet Juliet surveyed prospects
playing touch football below in the street,
pausing gridiron glories for passing cars
or ladies with bags of groceries in arm

the broken tooth of the block,
just a lot, brick and rock
packed hard
under metal treads of reaping machines,
attracting a profane collection
of neighbors’ wind-blown refuse
to which none will lay claim today

the lovely vanished,
as if her gaze west as sun set
finally pulled her away through clear panes,
one life rejected limited, mundane
and left lifeless a cradle to crumble

none here remember her
every face changed, new as the years
or aged by insults of time and moved on -
nor she the stoop, once so sturdy and safe;
an ancient sycamore's welcome embrace,
cool every August,
would last forever
to the innocent mind of a child

and the woman forgot the crack
in the cemented back yard
where ants lived -
a girl once stared for hours
as they harvested
a crust of sandwich
hidden from the raucous street,
the heat of the sun,

which she decided to follow to its glorious end,
leaving behind a field fallow
where ants,
oblivious to a world that had changed,
fend, still, for a meal
in their broken concrete

wind arrived in secret waves;
chime strings tangled
tongue-tied
while tides
crept neigh strangled
piles, seaweed, dead skates they gave
to sand last night.
white moon's
bright light
broke on water,
like mirror's shattered shards strewn.

A new year came born last night
Or an old one died
Worn and used, useless
Amidst champaign, påte and toasts.
This new day, new noon, new year
Black tie, fine clothes folded,
Noted a shirt stud lost
And must be replaced.
Before we part five stars
Rented the night
I would
Step outside for a cigarette -
No smoking inside, only cigars.
It's just the help who smoke
Paper wrapped scraps
Out back by the trash
And I wouldn't be welcome.
Lobby busy with guests
On their ways through
Doors held open to
Black labeled autos
Where the heeled reach hand
To men whose faces they avoid
Exchanging obligatory graft
Glad their craft returned.
January air stabs
Its frigid blade slicing
Nostrils, lungs in pain, cheek burns
Frost earns my mustache.
Finally past the bustle
Some steps to the side
Where my fix can be lit
"Hey, brother"
A voice, a wretch
Cold taken its toll, nasal exudate
Frozen in a lake on lip
He hopped from foot to foot
And I smelled him, vagabond
An assault to air already painful
Oh, to walk on, feign deafness!
But needy eyes held me
Refusing the cigarette offered
He just wanted to say
"Happy new year"
Know that he existed.
Brown eyes cried
That someone finally stopped
To listen.

I just needed to make a call
Check in with the office
**** pay phones never work
Stealing all my money
On dangerous street corners
Where wary faces
Suspiciously eye me
Before yielding some space
To another intruder

And I have to watch them too
Watch my back
My eyes to the side
That must be why
I didn't notice
Only wondered what made the
Plastic so sticky
Pressed up against my ear
A nosebleed sick smell

Those brown red spatters of
Ketchup a kid squirted
More there and there and
Down on the ground
A congealing pond
More ketchup, I'm standing in it
Then I realize it's not ketchup
And I'm retching like I'll *****
Tell the office I gotta hang up

Tight chest begins refusing
Sin's air it will not breath in
I'm loosing fast
The mask
The street face I put on
Clenched jaw, tight lips
Drowning man claws to surface
For the safety of composure

The faces, they're still watching
They knew what I do now
My grimy hand disgusts me
Like a rotten stinking fish
And I don't want to put it
Back into my pocket
To find that ****** car key
But they own this corner,
I just needed to make a call

From grass and stone I am shepherd of herds,
as of grass and stones have come these beasts;
and of my beasts, I soon shall be,
keeper and kept wound into thee,
Oh Grass and Stone from which I have come.

