Nearly drowned, the
fisherman runs from
the raging sea as it
swallows his boat, then
looks back to marvel at  
its stunning power.

She wades in the
river teeming with
life, holding her
sandals above her
head, her bronze
face illuminated
by the brilliant
late afternoon sun.

From her window the
pale, willowy young
woman, a midwife,
watches a paper cup
being tossed around in
the wind. The dark ocean,
the great progenitor
in the background,
illuminated by waning
moonlight. She waits
for his headlights
to appear, her fiancé,
a fleshy, ruddy man,
the town’s undertaker,
who brings freshly cut
carnations, and a
long, warm embrace.

Our plight.
Instinct
lost, life
drifting, like a
paper airplane
swept away
on a breeze.

I won’t bore you with the
whole story, I’ll go right
to the end, when it’s
the day of the wedding
between the gangster and
his bride, the lawyer, and
the priest at the church
is eating his lunch, a
strip-steak with creamed
spinach, as the bag-man
delivers the airline tickets
for their honeymoon in
Borneo, and the gangster
is tossing the gun
into the river, as his
bride is passed-out on

the floor of the church,
under the circular apse,
having been struck on
the head with a sacramental
chalice, and the priest, who
is really a spy, is dead,
apparently poisoned
by God knows who, and
the gangster is on his way
to Borneo, alone, as the
concussed lawyer-bride is
half-awake and can’t remember
where she is, how she
got there, or why she is
wearing a very ******
creamy-white wedding dress.

All day she tends the garden behind

the house. Every morning she lines up

clear jars on the kitchen counter,

like rows of pacifist soldiers. In the

evening they are filled with fresh

yogurt. Some evenings we sit by the

fire and she reads Haiku poetry aloud.

Nothing expository there, she says,

then winks and laughs like a church bell.

One night as I was passing by the

drive-in movie theater, I saw her

up on the screen, playing a spy

disguised as a goat. Last night she

sat in the meadow, in the moon light,

wearing the robes of a Buddhist monk.

In the morning I asked if she was

rehearsing for another movie role.

Oh no, sir, she replied, I can assure

you I am entirely the real thing.

Then she crowed, exactly like

a rooster at morning’s first light.

The news anchor,
with perfectly
formed ripe red

lips, describes
another unsavory
political scandal,

as the leaf blower
loudly propels
autumn’s colorful

debris from the
driveway, while the
iron heats up,

poised to press
the wrinkles out
of the white shirt,

with its faint
brown stain of
forgotten origin.

Who is it that sits
on the cushion
on the floor, here
in the twilight,
during the final
hours of spring?

Nine words
scrambled
in the wind.


are

habitable

They

democracy

a

planet.

and

of

ending

The dog is chasing
the cat around the
barnyard, while the
widowed farmer
is planting the corn,
while his daughter is
reading a fashion  
magazine, dreaming
of the runway, while
her little sister
selects a green crayon
to use in her Let’s
All Save The Planet
coloring book, while
the dog continues
to chase the cat
around the barnyard.

The cuckoo
sings to me.

The cuckoo
was sacred

to the Greek
goddess Hera.

The cuckoo
resonates like

a flute and often
sings at night.

Those Bavarian
clocks got it

wrong. The
cuckoo is a

singer of the
hallowed song.

The finch
sings its

song as
if it just

discovered
itself in

the wonder
of nature.

The wind-up chimp
in the swimming pool,
dressed like a sailor,
steering the vessel
shaped like a man’s body,

when a noun dressed as
an exclamation point
falls off its stilts, landing
on the chimp and they
tumble into the water.

The noun floats but the
chimp sinks to the bottom
and as he winds-down,
prays to The Savior
Marionette and in his

mind she dances, in
her tutu, toes barley
touching the surface of
the water, expressionless,
the strings barely visible.

I was the shadow
puppet, a barking
dog. Then became

the vigilant cat, that
apprehended the
ruse. Now I am

the rarely seen
mouse, too swift
even for the cat.

What I saw at the
moment of my death:

a mouse trap,

a card trick,

a woman riding her
bicycle in the park,

a businessman

who lies for a living,

an empty kayak
navigating the river.

Fish in
a tub
swimming
in circles.

What are you doing
to yourselves? I can

not suitably reply
to the question  

posed by the vast,
unfathomable

sea, as my little boat
barely stays afloat.

The answer: three.
Two to hold the
ladder, and one
to shoot the gun.

I’m sorry. I
was distracted.
So, what was
the question?

An ode to
the broken

world, its
stories and

images
stretched

like taffy to
satisfy an

insatiable
sweet tooth.

