17th June 2013, 20:09*

And now the sun seems as a sunflower of living flame
caught in a sky of limpid azure coolness;
flocks of white gulls sky-dance above shimmering horizons of forever
and the sea reflects it faithfully, in ripples of sparkling fire.

And now the sun sets like a pearl in a veil of moonbeams,
cloud-spun swathes of gossamer form her mantle;
Streaks of dove-grey cirrus glide slowly over skylines of umber
as sky fades to sea in a seamless turquoise haze.

the white candle will
of your flickering skin
told in ages of
faultless flight
wades through
cirrus tendrils
on the last day of night

these long stemmed years
on the sleeves of palace black
serenade the undertow
on soprano lips
until God can feel the lack

The floodgates
                      have opened
                  and the tide is high
            the dam has burst
    in explosion
of tear-bombed third eye
      saltwater rushes
           culling dark demons
              from the deep
the most buried
of creatures
awoken from sleep
viperfish and tube worms
                     vampire squid
twirling their tentacles
to summon the id
squelching up
                    impulse  
from sinkholes of mud
primal instincts excavated
                     from tombs
                          of slick crud
Deep-seated fears
have been beckoned to play
to disregard tears
take resistance away
and while blown over
by this twisted abyss
she remembers a flicker
            of the shadow of bliss
      and like a mermaid rising        
up towards surface
                      blue heights
she grasps at the cirrus
leaking tendrils of light
pulling up hand by hand,
in sea-tangled vine
a vague sense of sweetness
flushes out brine
and when she breaks through
                           the surface,
her heart like a sieve
she finally owns it-
the power
       to
            breathe

We sat in shade, watched cirrus circle sun, robbing temporary
warmth
Hands through burlap & jute, clutching at photons illuminating
eyelashes
Cedar sap & crushed pine needles, fragrant on our hands, amber &
ambient
Saw your heart through crooked teeth, the same as
mine
A hundred pounds of saw grass hair & pliable
emotion
Speaking of a hitch through New Mexico,  a night on that lake,
where you convinced me you could
make clouds disappear
Speaking of a first kiss in a creek bed, that night we watched
Javelinas and Mule Deer
Fireworks by the river, smoke so thick we lost
each other
Our ugly handwriting, tucked into breast pockets, notes on
the back of old receipts
Empty bottle love, scattered & sporadic,
ours, ours, ours

Earlier in the week I was pretty sick and Peter was pampering me. One night, as Peter was taking away my tea tray, I took a selfie to send to my mom - as proof of life.
He looked at it from the side, “Ooo, no,” he frowned, “too slutty.” He put his hand out for my phone, “May I help?”
“Can you hear yourself talking?” I asked. My mouth was incredibly dry from the steroid meds. The entire world seemed an unnecessary irritation.
He gently tied my robe, straightened me and my pillows and took a new version. “Better?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, a little more crossly than I meant to, “you’re always right.”
“It’s the world we live in. Get used to it,” he muttered.
When I tried to pick up my iPad and go back to work, he gently took it away, “Stop,” he whispered, “It’s 12am, you’re done for the night.”
I groaned, relieved really, then he took a small eucalyptus stick and dabbed it on my temples. “Gaa!” I said, “That’s cold!”
Who knew grown up, Californian men were so into homeopathy? After a moment though, it felt amazing.

The next morning, a cat appeared in our suite! It was a solid gray kitten with deep, brown eyes. At first, we stared at it like it was an alien (where’d that come from?) until Leong came in from the cold and said, “Cat.” Then it was welcomed.
About the time Sunny ID'd it as a British-shorthair, there was a tiny knock on our door and a little girl asked, “Have you seen..,” only to squeak “Cirrus!” when she saw her kitty. I’m telling you now, **** the rules, we would’ve kept that kitten.

