She's not available for love,
Can't seem to find the place or time.
Seductions hold a hidden past--
Abandonment, a missing man,
Not interested enough to stay
One year, first year, first word, first step.
She wouldn't like me saying this,
Who came as close as anyone,
And yet remained outside of love,
Uncertain where her heart had gone.

the man with nothing to say
stretches it
past comprehension,
echoing the future
when all
the voices
return

when you were in my arms, I had
no thought, that rare condition sought
by mystics, dervishes and mad
and hungry painters staring off
at other suns' forsaken light
as if it held salvation's keys,
rededicating one more night
to supplication, bended knees.
now time has moved your innocence,
ticked off the things you've never done,
and narrowed down your penitence--
some things are worth the price of fun.
this world is world enough but time
makes your reluctance mortal crime.

when you were in my arms, I had
no thought, that rare condition sought
by mystics, dervishes and mad
and hungry painters staring off
at other suns' forsaken light
as if it held salvation keys,
rededicating one more night
to supplication, bended knees.
now time has moved your innocence,
ticked off the things you've never done,
and narrowed down your penitence--
some things still worth the price of fun.
this world is world enough but time
makes hesitation mortal crime.

As if an illness
Long endured
Lost its grip,
You have that feeling--
Seeing your own self clearly--
Of new life,
Not looking back.

For nights you lie awake in bed,
A thousand miles away from sleep,
Still whispering inside your head
Some promise that you didn't keep,
Or else forgot you ever made,
These words are recommended less
Than paperbacks and lemonade,
Or magazines that dare confess
True stories with a shot or two
Of hookers trying hard to guess
Who's easy money coming through,
Or who needs more than sympathy,
Pays well for late night company.

Where I'm not thinking
Right tonight could be
That place you left,
Reflecting like a looking glass--flawed,
Picked up cheap
At an antique store.

not sleeping after too much *****,
coffee & bad news & lines
of questionable length
and meter
pushing to spill something
on the sheets
as if i were the arbiter
or at least a voice recognized.
this is our wilderness

Unlikely color of the fall,
Surviving drought and aphid bite,
Cold nights, strong wind, the harvest blade,
Protected by a wreath of thorns.

An old man bends beside you now,
Pulls close the collar of his coat,
Considering the steps and rail,
The fading light of liberty.

dark goddess lover of the night
chaotic daughter even god
has feared give me the strength tonight
where wings of uriel may love
my undeserving tongue with song
releasing some new variant
to lodge beside what's lasted long
as any earthly supplicant
two boys beneath your slanted arms
bring mischief from the crescent moon
the dreamer and the end of dreams
let play long light in fecund june
late dark content to wait its turn
while chiseling upon the stone

in this imperfect paradise
strung in between the quiet night
a chiseler in melting ice
ambivalent about the light
goes missing when you look away
while colors change their future

Got a friend in Washington, the state,
says i'm the least judgmental person
she's ever known and of
course i wasn't even trying,
just my own form of rebellion
working its way through
the underappreciated universe.

to slip in something obvious
with more than  thoughts might recognize
exchanged as if from loneliness
where nothing spoken will arise
uneasy with the atmosphere
descendant from a flaming sun
late celebrated praised and feared
as any light not yet outshone
a canvassing of glory land
impaired by blinded witnesses
reveals no greater hidden hand
than lately clawed from ancient seas
encountering the shifting sands
the questioning of all commands

I didn't get much done today,
Just cooked a meal & washed some clothes.
You somehow ate some fish and kept
It down and wore the clothes outside
While snow accumulated on
The ground and back inside we laid
A fire and turned out all the lights
And you were beautiful and I
Became a strong young man again.

Last year, despite his long gone testicles,
& 91 dog yrs of innocence,
Old Jack got dragged around the whole back yard
By his bone, by a coybitch he lives with.
He's a lucky dog, but he's 98
Now and down in his hips. He cries at night,
Housebound by his infirmities and I
Talk to him, touch his head and give him pills.

I remember my grandmother's voice--
You old dog you; I love you like jackfrost;
Mothers are like that, yes they are. She lived
To 95, forgetting for the last
Four who she was and where she was and why.
Should you or I be 1/2 so fortunate.