In the explosion the nouns
are blown to pieces—short
words, syllables, and letters
scattered along Main Street.
Action-verbs and state-of-being

verbs are maimed or dead
in large numbers. Forensic
investigators attempting
to reconstruct the original
scene are, so far, unsuccessful.

The great author declares
herself to be a bright white
blank page. The enigmatic
costume designer, La
Gioconda, dresses the entire

cast in bright white attire.
The terrorists: the adjectives
and exclamation points escape
to another realm. Luminous
question-mark-shaped celestial

talent agents hover above the
scene and announce that the
new narrative will be wordless
and staged in the park, among
the saplings and baby strollers.

This new and experimental
production, entitled How It
Starts will begin its run sometime
in the early spring, according
to the publicist Mr O.B. Pieriod.

Thank you.

night falling
clouds

dusky pink
murky gray

over the seaside
sailor’s head

this envelope
sealed

labeled vital
information

enclosed
lying on the

pavement in
front of her

house what is
it? her foot

moving it
aimlessly

like the sailor
on leave

then spinning
like the

drunken sailor
then a gust

of wind blows
it down the

street like the
drunken

sailor’s
white cap

forgotten the
next morning

like it never
existed

Who knew there
are so many
poets—lurking

in the shadows,
walking in the
sunlight, running

naked on the
beach, or sleeping
in defunct malls?

The past is a room
with a peculiar door.
I am inside, then
open the door and
exit only to be
back inside again.

Even though
there is

nothing about
himself that

he likes, he
defends his

image like he
is singing

the final aria
in a tragic

Italian big
time opera.

The old woman’s
gardener plants the
sapling in her
front yard. Then a
night of fierce winds
and rain. The new
tree remains intact.
You could write
a poem about that.

I am the dead man,
lying face down on

the living room floor,
blood running from

my ear, a used
ticket to the

opera in my pocket,
a recently retired

insurance adjuster,
never married, and

on the blaring
television

the blundering, but
lovable sit-com

character, does a
slapstick prat-fall, and

on the floor the dead
man’s broken drinking  

glass that was
half full or half

empty, which amounts
to the same thing.

The magician pulls the

rabbit out of the hat.
The dog in the field

follows the fresh scent.
The magician produces the

dove from the handkerchief.
The cat hears the quiet

mouse behind the wall.
The magician saws the

living assistant in half.
The owl in the forest sees

clearly in the black night.

The centipede inches
along on the ceiling
as she watches
contemplating its future,

and he sits on the chair
and opens the half-
finished historical novel
which is illuminated by

the artificial overhead
light, while their young
child parts the curtains
and kneels at the window

to gaze upon the night
sky and the brilliant full
moon which appears
to have a human face.

The green
grass is
wet from

rain. Her
elegant
footsteps

have left
their delicate
impressions.

You are
bathed
at birth.

You are
bathed
at death.

One can
bathe in
every

moment
and shed
the dust

and soot
before it
accumulates.

The pilot is flying the
small white airplane in
circles, for the fun of it,
in the cloudy blue sky,

and below the black dog,
in the red car, is looking
out the window, barking
at nothing in particular,

and across the street
the banker in a gray suit
scurries, preoccupied by
a problem at the office,  

and in the apartment
above, there is only an
awareness, sitting on an
empty chair, breathing.

He is a
yardstick,
a measure
of something.

He is a
body, something
worn like a
suit of clothes.

He is a
string of words,
a sentence
to be parsed.

He is an
individual,
a myth
that is told.

He is a vast
space,
a screen life
is projected on.

The sunrise looks like
something ******

the cat coughed up.
Having not done his

homework all year he
is failing algebra class.

He wakes up in bed,
then falls back asleep.

He’s in the front yard
and can’t find his pants.

The school building is
like a jigsaw puzzle that

is impossible to solve.
The sunrise looks like

something ******.
He wakes up in bed,

then falls back asleep.
Of course he doesn’t

know that he is asleep.
He’s forgotten how to

balance the equation.
The edifice is a puzzle.

In the end, it can all
be explained, and none
of it can be explained.

Tomorrow will exist,
of course, but by
then it will be today.

Language becomes
a long gurgle and
a quick sputter, and

as expected, by those
still paying attention,
it is irrevocably broken.

There is an avalanche of syllables
uploaded day & night. It’s a wonder
one can find a verse to connect with
in the mountain words. I’m grateful
for those I have found. It’s like those
two hands reaching out to each
other, painted on the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel by some dude a
long time ago.

