Spring pond deep and wide

Time for the vessel's return

Slow the duckweed flows together

Willows draw them apart again

Autumn flares out, its flame burst clouds
strewn about misted cliff sides, loam whites

of winter taking their place. A stiff willow breeze,
ten thousand things withdrawn to burrows and immortal

pine heights. First snows stream down, duckweed carpets
of August fade, jade peeking through white. I embark

on the seasons final sail in hardening ice waters.
Til spring my sails will be folded, my raft in idleness.

~~~

Rafting on moon drenched river, avoiding cascades and crash of
rapids and falls. Silvered driftwood a warning. Silent glide of

mulberry oar through dark azure, another crafts sail in silhouette.
From the deck a black spectre dives below, stillness follows

splash,  re-emergence, beak wrapped around a dazzling rainbow.
From my raft dangling lantern sways, trout swiping at

gathered moths – scatter and return, some from a far off realm.
Some trout in the net, others not. Luck or the way – who can tell?

~~~

Dusk colour gorge sheathed in
emerald blankets, rising into sheer

cliffs of auburn cinnabar, all
underpinned by the fathomless

flow of azure clarity. Snowy Egrets
nest in pine top heights clear of dust.

On white sand shores gibbons howl
towards squawking beach gulls, squabble

over landlocked trout – debate without end.
Peach blossom petals swirl on spring breeze

over carpets of jade inter cut by king
fisher blue zipping over duckweed. Oriole

song weaves in and out of mulberry branches.
In these vast and vague waters -

coves, creeks and streams all one,
a river dragon lives an undetermined

existence. Mud stirs below, merely a
catfish airing grievances.

Red tail flares in dirt,
my mulberry oar rows me back home.

I

Under a hollow sky
grey worn concrete listens
scream of a solitary car.

“Just want to write something. anything. been too long. Mind, liquid pencil. You know.”

Jazz tickets on the dash.
(solo performer – no net over absurdity)

“Write about that..”

Street lamps recede infinitely
fathomless ether’s lost
slipstream of rust swallows all.

“See what he’s like first.”…”Your call.”

There’s a tug, a pull towards
the light and motion
the swirling abstraction
luminescent dance in glass and shadow
seeping out of brocades of steel and concrete

the city at night
night tides thick with colour.

“Empty road, inviting city. Very Kerouacian.”

Car screams a little louder.

The outskirts come into view.

II

Empty streets repeat in circle
asphalt constant self devouring.

Neon hums, street lamps chatter
sidewalk smoke ripples
reflections upon reflections.

Jazz tickets slide across the dash.

Chicken broth of ancient forever
rides night airs
long ago memories
fast filing seats, flavours upon flavours.

Logic abandoned
signs abandoned
knowing abandoned
we just follow the way.

Neon roar echoes in hollow factory caves
colourless flames abstract burn.

There, under the
Ashen Dragons gaze
empty seats, luck that can’t be passed up.

We eat noodles under starlight.

Ashen Dragon, indomitable
keeps flickering,
and flickering.

III

Stage lights roll.

Red light
hangs in dust.

In the hall, over the seats, over the stage.

Jazz tickets now stubs now becoming cranes.

Silence, bass ambles forth.
First steps turn into
stumbles, tumbles,
scrapes, hacks,
accumulation of mistakes
collective hang in red dust.

He tries everything. Arco, pizzicato,
bass as percussion – devoid thumps.

He’s patient though. Amidst the inferno,
there’s the sense, the knowing, he’ll find the way.

He stops. Stops seeking. Turns to sought.

IV (Musical Interlude)

A thread only he can see
faint, and fainter still gossamer.
bow swish arc, tentatively ensnared
dark enigma thread entwined among bow strings
a weave drawn into a screen
across the stage wall.

Abstractions start to turn into form.

Pizzicato dance
chips away,
immortal peaks of gleaming jade.

Arco slide
carves away,
innumerable valleys of shining emerald.

Tips and taps
river flows, duckweed and herons
hermit huts in forest and moss
troops of gibbons with melodious howls.

Tunings align with heavens changes
cherry blossoms bounce on singing winds
oriole songs drift through five willow forests
recluse paths swept clean of tumbled pine cones
pines rest under blankets of silent white.