bye Google. All Google’s been doing this semester is feeding me into CAPTCHA traps, Argh!
How, in 2023, can Internet searches be getting harder? One of my roommates, Anna, is helping me test alternative search engines.
Anna’s a wiry, freckled, 5’4” farm-girl from Oregon, with wavy, shoulder length, dark-brown beach-hair. In our first semester, Anna was a firecracker tossed into my life. She’d bang on my door at 2am (I didn’t even KNOW this crazy farmgirl) with her problems, klutziness and bad boyfriend stories, but she won me over with her vulpine-braininess, her impertinent straightforward secrets and laughter - all delivered in her exotic, western twang.
“Ok,” Anna suggests, getting way into my personal space to see my screen, “try - headache after ***.”
“Sure, GET me on odd shopping lists,” I snark.
“Black mole on armpit,” she countered or “intimate dryness.”
“Big help!” I laughed.

I spent some time in the Clouds today: turns out
we're not that different.
I realized
my mind is
inhabited by Cirrus and Cumulonimbus.
As a result,
this week's forecast is brought to you by
The Hypothalamus.

I rain in tears,
spring showers and
summer storms in
Unintelligible mutterings
                         sputterings, spit and
Outbursts  of  stutterings.
It's pea soup when I'm P-d off.
Ominously overcast until I'm over it.
Thoughts condense inside;
my skull sweats
until my thoughts are no longer as dense
until it all makes sense.

My head's in the Clouds or
the clouds are in my head.
Thoughts drift off like imagination vapors
on a Sunday afternoon.
I'm captured by these Attention span capers
like the sun captivates the moon.

I'm waiting on clear skies;
my brain's barometoer breaks
       under AtmosFearic pressure.
But the greatest beauty is glimpsed
as the sun's set reflects upon cumuliform
                       - Breathless -
Each gleam an unreplicable clash  
of time, light, and wonder
That a cloudy disposition
     would only discover.

Martian Gothic (short)
Unique environment unique people.
Fifteen thousand metre mountain vertical south face.
Two pretty Goth girls stood on the edge.
One footstep fall to Martian plateau.
Three hundred metres ahead thirty metre layer of Cirrus cloud.
Terraforming worked brilliantly Earth like atmosphere.
Olympus Mons great holiday destination for East European adventurers.
Hanneke had waist length black hair,
Silge shoulder length red hair with lip piercings.
Both beautiful like the magnificent sci-fi film landscape.
Chance to hike,
enjoy stunning views after their Earth based Martian Geology course and field trip.

Unpolished weathered wood plays on my palms,
I pull and reach and pull an even beat
Attending algae'd oars aqueous psalm
Altered by the tangled grass I meet,
in counterpoint  small waves percuss the prow
Accentuating the pause before I cull,
Mellifluous zephyrs bowing across my brow
Enhance the exposition of the gulls,
Above the hem of heaven's dress the bright
Cerulean bodice trilled with Cirrus lace
Beguiles regard, but maddeningly polite
She smooths her skirt across the score of space

Eclipsing a poet's want to read the ruse,
This lady only lingers to amuse.

Gray hardwood Creek saga , hillside natural harmonies
Woodland musicians and warriors blended into
Coweta flora with piedmont songsters
Sip sip cha shree mockingbird melody
Whoo -reet bobwhite chantey from floor to -
windamere operas brushing live oak canopies
Land blushing with evening blue , stippled in
magenta and lavender cirrus sunset* ...

I stopped as I went
past RDU International.

I killed the engine
next to a sky plastered
to a lake.

With a thousand wilting
banana trees
in the back,
and a needle jumping
in the red,
I came to a stop.

Planes scoured the sky with their screeching,
soured the lake
with their contrails,
the geese watching from the middle of the lake
in flotillas
idling in the heat
because it was too hot to move.

If I didn't get these bananas back to the nursery,
they'd die.

Taking out a gallon jug,
I walked to the shoreline
and reached in between reeds,
and cattails and contrails
and cirrus in globs of clay
to lift the water to the radiator.