And I’m trying to read the longer
poems, those that might take
3 - 5 minutes to read—oh, the
commitment—the same amount
of time it takes to brew a
cup of tea. In both cases, it’s
time well spent. If you read this
past the first few lines, thanks.

The ailing king hobbles
from his throne to his bed
and dies, but his ghost
continues to rule, and he
accomplishes nothing,
just as it was in the flesh.

Under the harvest
moon, the farmer
mourns his dead
wife. In his black
suit, sitting on
the white rock,
he looks like
a question mark.

This poem may  
be lovely or
clever, but it is
analogy, made
of appearances,
insubstantial, like
a finely attired,
beautiful corpse.

In this
world,

even a
simple

cherry
blossom

constitutes
a miracle.

The very tall man, the owner of
a cosmetics company, is reading
a detective novel about a con-artist.

The little girl in the corner of the room
is calculating how long until the end.
The end of what? the very tall man

wonders. In the room above his head,
his wife, a chemist at his company,
is having an affair with the town’s

only physician. Outside in the tall
weeds, lit only by the dim glow of a
waning crescent moon, a fortune-teller,

formerly a lawyer in the public defender’s
office, is giving a reading to the
very tall man’s chronically ill twin sister.

Using ordinary playing cards as her
vehicle, the oracle looks like she’s
playing solitaire. She stares blankly at

the ill woman for several long seconds,
then states flatly and decisively,
No hearts, my dear, simply no hearts at all.

A countryside
dirt-road, a black
crow in the blue
sky, a scarecrow
dressed as Jesus,
and trash swirling
in the late
November wind.

Even in
these
perilous
times,

flowers
are
blooming
everywhere.

Dried, faded red
carnations on
an electric blue

tabletop, a dark
green avocado
sliced open,

revealing the
ripening inner
canary yellow flesh

and sienna brown
seed, and on the
wall above, a

round clock—with
bold black numbers
on a stark white

background—
that audibly ticks
every second.

Tableau (taˈblō) - a group of
models or motionless figures
representing a scene from
a story or from history.


The poet laureate is—
inexplicably—on his
knees, holding a

jack-o-lantern above
his head and the self-
proclaimed Great Leader

has just stepped behind
the pumpkin, with its
crooked smile, which

obscures his head and
the eclipsed moon—
a blood moon—hangs

over the Fool in his
green and red checked
costume, holding his

recently authored book,
Chaos Theory, The Order
Within Disorder, while he

opens the gate of the
lion’s cage, and behind
them, in the far distance

is the black smoke and
swirling fires of war, and
opposite the war are the

masses of somnambulist
citizens, crashing into
one another like carnival

bumper-cars, and in the
mid-distance is a blur
of a figure—probably the

Mad Scientist—next to his
new invention, the eight-
armed Robotic Chain-saw,

The Federal Model and
nearest to us, hovering in
the gathering darkness are

translucent Celestial Beings
holding a banner that reads
Beginnings Are Endings,

and below them, a journalist
prostrate in the mud, deathly
ill, vomiting a bile black as ink.

In the foreground, a
child’s marble, made of
clear glass, incandescent,
aglow with blue and
green streaks and swirls,
on a table cloth the color
of the ocean on a
bright day, and in the
background, a window,
the inky night sky, the
luminous but gray moon,
smaller than the marble,
flat, distant, and in
the glass, an adult’s
face faintly reflected,
small, ghost-like, colorless,
embedded in the
starless black space.

The summer
sky is a
vivid azure
blue. The red
hibiscus is
blooming on
the white
porch. Below
lies the old
photo of  
a man in
a gray suit.
The yellow
kite, tethered
to the hand-
rail is waving
in the breeze,
as the photo
suddenly
flies away.

This is after the
grandly mundane
drama, after the
endless timeline,
after the tallying,
after the lure of
the handcrafted,
kettle-cooked salty
potato chip, after
the endless conquering
of it and them, this
is after the hypnotic
spell of perfumed
images, after
being a verb disguised
as a noun, after
pretending to be
a palpable thing,
this is after  
being something, and
this is after
being nothing.

That's not a
pencil, it’s a
brontosaurus.

I know I am, but
what are you?

Six out of seven
fabled dwarves
are not happy.

They ski down-hill
laughing absurdly,
madly, in sepia-tone,

like an old photo.
One says: ? The
other replies: !

They are judges.
The distant court
house looks small,

like a doll house.
A girl is on the
hill top, her eyes

glisten like a
policeman’s raincoat.
But she doesn’t exist

yet. One day she
will look you in
the eye and say: .