An old dog doesn't know he's dying, just knows
It's harder to live. I blow smoke in his ear
And we watch ****** stories, real and imagined.
Forensic files, Hitchcock. He struggles to stand.
I'm slow at doing what I have to do.
This morning, like most, weather permitting,
We're 2 blocks down the street from
Where we live. He struggles to ****--
Cancer blocks his peristalsis, makes it difficult
To squat. And I  stand ready with my Kleenex,
In case he gets it out on neighbor's or
The sheriff's lawn. Go ahead old friend, let it
Go. I'm right behind you.

Out of the old myth
A seed spit in a melon
Contest while all the good
Kids mostly still (and some of the bad)
Believe in Jesus
Yet I imagine
The afterlife
As this bar my sister-in-law
Trolls, a good roadhouse once,
South of the state line,
Until the vote lifted
Prohibition and it moved
Into town and the Keno
Afternoon and cigarets
Until the vote
Against tobacco
& now the furtive hits
Off the newly legal dope vapes
From the neighbor state,
Slowly losing retirement funds
And the food--
It's not what it used to be.

Downhill on a cool morning
With a fresh cut load
Of logs for the mill
The brakes went out
On the old truck
With its nonredundant lines.
No stopping it my father
Double clutched and geared down,
Steered across a road ditch
Deep enough to bounce us
High above the seat,
While I in childish innocence believed
He knew what to do,
And he did, as well as anyone could
Under the circumstances.
The chains and come-a-longs
And standards held, tires didn't
Burst, and we made our way
Slowly to the mill yard, unloaded
On the ground and spent the afternoon
Soldering that breached brake line,
Refilling it with fluid and bleeding it.

Somehow the words you whispered then
Seemed nothing worth remembering.
Not so the flavor of your skin,
Or how you set the phone to ring
At my house when he called your line
From jail to see if you were home,
While all the time you lay inclined
On feather pillow, mattress foam.
We borrowed time from userers,
Who claim their interest near the heart,
And reappear as raveners,
Insistent while the days grow short.
Would now those words could buy some time,
Spent here in this outdated rhyme.

On a clear day the morning light comes through
The dining room window, through the open
French doorway and, now that the time has changed
To save daylight, pools on the wan face of
Ophelia floating on her back above
The mantle, Pre-Raphaelite splendor
In a second-hand dress at eight-thirty
While I scribble and watch the news. Today
A new resignation, an ongoing
Investigation. Something is rotten,
Madness encroaches. Widespread melancholy,
Floating through forget-me-nots and poppies,
Singing.

your unexpected saving grace
amazes me when i get lost
or find myself in some dark place
despairing at the hellish cost
of temporary residence
clocksprung outside what can't be told
through common words of reverence
by penitents within the fold
i slake my thirst in your embrace
long tested by my ignorance
contrast mere heaven with your face
that weathers pain and happenstance
extends the evening star's delight
that i may yet say one thing right

Supercession of the wordgod,
So to speak, is what we need love?
Likely repetition cold sod,
Sky the only scene above.
Could I or you believe this world,
Accented back and forth in time,
Serpent orange and green uncurled--
My garden tree a simple lime.
The sun it moves my shadowed hand,
Draws circles, hearts, cascading leaves,
Cool water inbetween the sand,
As overwhelming lust conceives.
Released from sin, this river flows,
Comes rising as the evening glows.

I think we know the way it goes,
Stray bullets in the moonlit night--
Football East Louis, Illinois--
Take life from good girl only eight.
A pawnshop gun, a deal gone bad,
Unanswered prayers, unfinished life,
Uncertain hopelessness gets fed
To those who somehow just survive.
Which way is this, untouchable?
Defender of the sacrosanct,
Red blood of Jesus, god man child
Spilled out on grass beside white paint.
Our sport is shooting children now.
Swing low, sweet chariot, swing low.

if I would move out of your way
small good things oddly would appear
as I have ever less to say
and you could quell the late night fear
this mortal blanket tossed aside
quick ending of the fever dream
collapsing all our foolish pride
that separates us at the seam
sing now what you remember well
an old song of Kalliope
who shares the stories poets tell
born crying out of memory
i've cleared the space now find my head
so something better may be said

And will these pixilated snaps
Look dated as the Polaroids,
Half **** but wearing baseball caps
Long borrowed from the naughty boys
Who brought the **** & Mad Dog wine
And 8-tracks blasting rock & roll
In pull outs on the county line,
That back seat dancing we'd been told
Would cash a ticket down below,
With those outside the sacred fold,
Incapable of what they owe,
With prices raised on mortgaged souls,
The ancient myth still holding firm,
Anticipating some return.

around much noise
         in places where time
has pocketed
the words
come in to be remembered

These pancakes don't taste like they did,
When Mr. Edwards brought her here.
The waitress pours more coffee, says She'll ask the chef but doesn't think
He's changed the recipe in years.
I'll take 'em back, Ms Edwards.  Try
A different breakfast, if you like.
No thanks, she says, don't take 'em back.

