Dear Pablo, as I look over
my soaking body, wet, with patches
of dirt, blotched and raw bleeding,
the clouds turn in my yellowed eyes
in order to love you, my Pablo.  
You, who made me feel radiant.  
As I am the sea,  I fish for you,
rolling in mud, and becoming
mountain, I topple for your toes
who'd dig in deep and itch my aching

breast to sleep.  My dreamful-drowsy
birds, rake the skies, rush-out like nets
wanting you on their wings, my poem.
Pablo, I loved you so when you said,
my flowers were little stars to pick,
and that loneliness was a train who waits
in a far-away station, and how, my most
minuscule attributes — a cat, a pear,
the atom, you praised, in odes, heaped
like showers hailed from heaven, as fresh-

water you reigned from the other side
of tears, and temper'd my salt, my green,
murky life.  Dearest Pablo, since you've gone,
my breath has the emptiness that hides under
stone.  And the blue-winds crossing, my life-
less age, they are nothing but long waves,
keening,   —  Nay   —  rood   —   ahhh!
Since you have left me.  And my trees,
they forget how to grow,
my song, my only,
Pablo.

many of his posts tilted
like trees tired of the wind; wires sagged,  
red rusted, but still jabbed the errant cow  
when duty called    

three quarters a century
he rode the same trail; of late,
he had gone afoot, the saddle too heavy
for him to heft  

walking, he reconnoitered  
the tracks with more care--hooves of his myriad steers,  
a few equine signs of the farrier’s labor    
still  there, fast fading    

his boot prints were  
more numerous now, and sometimes
tamped down by the few beasts left
in his herd    

across the line lay his dead
neighbor’s pastures, peppered with mesquite,
pocked by fire ant holes;  no livestock grazed, but the giant turbines whined, white whipsaws slashing not timber, but blue sky    

driven by the relentless winds,
they called to him, in chanted chorus, issuing a premonition:  
one day soon, your fence will fall, and the path you trod
will bear no new tracks for other souls to read

This is Horatio's elegy,
He and the mousetrap had synergy,
That's the end of mouse energy,
Alas, Horatio is no more,
That fur friend predator,
He ran into the  mousetrap's door,
Alas, Horatio is no more!
How to embellish this ode?
I'm in hunter-gatherer mode,
Shall I serve him up for lunch?
Nuke him for tasty munch?
Eat it skin on for nutrients,
Now I know what Nigella meant,
No, Horatio wasn't pregnant,
Now I have a fur friend remnant,
That little mouse predator,
Of mice I am no amator,
Alas, Horatio is no more!!

Sometimes the body is contagion
To the soul.  Stars in their mission fall
To seed the fertile flesh, ignite
Blue waters of sulfureous hearts,
And so the flash is set to cancel
In the flood.  

Sometimes the lip of soul onto seal
Will not hold, before he first knocked
And let flesh enter, thorny pegs
Pricked nerve and pierced bone on his climb
To the rose, yea, some stars odd as
Meteors crash.

In the swan-sea, song-sangy-frame of crib,
Rough hewn words bent mold to scrape, like
Blasted coral, stood half-submerged
Amid sea and sky, for between the leaves,
Behind the eye, there are little stars
Shining like existence.

In a circle world he fashioned green
Blazons about the darkling day,
Fostered by celestial navigation,
Wrote a language for music, on a map of love
And charted the force of green in a wind-
Rose of discovery.

Sometimes the soul is not contained, it
Bursts in silent sound like well water
From the source.  And of men in streets
He saw the pennies in their grumble
Eyes, and of love and its course he rubbed,
Tickling dim stars.

It was his thirty ninth year in that fall
To heaven when the steeping cell,
Refused to push in its tide.  Homeless
And free on scaffold of bone the middling
Man retracted from sun to sink
With the moon, turn-tiding-toward sea
Like a changeling.