Across the stage
crafted in pregnant emptiness
the ancient forever
in a down town dive.

Two cranes rest on a table.

V

Re-emergence under the
hollow sky.

“…there’s truth in abstraction.”

Ashen Dragon
still flickers.

Chicken broth
still lingers.

Empty seats,
still luck runs.

Noodles under starlight,
and sky grey caravans.

“Nice title…hanging around?”
“Catch the train back, gotta write this.”
“See you soon. Stay safe kid.”

Ashen eyes flicker
words clatter by under a neon gaze.

First and foremost in everyone's mind
but mine
is the Green of the Crayola crayon.
As Green as factories and skyscrapers, like
man
and his tendency to take over.

Green looks different through my eyes.

I see the Green of a clover.
Green that is
alive.
Bouncing and bobbing and buoyant
as duckweed on the waves.
Promising and purposeful and persistent
as the first shoots of grass.
The Green that shows in the people with
bravery and bright smiles and bursting with
life.
I wish I was
lucky
enough to have more of the Green of a
clover.

I see the Green of an emerald.
The depth of Green,
the bottomless bottom of the ocean;
Green where I
drown in my thoughts.
The emerald city where my insignificance and significance
crush me all the same and I am
smothered in questions
questions
questions.
So many drown in the shallow Green of seaweed.  The Green of
money and makeup and my god have you seen Melissa's haircut?
The dollar bill Green of
envy and greed
that stops so many so many from diving any
deeper.

I see the Green of ferns and the Green of cacti.
Soft, soothing Green of
enough sleep
and
tea in the mornings
or
sharp, sinister Green of
alone
and
you should have studied.

I see the Green of Christmas trees
that should mean family and giving and light but
instead
means pretend to like her and
smile at the right times and
why are you so
unfriendly I mean shy.
The dark, for everGreen of the most
wonderful
time of the year.

I see the Green of my eyes.
The bluish goldish brownish color
that everyone sees a little
differently
but that's ok.
Because everyone sees Green a little
differently.

clouds roll across the sky
in an overture heralding the coming of
storms, of flashes of light in a spectacle of
natural birth and suicide. thunder rips apart the
fabric of the heavens, leaving seams unsewn to rain
upon the damp earth agape. were it that sunshine was rare,
that amber light shone only through the darkness of stratocumulus
and curtains of raindrops would we beg the tempest to stay.
trees tremble in the prelude of wind knowing that they
must too bow down to the deluge. the first ripples on the
water paint labyrinths over duckweed and tadpoles, the afterbirth
of the floods, so does petrichor. that fragrant herald of life
and destruction place itself in fractals throughout the golden
air, filigree all but invisible to verse, and the poet that creates it.

it could be just a drizzle, nature watering her creation
the only electricity the excitement of the mosses and ferns
to recieve communion again. the war-drums of thunder may not
sound, only drops falling on water in a steady
percussive rhythm hypnotizing and maddening, accompanying
the wind blowing the trees in a millenia-old melody.
this poem could only be Romantic musings of the grand
memories of an antediluvian hurricane that never
occured or was witnessed, images and sounds that can
never be seen or heard, known by storms.

I go to the woods,
The woods go and I see them going, I’ve gone
to the forests of my home since autumnal glow is high in season,
these are holy, golden days and the leaves are blushing in the brook,
but the pond’s gone dry from no rain, it’s all muck. There are no fish and there never were any, but
snapping turtles, bullfrogs with eyes that peek above the surface, water boatmen that skit the glassy surface of the pond avert my eyes. When I was younger, I caught tadpoles in a mesh net and I let them go. Now we have forgotten each other.

Tough green shoots erupt from the soft earth, choking the softer crab grasses, there is blood and lambs in the high days of their short lives, rambling in the pastures of youth.

The pond is blanketed in duckweed, in the sunlit clearing of eleven cottonwoods.

The long driveway up to
the farm has these big trees
bending across | filtering the sunlight
into diffused thick green intensity
only mildly shining through
the hugging branches

it is like diving underneath the
surface of a pond covered by
duckweed | mystery glows in rays