February's
another month marked;
its ever requisite yellow roses
unceremoniously left for a morrow's snow's
cover of quiet over stone rows;
a foot path pocked
temporarily

I’m lying on a beach, sun-punched subconscious
not too hot as a briny breeze still blows ashore,
but warm and melted onto the ground
like candle wax spilled over

nearby recumbent girls, unmoving as statues,
**** Aphrodites raised of sand and sea foam
splay across loose opened chitons
unfurling scents of oils and lotions,
awaiting their animation from kisses of salt mist
or ocean tide come in too close

they’d vanish by next glance
lost in minutes or hours passed
the impressions they’d left filled with glistening sparkles,
constellations of miniature stars fusing
then extinguishing by pairs to gray flatness

ascendant on gulls' laughter, wind-stretched,
entangled among broken waves
in an endless silk scarf god once made
but left behind in his dream at dawn
when light then carved each grain its shape -
this beach for me to sleep on

Psychotic break stole
Sound mind with a dream
Escaped from the hole
Left by heart's loss.
Paste and paper seams
Meant to give gloss
To facades distressed
Unravel in time
And a life, no less,
Is bound to come loose
When built on old lies.
Lost to reality
In a new delusion
I watched a poor fool,
Arms flapping wildly
Certain they were afire
Set to flame by the embers
Of that brazier
Lit a life time ago,
Left hidden in past
Still aglow,
Time's slow drip
Yet unable
To put the coals to rest.
From poets,
Madman learns,
Salving fresh burns
With quenching words,
Delighting in their
Cooling flow,
A newfound remedy
For a primal malady.
Babbling in swatches,
Speaking of things
That aren't there
But maybe were.
Then lighting more matches,
Lest the glow extinguish
Its delirious illusions
Ease smoldering anguish,
But leave the room too cold

It was there tonight, crimson bright, pointed, starlike
driving attentions as if by divine intervention
(some said, rather, evil - that the devil had come)
inviting irregular cracks to the shield of glass between us
by which we could gauge its thickness, at last  

regardless, eyes focused in darkness
on the pointed part of a blade
dodging ****** by coupé with the leg of a chair
blaming planetary alignment for the thickness of air

it was always here -
before, somewhat yellow or orange
but at such distance we could pretend it a figment
or blur on the lens, enjoying toast slices at breakfast
despite its tempestuous hold of our lives

Shall we through this tall grass run, children
heed the urgency of crickets this early morning,
outrun meandering trodden trails we'd make?

or await to pack our baskets
with late summer peaches picked
after sun shakes dew from waning leaves of her laden tree

life is measured in those quick steps
the insects said,
scattering ashes of the dead never teaches them to fly

much as we might try, but we might yet
they know winter's shadow always too soon arrives,
an uninvited guest in this meadow

Autumn leaves chased after
One another
Spinning pirouettes like
Children at play
Rustling in gentle laughter.
I stifled a cry
To call them aside
Stand clear from harm's way
"Rest with me amid
Short grass and mud"
I thought I should say
Then, these days,
Their days,
Have number, too
So I stood quietly by,
Lived their joy
As they hopped and flew
'Till speeder's wake,
A blind, uncaring rake,
Swept them all away

Truth was always found
in tongues of loose razors;
sarcasm's edge pared
flesh sentimental,
weakness fallen
in strips to the ground,
where salt sown in handsful
ensured earth never fertile
that any blossoms might grow

So long food for the soul,
sharpness scooped up,
that bare hands
drunk in deep draughts,
and welcomed the cup
from which they poured forth;
occasional trips into hell,
for audience with the devil
to discuss global weather,
other pressing matters...


So to find anything of beauty,
like treasure revealed in moon beams
striking at just the right angle -
intricate, delicate, diaphanous
scarf trembling in melodies
only I hear, heartsongs
escaped lips of a siren
in distance where
stars grow...

Reading wonder in silk strands
woven as if by angel's hands;
imagined some magic
spun for me
a web that had existed
eternally, though never seen
'till revealed accidentally
in reflections of some
ancient lights

Today I'm made of starfire
sharpest blades can't uncover;
in morning, pondering patterns
clouds make in blue skies
like child's discoveries;
listening to sonatas in sunsets
as sweet tastes of poetry
relieve lingering stings
of doubt in my mouth

