I’ve seen it myself sometimes.
Shooting pool with a Marine I liked, a buddy.
He’s drunk. Always had a ***** problem
and women had disappointed him,
no more than any other man.
Anyway, the only gal in the unit, honest, hard working,
blonde comes into the room. We all
wanted her
I’d shown her my poems, which she’d taken a pass on.

Joe starts teasing her about her tiny ****,
touching them with his cue.
She’s scared. So am I.
Joe’s stronger, faster than me, by a lot, and when he’s drunk
he knows no friend.
How long can I stay silent, I calculate.
What does he have to do before I speak. Speech, none.
If I don’t put him down with the first crack of my cue, I’m done.

Lucky for me she gets away
unharmed, goes back to her room.
I think Joe assumed me and the other guys, by our nervous smiles,
would enjoy a **** tonight.
Men are such chickens,
I can’t speak for women.
You basically hold your breath
your whole life.
Live in a zoo
**** and *****.
And if it comes to that, you’ll ****
on orders, from who?
Another swinging ****
who fears his death.
You’ve got to make every day a good day to die.

Lost lines, resisted in the night,
conscious resistance in the night,

not sleeping, so
not dreaming,
certain this
is real.

Now it is day, and I call the thieves,
again, all ye, all ye outs, inscape
the outer darkness, pitch me your plot,
show me what you got,

series of forties. Days and Nights,
rain and fasting, days and years,

forty steps and forty miles
forty winks and forty minutes,

ten fingers clapping four hands.

all nonsense compared
to the work of forty thieves.
We had something adding up,
before surrendering to sleep.

The universe was taking shape,
it made all the sense in the world,

for a while.

Time set, 9:17 and the first direct
sunlight pierces the oak and dapples my room,

as I have no complaints,
I have no room to boast
of tuffing my way past losing

anything, from where I sit this morning,
life on this pilgrimage, if we agree,
pilgrimage is
not religion, not new age of water
and fire working in tandem to make us

serve the dams and serve the fires,
drive the engines and prune the trees,
shear the sheep and **** the calves,
and milk the cows,
grind the grains and knead the dough,

think in tiny sticky sensory arrays pointing
soft from sharp and hard, feeling fit
loose or tight,
these bonds,

this time, … my frosty morning,
not cold enough for a fire,
I’ll use that consumption knack,
thus loosing
another half-dozen Keurig cups,
for the seals and whales who are

building an unsinkable plastic refuge
for the polar bears to use,
after the Northwest Passage is open year round.

9:31…

Beyond the palisade,
out yonder,
over yonder, where the line is drawn
on the wall of our valley,
where each high water winter left a line,

bearing witness, to the saying,
" surely we live on the wreck of a world"

and surely it was no work of our own,
especially,
now, pinch a little thought, any point
that feels
just right, a child laughing - random that.
Stretch it out.
If this happens to be forty lines long,
abstracted, pulled into your time from mine,
that’s fine at 9:42, I have two minutes to make it so.
Or let it go. And go see what is so funny
at the breakfast table.

There are but only twenty four hours in each and every day
though so often this seems untrue whether we work or are at play.
The measure that ticks the seconds to make the minutes,
to make the hours that so slowly merge and fade away.
Until memory and minds shadows, paint all with shades of gray.
Life's joys and countless traumas that by seconds come and go,
at the ticking of a clock, shaping for each the living we come to know.
Smiling faces joined in laughter or sad eyes so full with tears,
by second, minute, hour, day until time becomes our lived out years.
We journey in a search for contentment and for a heart to find its way,
passing dreams that fade as if but seconds and still hope of that one day.

The side the flipside
and the bridge.
The day the night
and the bond
the humbly wane
half-moon!

you turned my winters to summers
showed me new worlds
saw my loneliness, my dead flowers
and still loved me
although
people will say that you tricked me
but you gave me your kingdom, your world, your throne
you make me felt like your queen
and in return you didn't ask for anything
despite
you are not the god of the underworld
yet i'm not the goddess of spring
but for you i'd leave everything behind
i'd eat those seeds without hesitation
because on earth i'm a mess only with you i'm alive

Crack some fire
everywhere
on the way heaven.
Light the shadow
light a candle
down the moon.

The sun in fact
does it every day.
Scurries towards
the last dark room
down the moon.

With the colour plate
intact and full
passes by shining on
every corner and nook
every untouched end in the day
the rainbows peep on the way.

Sneaks its way through
the deep forests of orbs
up and down the passages
in the mountains of stars
even after nightingales
and robins go deep silent
the sun tiptoes on the go
lights a candle on the moon.

Moments after the sunset
facing its true north in the West
only to find in heaven
the way The Queen of Heaven
puts her footprint less step
it's the sun's true West
shows up the new crescent.

Keeping a bit private
after the night
the sun goes all out.
Over the painted rose
and through the shady clouds.

East west north and south
at the end of the day always returns
the twilight could never forget  
a lurking little mole
the sun's missing beauty spot!

The ambling twilight goes deep
it isn't all black
a full moon shines on her brow
neither the night is pitch dark
down the mountains of floating stars.

Tomorrow again yet in the broad daylight
the sun will tuck into a throw of twilight
something is still private a black mole in the light.