As I poured the water
into the radiator,
I knew that humanity
is neither the geese, the truck,
or the airplane,
humanity is the needle.

Break my heart into pieces and spread it upon the barren lands…
Let my yearnings, dreams and sorrows scatter upon the golden sands…

Like a seed planting all that is good …
Giving hope to the hopeless, and grace to the true…

Take my inspirational song and dance …
And serve it while the droplets prance…

Impart it to the nightingale, the songbird noble and true…
Let her sing with my lyrics of passion, all day and all night through…

Tame the envy and jealousy, rebellion and fear…
And convert it to the blue skies clear…

Where the cirrus my fragments enjoy…
The treasure no man can destroy…

Throw my words into the wild winds West…
Send them to the weary ears and souls of zest…

Bring them peace …
Though my life may cease…

Scatter my heart upon the barren lands

Silent crackle, tingle,
The smell of a sticky must. Floating dust in
An abandoned attic, where the rats roam and the dead skeleton of a fish
Still lies in an empty bowl of moldy rocks and plastic plants.
Yet, despite the emptiness, a girl curls up in the corner, black
Running down her face as she weeps for the things she longs for most.
She looks out the *****, broken window at the cloudy sky and imagines it
Blue. The brightest of skies with only few hints of cirrus.
A blanket on the ground and the man she loves, nothing else in sight.
The expanse of green in her head is contrasted to the rotting floorboards she lays
On, dreaming. The steady beat of Boy in Static thrumming through her headset
As she struggles not to scream and jump, finishing the job on the window
From troubled teens years before. The sound reminds her of VHS tapes,
Press rewind, take a turn and start over. But she can't, when something has changed.
The boy she knew, looking down with his hood not up, but covering his face, shielding
Himself from her. She knew he had a ***** in his head, but she just looked away. He never answered anything she asked. He was unable.
But her heart still dropped, she smiled her best. An amazing actress, fooling everyone, makeup allergy keeping her eyes dry. She just read Huck Finn as though nothing was wrong.
Now she sits in her room, writing and shaking her head. This line is not right.
Her walls were full of color and poetry, but her mind kept wandering to that attic.

She was there again. Blankly staring at her star charm anklet. A simple blue ribbon.
And the throbbing of her heartbeat through that one spot on her thumb,
That pressure point that hurts more than anything. But one thing could be worse.
Being left. Just like the broken rocking horse in the corner and the baby's cradle
Lined with blue silk that was shoved into a box. That baby is probably dead. Just like all
Of the others who lived there, burned by the fire. Goose flesh raises, prickly
Hairs on her legs from a week of no shaving. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Bleed.
Change the song. Bleed Like Me. Perfect. She draws on the peeling walls, two hundred
Years of wallpaper and lead paint, chalk barely leaving a mark. She sketches a masterpiece.
A child that she wishes she could have. Impossibly too young, but still...
A daughter she could raise better than her mother raised her. A chance to do something right.
More than the mechanic life she has lead, empty and useless.
Confused and pathetic. Like the broken grandfather clock that ticks backwards.
Three, two, one.
Ding-****, ****-ding. Grandfather never taught me anything. He was not a wise man.
He was a fool. Knew too much and too little, no room to know what was right.
She let another raindrop escape and suddenly it began to pour. Lightning crashes as a glass
Slipper collides with the picture drawn of her dream. Thunder as she releases a
Bloodcurdling scream. "Why!?"
Why her? The pain in her back is unbearable. She slouches too much, and her eyes burn.
She is not Cinderella; her ball gown does not glitter.
Piano is her least favorite instrument, but it somehow gets to her. Small hammers
Striking her heart strings, low notes reminding her of his voice and the soft, feminine
Voices radiating, remind her of when she was young... Immortal. She has aged since then.
Too quickly. Her entire life has been a masquerade ball. Unskilled idiots dancing
Around her and stepping on her toes. Shouldering her in the stomach,
Breaking her ribs. Beats of music guide her skilled toes, swerve around falling raindrops that
Her own eyes emit. And she crashes through the floor of that dismal attic. Broken free,
But she is still trapped. The walls are charred down here.