And as ever, nor often, unwavering eyes
Sprout through shifting grains.  And as he spoke
Quite rimless, Dylan Thomas was petrified
In undying light, and solid set within a rill
Of reef sparkling in concert betwixt gas
And sea, so becoming in purple sleeves,
This constellation of mute singers all,
Dried five-fingered-fish, bright embryos
Returned to the shell, they burn between the leaves,
Beset the grounded skies and show sprite flashes
In the dark where He has left his imprints, burning
Above and plastered below.  The first rock stars!

What was it like
To be who I was
Before I became
Who I am now?
You want to know
The old, old story
All about the tale
Of when and how?

You know I was not
A member of nobility.
That is not a part
Of my ignoble history.
You know I was not rich
Because I have no gold.
So, what was I after all
In my days of old?

As I was no hero
Heralded in legend songs.
I was but a normal person.
Any praise would be wrong.
There are no carvings,
Friezes on marble walls.
No horde of loyal soldiers
Rally at my urgent call.

But I can leave life
Proud to say what is true.
I died without a penny
To any other person due.
I achieved most of my dreams.
I will say that with my last breath
Between my humble life
And my inglorious death.

We met
        On the wooden boards
Of the music
        Hall, in the fire
Glow of lights
        Dimmed and aflame.
A match was set,
        She was young
My eyes grew
        Wildly kissing her
And we lived
        Long in soft days
Held by the sea
        On Shanganagh
Cliffs, feral
        And green as Ireland
And for one
        Moment our eyes
Shut, caved in
        A day.  Now wood
Below, holds us
        In the casket
Of pine memory,
        Wrap of vines
Sharp wine of days
        Splendour
And in mournful
        Breeze, to these
We did surrender
        At a tomb
And silent grey birds
        Stood muttering
Where we both
        Are cold, grieving
Alone as we are
        Placing flowers.

I'm still quietly rotting away,
I hope no one notices,
I hope no one prays.
This old soul requires no pity,
Ancient soul of no regret.
Dying mind, but still thoughts of fluidity.
I see the flakes, flying visible every sunset,
My skin is tearing away,
My heart fails too,
I hear less throbs each day.
Grateful am I, of the absence of tears,
The absence of fears.
I can willingly walk 'till the end of the light,
I can walk happily to the dark at the end of this tunnel,
Thankful, that I am not that old I'd have to crawl.
I feel, on this day, my last,
As if I was sixteen again, spending my first night right here, under the wooden bench,
'Lo how quickly 16 becomes 60,
How quickly does 60 become 0?
I know there is no one I've left behind,
No sentimental article of comfort; of value,
Except, perhaps,
The cold, wooden bench at the south side of the park,
Or that beautiful bluebird that sings from his fountain,
Or perhaps,
The stinging, black spots I see when I look at the sun,
Or the feel of warm earth under my fingernails,
Perhaps I'll miss it all,
And imagine I'm back at the park,
When I'd truly be emflammed; burning,
Or perhaps, hopefully,
I'd just be moving from one park to the next,
One life to the next,
Nothing between, but death,
A small, trifle thing,
The largest of fears that is to be overcome,
If I am to be rewarded,
If I am to finally be at peace, true peace,
If I am to belong,
Anywhere, but this park.
                                             -firefly

( Sonnet )*

I look for Leo, his tawny dress,
His noble pride.  I see him ever,
In silent days his warmth his stride.  
Our friendship moved, grew a lease
With eyes sleepy, tempered, so wise,
Always serene.  How his waif voice
Would purrmurr, did chide and lift
Me from my human daze, my king
This spring is full of remembrances
And mornings that linger with mute
Vibrations and greetings.  How, now
I fear the carpets pressed unmoving
And times caress unsoothing.  I look
For you, with loving pause, and I cry.

When I heard today
Your passing away
Regretted I
Failed to pay
You a visit why?

Regretted I
Why, why, why, why
Failed to say goodbye
On your sickbed
Looking at your eye?

Regretted I
Told you not why
Your kindness and honesty
Were descriptions that defy?

Of course
I was submerged
In life's
Rest -not- knowing chores?