Two years now.  Even coffee's not
The same as then, tastes weaker like
It's watered down, no better than
The instant kind she makes at home.
She eyes her phone--no messages--
And nowhere else she wants to go.

I worked here once is how I know the place--
A volunteer, but now I've come for food
For my own kids, to stand in line with kith
And kin and not discuss the kind of votes
That gave the rich a little more and us
Not quite enough to feed our kids or pay
The rent or buy a car or keep the dog.

when she begins to tell me this
im sure ive known it all along
four tours as a tank commander
could be to blame for how he  changed
from someone who respected her
and taught two boys to say their prayers
to fists and angry eyes night moves
and never any more desire
she packed and left the army base
in a years old car with rusted
rear quarters and one headlight gone
victim to an aluminum
bat that once knocked two ***** over
the outfield fence as they looked on

assurance isn't evident this year
our lord not keeping time
but speeding up
an amateur ill
fitted for an old folks band
whipping the skins
like there's no tomorrow

Told of keys
& a kingdom
Don't blame
Me I'm on my knees
At a loss
For words or machine oil,
A stuck lock in pearl--
Petrified cross.
It's a matter of mimicking
The master, *** metal
And attention to detail,
Tumblers unsticking--
A little spit,
Devil's ****.

As pictured from behind, she looks
Across the water into trees,
Gripping balcony rail waist high.
She's put down bow and violin,
White table just below the rail.
French doors half open frame her back,
Her braided hair, her ankles crossed.
Her weight has shifted slightly left.

good pitching beat good hitting
on summer nights when Gibson took the mound
and my heart listened
cotton blanket kicked aside
through one earpiece
plugged in a plastic green transistor
radio, letting in
the world
one pitch at a time

What isn't here, not in these lines,
You have the right to see, and more
Than that, discover, touch
As it blooms.
Poem.

some questions don't have answers
a hole too big to fill
words placed carefully in the abyss
the love in an old portrait
barely faded, black and white,
from a one-room school
the need to be needed
the astonishment
of desire

Not all the world is word, you dare to say.
And i can only nod, so slow to see
The difference, who even prayed, when prayer
Seemed possible, in punctuated breath.

The American dream had wheels,
Wheelwrights heating rims to fit
Linseeded spokes,
Conestogas, prairie schooners,
Bicycles and trains,
Fords and Maseratis, Harley Earle Impalas,
Coal trucks, semis, interstates
That separate the morning.

She found the future
proof
of her illusion;
evidence,
experience,
suggesting
modifications, to wit
striking capitals
and modifiers--
gone,
lacking
color,
shape
and time.

Bodhisattva knows the blues, eight
Bars that give you the double pour,
And 2 safe ways around a fight.
They's steppin now, come midnight hour,
Slantin out back like kids in school
With one quick break before the bell,
A natural way to play the fool
Against a painted concrete wall.
Nine months ain't long to carry fire,
Get lighter and go back to work,
Respectin on the shoes you wear.
A waitress ain't got time to talk
You out of ending hell's night shift
On accident, tied off & hit.

Quiet Saturday in April,
Sliced inbetween the sacred days--
Black eyes of the cave dwellers son,
Stone sealed and no longer breathing.
Reerection of the temple,
A barn raising, takes its sure course
Among the sunburnt carpenters
Whose hammers were inherited.
Should anyone be left behind,
As everyone is leaving soon?
Not even leaving--remaining.
Such useless information should
Perhaps be left untrumpeted,
Old news just mentioned in passing.

reactions to the soneteer
have ranged from *** to calumny,
substantial offers of a beer
and nights that live in infamy.
supposing that i had a choice--
such suppositions have their place--
i'd give it up, this peasants' voice,
to see the pleasure in your face,
a secular beatitude
no less amazing in its grace,
that saved my soul from solitude,
than any sacrificial blaze,
or resurrection from a cave,
despite the way my songs behave

She's got a new plan, invented
On a cold morning in April,
A pilgrimage to Tennessee,
Just west of Nashville, where she knows
Some people who are close enough
To take her in, with two kids now,
Long enough to get on her feet,
Find work, apply for benefits.

