Boundless tall grass that carpet the land,
Will come and go with every season,
Wildfire tries but can’t consume them,
In the new spring wind yet still they stand,
Thickly pressed on the roadside edge,
Winding their way to the forest line,
Prince of fire, you'll flame up again,
I'll hear the tall grass whisper after you.

Cut'em apart, still intact,
Tidy'm up, still they crack,
Those lives in separation,
A tiny taste of desolation

If you see me led,
With old hand tethered,
to a mangy one-eyed mutt.
Dare you not feel shame for me,
Yet still I retain the dedication of one.

He asked her for a short cut,
she showed him the way.
He asked her for some water,
She drew for him a shower.
He thanked her for such kindness,
She returned him her smile.
All night she then sighed
scarlet cries like flowers.
Her longing unrequited
In the morning’s quiet hour

She weeps,
Never to see her true love again.
Soft cheeks gleam wet on her face.
She might ask where now
Her love may be found.
Past streets of longing
Empty is her place.

The west wind screams,
A hard rain comes,
Beyond the sound,  
Of this immediate need,
the noise of near thunder,
turns the sky’s great lock.
Ozone fries as lightning flies,
A tattle wind tries to escape.
Young as I peered,
through my bedroom screen,
when the gods of weather,
struck me dumb.
The love of the storm,
Still ignites my sadness,
One inch of love,
is another of madness.

Grim deserts consumed but not eaten
while in the midst of agonies that linger
provide no good taste for truths untold

requested at the table for lies and lecture
slurping bland soups of social conjecture
never have I cared for liquid meals

I am served a gamey, and dark stained fate,
Like a child, I play with the thoughts on my plate
Impulse at the table, feeding my foolish pride

It is not that I need this food to hoard
I am no less hungry as I am less bored
different perhaps, but still hungry inside

Only now do I hunger after my power of will
To taste and ingest, to possess and then wield
A potential fulfillment for life’s wonderful meal.

Lights through a thousand dappled leaves,
Recall my mind from a noon day nap.
The shadow of a tree grows winding on my wall,
Through the variegated path of my window screen.
The tree on a hill shares the sun's bright light,
Warming my shades only partly drawn.
All life is now shadow in my room it does seem.
And now I know not if I wake or I sleep,
Music breathes through the silence to sing,
Wind in the shadows tree leaves or a song?
Drawn from a violin with shadows for string,
Be this visual music within my dream?

Walking beside a river,
I watch my silly shadow dance,
From ripple to ripple in wild romance,
With the rivers frantic drop,
to clear and brilliant pools.
What does the river see,
In my shadow unfettered and free?
One thousand sparkling eyes in sun,
Reflected from its liquid run?
Or is it only an admiring gaze,
The wisdom of the river seeks?

Were my light even brighter
I would be invisible
I could live concealed in my realm
never once knowing
the absence of joy
I would be stunned
by that void
into which shadows vanish
forms dissolve
and in falling,
I would imagine flying
without a sky
Only sounds would reach
My surviving memory
Clear as a tinkling bell
and never again
Would I have need,
for feigning introductions,
or false niceties.

Concrete now the farmers field,
where we once played together,
Picking warm red strawberries in the sun.  
Here, where we used to search,
for the power of words and ancient mages,
Your tablet of poems diffuse peace to my pocket.
The wind has torn it and the rain has beaten,
Through the frayed binding and tattered pages,
Seeking new life upon those words you wrote.
Yet still I trace your strawberry scented breath,
Well preserved in your long past pen strokes,
Evocative memories of the Strawberry Songs,"
found within the tears with which you wrote.
I go now in further quest of words,
and warm ripe strawberries in the sun.

Through the windows of a passing train,
dawn rain darkens lighter green,
this sudden color of the rain,
In passing fields revived,
Gives me urge to swelling surge,
A salty rain within my eye.

Strung tightly he remains
Like a violin in mating season
And the banal carpet
His two bare feet do stain
Solemnly still he stands
In his kaleidoscopic rain
Until mystery dissolves him.
All in perfect poise somehow.