Ogres once hid behind rocks in the garden
Guarding grass and blossoms
From those who'd defile them.
Evil done from innocent oaks
Wrapped tight in jute ropes,
Those shows for the children
Who stared wild, wide
At white sheets and men dancing
Some curing like hams, hanging from branches.
We thought saints from distance had stopped it -
Carnage in leaves after parades
****** of hate in the streets.
Old stories torched, sealed lips
Evidence lost or forgotten.
Devils unmasked and converted,
Now singing hymns in pews
At white churches on Sunday,
Burning Jesus in secret at night in the forest,
Just trees and stars to bear witness
Their worship of wizards and spiders,
Prancing through ashes like white knights astride
Their grand, imagined white horses.
Saints, grown bored of the chore they started,
Taught men new words to pretend
They'd never offend - at least not in public -
As smoke still corrupts lungs of the children,
Playing old games with new rules they've been given.

life lost new words
like old eyes bereft of light
and work of thought
comes at painful price
a man's mind dreams old air, faces stars
and remembers real flesh, lips, love;
the lightness of falling leaves

and knows their memories
of a watery day in spring,
when past beauty used red steel
to hide a child shared with rain,
his face unseen, body gray
under waves kept closed to wonder

sky, loose at the fine ends
of dark death’s skin
has seen years, the trees
now sleeping peacefully
relieved of the burden they’d borne
embracing the coursing winter winds
where a son might live as breath-thoughts,
the little cloud of wild hope passing
giving purpose to the heavens

a new morning huddled
over the small stove set on snow
cold-numbed fingers
fumbled with matches
to light it

coughs punched at a dust rag sky,
the dull rasps
embarrassed near neighbors might hear
how the weak
body heaves, wracks
they'd smell kerosene on hands and clothes
if they came too close

the bent over figure
counts ashes afloat, relics
of fresh disasters wrought high,
loosing tally at one in hope it was the last;
restarts the reckoning -
it might be a tempest this time

fire fed by collections of poems,
old histories of things with no purpose,
expired quickly in overnight darkness
cold, gray their corpses still lay
beyond brushed bricks of the hearth

even a grocery list,
its page neatly erased under flakes,
chases after vapors escaped an empty fuel can,
hunger replaced by craving to be warm again

inside, behind the door
they bow heads and say grace at the table
praying over slices of light from a window
intoning with cotton puff voices
still
God gives tomorrow to continue the counting

Poetry is poking through the ashtray
for the lost word I spit away
on the the last cigarette to make sure it was out
(because I sicken from smoke of burning cellulosic filters,)
distracted, tapping another growing ash
into a glass I'll surely sip from later
It'll cough out dry and chalky
from my fingers
they all go to the same place -
whiskey, cigarettes, words -
and presume to have meaning
when it's late,
making a game of speeding clocks
until they're bored and stagger home
to their closet under the stairs,
leaving me to wash their empty glasses
and sweep off the dusty pretensions
they've left on my desktop,
wishing I'd gone to bed earlier
or repotted some geraniums instead.

The wolf's gnawing at my liver -
Doesn't hurt yet, really.
Every now and then he pauses
To look at me,
Cool, blue eyes,
We two.
He's hungry;
I'm tired.
Better than eating chocolate
By the fire at night -
Sweetness dulls the teeth,
I'm told,
And warmth only slows us.
Better off cold
Here in snow drifts,
With draughts of vinegar
And brine to keep minds sharp.
Soon, I'll nourish a tree,
Feed its roots.
He'll *** on me.

Were answers in rain,
Now just a fine mist.
Dark pools that remain
Seem to hint what I missed.
When it had come falling,
Wet head was bowed low;
Could heaven been calling
With answer of "Go
Please leave me to be
You simple, mad fool!
Bereave silently -
It's in quiet that you'll
Find new peace, obscurity,
Rediscover your place.
I gave you security,
Never again seeing my face",
Repeating sentiments
Expressed long ago,
In words that once sent
A weak soul to hell.
So, shoes soaked again,
Today just in puddles,
I ponder this rain
And whether it had meaning.

Body and mind in turmoil
Painted manic swirls of color,
From dust raised
In wind from soil
We sit at eternity's gate.
Within our simple frames
Rests God's nobility
Invested with His breaths
'Till called to home at last.

In the garden we danced,
My eyes and the butterfly,
Singing among the colors
Grace alive, a laugh
Kissing sun draped blooms


Too soon came the chill of fall
When wind-flung loose withered leaves
Mimicked the movement
They'd eyed in envy
The butterfly now gone.