She tells her daughter to be strong,
To make her little brother think
This move is their great adventure,
Which it is, in its own fashion,
Is freedom, an old idea
She almost forgot.  She's ready.

Gas moms.  Beat up vets. Oregon
Catches a wave.  This is the new
Authoritarianism.
Is anyone surprised that wealth
Has resources?  Propaganda
Sells a psychopathic uncle
To the poorly educated,
Whose votes are needed for the fall.
Under the rubric of control,
We lose our right to speak.  Russia
Contemplates our self destruction
With a sly grin.  Poison the well
And the fountain will sacrifice
The holy child.  Revolution!

It's paradise that doesn't last, this time
Spent sliding through the grass, composing notes--
Odd things to do, a shuffle or a waltz,
A speeding up and slowing down. So what,
Objectively I've not got much to show--
A cadence well enough begun, but ****
It's hard to keep a good thing going long.
The earth itself turns slower every day.

Dare we regard the lover's moon, quite full
Tonight against the purple sky?  We've set
Our ears for reggae, sure the moon will speak
To anyone who sees it slowly spin,
Slow dancing with the broken hearts that don't
Get over losing Heaven's perfect day.

Ridiculous Eros aiming blindly,
This cold fortnight of the shorted month that leaps,
Your sonneteer--approaching unkindly--
Breaks into a fevered back beat yeah creeps
Her way beside a fiery  salsa step
By step, with some erosion of pursuit.
Apollo's got it bad for you,  can't help
His slipshod rhymes, cracked rhythms destitute.
If any more can ever yet be said,
Your golden arrows strike the syllable,
While lightning spikes inside the maker's head,
Induced contortions of the mandible.
Straight shooters miss the mark as oft as not.
Come let this winder take another shot.

A wolf can hear a cloud pass overhead,
Can smell the men with poison, guns and psalms.
A sacrifice of lamb will save his daughter,
His sons, his wife. A hart will do as well,
Or rodents though it takes a large amount.
The last Connecticut wolf was shot dead
In 1837, the rest forced
West, with other natives.  The Custer wolf,
A renegade, learned the trapper's conjure,
Survived ten years despite the bounty set-
Five hundred dollars, a king's ransom then,
Enough to draw the famous trackers west.
No place for a spirit that howls, or speaks
In tongues, and that is what I do, as well
As I know how, untethered to a school
Of thought, for thinking isn't what it takes
To make the sounds that scare a full grown man.

replacement of the rugged cross
cruel Aires morning fountain pen
not nearing what is truly lost
incomprehensible to men
you might have known the passion spent
if anything is close recalled
no curtain opened only rent
now tracing of the shroud is stalled
while my unlikely mind is wrapped
around the inconsistencies
of ancient echoed thunderclap
disturbing modern witnesses
who made this testimony mine
another hand, forgotten time

Bare hedonistic middle road,
So periled and yet amorized
By ladies I have soul adored,
Lean gentlemen who spent long nights
In speculation on the grave.
Ascension charts the harder shot,
With tattered sails on fire and grey,
Unguarded heart that's not yet stopped.
Fast falling stars escape my reach,
While dim & smoky neon dives
Swell up a piece of history.
Come lovers, give it two more trys.
The moon ignores my open ears.
I'll need your help to man the oars.

He's found her in the gallery,
This spotty neighborhood
Where cash is king
And what's available today
Might not be back tomorrow
And he's the one who's out of place--
Suspicious eyes on concrete steps--
In his short-sleeved shirt.
He hands her fifteen folded twenties,
Says call your mom, she misses you.
She nods and slips the bills inside her bra,
Says something not quite loud enough.
He takes a step, looks back and says,
Your brother scored two goals last night.

Your husband called again,
While we were making love again,
This time in my dream.
The room was showing light already,
Cats perched on the chest of drawers
Like vultures but expecting--
Insisting upon--
My resurrection,
While a little foggy
I'm wondering whose fault
This is.
I can't be responsible
For everything,
So next time--
I'm asking in advance--
Please turn off your phone.

A place where nothing else seems possible,
Where shoes have been removed and cast aside--
As children do at any chance to play--
Come listen to the harmony of souls.
What a word.  I wish i understood it
Better.  Once i thought i knew salvation,
Said prayers that helped a sinner get some sleep.
Some nights i lie awake and can't slow down.
Has anyone accepted love enough
To feel it in the morning like the sun?
I think my lover knows it more than i,
Whose wisdom has the shallow strength of words.
She loves me when i find myself undone.
She rights my mind when i am overcome.