I cannot speak of those days,
when fresh coffee scent began to float,
filling the morning air with hope,
when our sons' childish laughter,
hung like musical notes on currents of air.
Let us not speak of the glowing arms of sky,
that used to capture us at dusk,
And oh, the live oaks let us not trace,
Their spreading branches clothed in leaves,
They giving us shelter in our dreams,
or yearn for the noise of a colorful bird,
that treated us with humors ease.
Let us not remember the first smell of rain,
Instead, I can only think of now,
In the present of past lives lost to me.  
I might consider remembering them,
With the glowing sky and coffee beans,
in shaded houses on sunny streets.
Might I then set my memory afloat,,
like a paper boat down a river.
I could ask that paper please,
whisper our story to the water,
that the water sing it to the trees,
for the trees to shake and shiver,
at pleasure through their leaves.
If I keep still and do not speak,
I might hear our whole life past,
Remove my presence from this void,
until the wind is the only word heard.

Flee now from witches and wizards
Along ethereal paths of dreadful haze
Careful now of those tower lights
Searching the mists for human blood
Wicked the bones rattle hollow around me
Resilient the mystery of darkness remains
In the past periphery of my childhood days

MY little turtle labors alone,
All other turtles have quit this year
No one will pause to stop and praise
Its measured pace of travel I fear,
Now that my turtle time is near.

Bought as a lark,
From the corner pet store,
A green and blue parrot,
vivid as newly leaved trees,
Talked always in human words.
And still they did to it then,
what has always been done,
To the oh-so wise and talkative,
They bought a cage with sturdy bars,
And shut it up inside.

My friend is living now
among serene green hills
Enchanted by the beauty
of mountains in clouds.
In the green Spring days,
he lies sleepy in the woods;
Dozing as the sun shines high

If you were to ask him
Why live among the hills,
Quietly he would laugh to himself.
His soul is calm as blossoms birth
He follows the running waters
And there finds for himself
another heaven and earth

This mournfulness, this restlessness
these inner convulsions,
Bound on a cloudy island,
heartache within, body still dying
all this hard fought by me.

And they were vast,
those tears, those pleas, those hearts that bleed
great walls of steel, calamity,
harsh words, and promises,  
Of spring to be,

Life undone by a stubbornness mine
Destruction achieved in perfect rhyme.
Some gray mornings
the wind and I,
Still wish for a sun to see

Your beautiful thoughts like butterflies blow by,
With such swift colors on their fragile wings.
Some are less articulate than a sigh,
And others simply names,
of ancient songs and lovely things.
What delicate fluttering’s of escape,
as they pass beyond my grasping reach,
To leave their haunting wispy shapes,
Eluding my careful traps of speech.
And though I watch and listen and wait,
To view the colorful clouds blow through,
I’m longing for some colors escape,
To venture near my heart so true.
So maybe being a fortunate captor
Should it happen time to time,
That one be caught so trembling,
Within my mortal rhyme.
Then to you I would give in haste,
This,
my most precious find.

Someday soon I will be
A feeble old man
Dozing somewhere in the sun
When all I can do I have done
And my life is but a shattered plan
What could be better than
Dozing there under the sun?

I would grow very still
As an old stone perched on a hill
And be content with that one
Thing that has always been kind
To me the warming sun.
I may grow deaf and blind
And never hear a voice
Nor think I could rejoice
With anyone in any place
And would soon forget my face
and love only the sun.
Because when I am weary and tired,
And cannot again be fired
By any small chance of hope
The sun will then be comforting
As bird-song in the spring

Give me only the feel
Of an old and comfy chair
Out in the air
And let me rest there
Moving not
Loving not
Only dozing till my days
Might be done
There under the sun.

Solemn I sat drinking  
and never noticed the dusk fall.
I sat dreaming and never knew
it was evening that grew
Till the fresh falling stars
filled the folds of my clothes.
So drunk I arose
In search of moonlight water
To quench my solemn thirst
For just a little longer

Out of a universe of things,
Only two,
Give me any measure of peace,
The rain,
That shuts you out,
And wind,
That bears me away.

Please hush those books
of gruesome dark beasts
page after page they tremble me
They feed on my grief
with a hunger that rivals
the sadness of sudden parting.
Yet I am nowhere without them,
those beasts who never die.
They gnaw at me like oceans at shores.
Perhaps I too would be full of beasts
if not for daylight to make them lazy.
Or maybe those books only spill the blood
Of those beasts of grief they would conceal?

This evening my shadow
Has come down the mountain.
sole company kept with only the moon.
Looking back, I see the path they’ve taken
Through twilight glass of purple in June.
With sighs my shadow flies to greet me,
Spring staines upon his traveler’s clothes.