Winter brought its ballet
In showering flakes of snow
When frigid ground braced against
Swirling pirouettes
Of beauty in ice


I hurry past my garden
With no time to linger by
Only in dreams still see
The butterfly dance
Her gentle waltz of summer

on winds broke words, gentle echoes -
piano's chords, sweet, freed foregone sins
by its voice lost from across a vast canyon
recast halcyon the tempest -  it paused, a tree rejoiced
pitched leaves, ever bitter, tasted gentler breaths
rested, murmuring their peace which weaved
season's tapestry, as poetry
came home to its nest

Where's the heroism
In the folds of sheets
Tubes and wires' maze
Pads, sheaves of gauze
Rhythmic beating bleats
Of a mechanism

A last hope stand-in heart
Running on AC,
Chest grotesquely heaved
Each breath achieved
Like death's ecstasy
Young actor played his part

Defending hollow honor
On familiar streets
As if he had to
Live the credo
It's first love life cheats
Son won't mourn his mother

I AM a monster.
The boy dropped
At my feet
My first thought -
"Could have been me
Who got popped"
I am a monster,
Left him there
At the foot of the stair
Out the side door
To the car before
Cops blocked the drive
I am a monster
Never asked why
Or did he survive
Kept it all in
And smiled at dinner
"More mashed, dear?"
I am the monster
Who lived life in lies
Thinks of his own
Perfect, lovely son
Hides away and cries
It could have been him

I learned the hard way
Hurricane's eye is just a lull
The other half yet to make its day
But having long ignored the call

And there, in place, with no escape
Pulled covers neigh, made peace
With force then scouring the cape
Feeding fears and doubts to its beast

Finally finding sleep, sweet rest
Accepting bed rocking, wind's howls
Awakened when morning's sun rose to bless
That battered, still standing house

Oh what glory brings new days!
White sea from foam still full
Boiling excitement in each new wave!
Folly survived, a new man, more humble

It's prime time...
Let us now
Lower heads and bow,
Sing hymns to the responsive
Drive train of the latest model,
Ignore a "fasten seat belt" chime
Get on with real business,
Speeding mountain curves
In seats of Corinthian leather
(Professional driver
On closed course)
Of course the fine print
Didn't make it
To the big picture,
Seven twenty P HD
How repulsive!
To lay wreaths, handmade signs
Bows and teddy bears
In loving memory of the lost
As if it really matters
That a pizza delivery man,
Loving father of two,
His Corolla ripped to tatters,
Sacrificed a life to bring pie
In a half hour or less.

I've sworn off dreams,
Willing, instead, gray nights,
A sleep of the dead
To match the day.
That loss of control
Over thoughts that
Were once so carefully
Jailed and forgotten
Is hard to regain
As sun arises,
Consciousness reigning again.
Memories of faces, their places,
Feelings best left suppressed,
Otherwise find freedom -
Unchained to dance in
Convolutions of mind
That bend time,
Like letters folded
Bringing beginning to end,
Blurring new words,
Ink not yet dry -
As awake, at work,
In midst of a chore,
Suddenly expecting
Young lovers will be sitting,
On that stoop over there;
Night's scenes will still dance,
Steal away the days,
And life become one long
Reverie.

Collected, raked to piles
Browned leaves, each a memory
Of a summer's sun-drenched day.
Now even most pious prayer
Unable to revive once emerald glory.

Birds that danced and sung among
The shady canopy
Have moved on, and I wonder
If they still remember
These leaves they once claimed.

Or have fresh foliage, warmer days
Resplendent sweet fruits to savor
Washed them clean again  
To bear from here no more mark
Than a season's passing?

Left to rest where it has fallen
The mass will choke the grass beneath.
So, having paused to recall past splendor,
Bent back resumes Autumn's labor  -
Collect and rake to piles.

It's prime time...
Let us now
Lower heads and bow,
Sing hymns to the responsive
Drive train of the latest model,
Ignore a "fasten seat belt" chime
Get on with real business,
Speeding mountain curves
In seats of Corinthian leather
(Professional driver
On closed course)
Of course the fine print
Didn't make it
To the big picture
How repulsive!
To lay wreaths, handmade signs
In loving memory of the lost
As if it really matters
That a pizza delivery man,
Loving father of two,
His Corolla ripped to tatters,
Sacrificed a life to bring pie
In a half hour or less.

Always a gray sky
Filled with something
That'll stay there -
Rain or snow -
Could be thunder
It won't share.
Whatever
Would come cursed,
Pain or joy not to know.
Though when it
Empties
Even barren hearts
Sometime see beauty
In soft snow flakes
Masking dull landscapes;
Springtime downpours
Clean
Staleness from air
For hours,
Making amends for trouble.
That release
Could connect us.

autumn's last leaves lingered,
bearing witness whiteness
of first flakes
to fall, whispered
to one another
"warm summer is over -
now’s time to go home"

Here it rests,
Splayed over lawn
Like a drunk old man
Finally lost legs and fallen.

Held fast through tempests
Long before I was born,
Sworn timeless -
Grandness embracing our sky,

Now crumpled, helpless
Across fence, on grass.
Numberless the seasons birds'
Nests were welcomed -
Summers alive with tapping
As woodpeckers hammered
Their homes in its branches,
Leaving as young were
Done with its shelter.

In Autumn, I once watched
A squirrel scamper a limb,
Disappearing, somehow, within.
Their secret's now obvious
As I can see the trunk was
Eaten hollow and empty.

The poor dumb giant
Spoke only when breezes
Animated leaves in evening,
Never given voice of its own
To decry those insults,
Feeding sweet fruit, instead,
To those creatures that ate
Of the strength held within.

Vibrant green life in spring
Was a veneer too thin,
As in living a lie
Finally admitted in sighs
Of the wind.

Just the smallest speck  -
A mote of red, reminder
That bare hands aren't best
Used to wipe at shards of glass.
Funny we use something as
Delicate to cover a photo,
As if there beneath rests
Something so precious
It can be protected
By crystal fragility.
Yet paper's still intact -
Even were it not,
Image is stored digitally.
There could be hundreds more
If they're what we'd want,
Enhanced to erase blemishes
Unwanted age, pasted ersatz
Smiles upon our faces,
A window into a past
That probably never existed -
I don't remember anymore.
Perhaps plastic covers
From now will be best.
I prefer the sound acrylic
Makes when it strikes.
Dull thuds die easily -
No sounds of permanence,
Nor as hard to clean, either.
Though, picture's stained,
Shouldn't have touched.
Then, frame wasn't the aim
Of all that rage, was it?

grand those fortunes
which still pour,
grains of purest sugar
from sores in sacks where it's kept

they never bother the floors -
hillocks at times swept
for country club dues,
or spent on jaguars
the youngsters will drive -

it refills from endless supply,
now out of ransomed dreams
a rabble may dare,
repaid in their knees
and knuckles worn bare

bleeding tremolite lungs of old men
lending respectability to old names,
ensuring children's safe distance
from wizened brown limbs
of people forefathers traded,
broken black bodies hidden
in mounds of white wealth,

heathen souls saved at the altar,
naked but for irons they wore
lives mortgaged for
their good Christian deaths
all for sweetness
of more.

fire's gone now

humid air relieved in wash of heaven
to cool aching asphalt
by the tree

steam rose

it looked like steam, but may be fog
and the branches hang low
with the load they still hold
from a broken sky

why rain rather than days forever
heavy, humid, expectant
pregnant with maybe
despite their misery?

I now wonder why
I wasted this perfect summer
worrying over weeds
that will never die,
sip death from another cigarette

they'll dance in my ashes someday
my treasures of memories
grown the arrogance of a fool

fire's gone now.

tongues learned new languages,
swirling around satin stanzas
tasting sweet nectar hidden within -
retracing trails in new words learned,
hoping to memorize
each glistening jewel of dew
lest it all be forgotten
among the petals

in moist breath,
shared prayers heard whispered
their shapes lost meaning -
old symbols like bodies of flesh,
only vessels of meaning -
when souls found meeting
all edges melted
existence reflected in eyes
of another