But the walls are not painted black. They were once a mint color, green and cheerful, healthy.
Until a psychopath lit a match.
"I didn't mean to do it." It was all in her head. The house.
She set it aflame.

She sits in her room, writing and shaking her head. This line is not right.
Her walls were full of color and poetry. It isn't worth it to stare. Nothing will change.
She is still just a girl in a glass box, being stared at and judged. Trapped and ridiculed because her eyes bleed and bless the onlookers with bad luck. It's amazing the things
That people don't know. Drifting deeper into a pit of endless darkness. A candle won't
Live down here. No oxygen to let it breathe. But one lit self portrait hangs in the air.
Years ago, drawn in pencil. Symbolic, it wants to be erased. To die.
And the ******* the page is wearing a mask. The girl in the parchment is me.
Medium length hair and a tear painted, permanent. A Parasite. Capitalized for its meaning.

A demon is running through me, singeing
My tissues, blisters on the insides of my bones. Swelled up, show through
My skin. Waves on a shore. But I am not a beach. A ***** maybe...
Still, I hate it. The hate killed whatever flowers I had left planted in my mind.
Tainted me with the horrible visions of a tear streaked face of paper mâché.
She was the one in the attic. Her whole persona
Wilted and ashen, grey. A silent movie might mask it; the hurt, I mean.
The grey lines on the screen hiding the bags under her eyes and the redness of her nose,
Get rid of the twinkling shards of glass frozen on her cheek from crying in the dead of winter.
Slip up once, and everything goes to hell. Well, I must have slipped years before I was born.
Few smiles are left on this dismal timeline. And I shall use them wisely. But, for now,
I think I will just weep, sleep forever and hope that you don't give up on me and pull the plug.
I am still here somewhere, just dormant. Please wake me up. Get me out of this charred cabin,
This glass box. Pull me out of my warped sense of everything, teach me again what
Love feels like. I have forgotten amidst everything that I have felt and remembered.
There is no more room for things to be learned. Only for things to be repaired.
I will give you a hammer. Come inside and fix me; that ***** in your head couldn't have taken your knowledge away. You are the only one that knows.

Use this never ending lightning and bring your bride to life.

there’s a barnacle scar
deeply ingrained
on the basalt stack
at mark thirty two
whispering summer winds
scented oil
cotton and roe
drift
as waves brush
and shape
the sandstone shore

the briny air
and lost erratic
set a tone to this
pollyanna portrait
it's andrews undulations
and gifted benches
its concessions
and traces of the barry burn
its sculpted driftwood
and sanko lines
make this picture
almost perfect

children play
as venom spews
from the caterwaul pair
those odd looking mates
casting smiles
with arrested despair
settling shots
swiping bugs
dipping and darting
as photo men
and muscles
and long neck seabirds
make their turn

the hunched hoody
and his sorted sidekick
get their fill
(of moss and rubble ~ chubby and kelp)
nice to meet your acquaintance
the pho man would say
an odd drop
and ironic turn
from those horrific corners
of timeless desperation
down by cannon bridge

harbor seals
and carriage horse
are fronted by
raven shade
jolly tides pause
in quiet bays
(with curious looters
and *** pickers)
sand merchants
and field totems
all streamed by the light

cirrus strands
blanket the
outer edge
hovering craft
and shimmering willows
bolt the evening frame
blood orange
and tethered
with a filtered glare
bottle-nose dolphins
and seabirds
(and shifting tides)
are all settling in
for the long night stay

I had went to visit some friends
some acquaintances
these people i used to know
I was a ghost in my hometown,
where no one used my given name.
they brought me in through a screen door and
sat me down in the kitchen.
their voices were like underwater sounds
they told me to be still while he said hello.
I looked down a flight of basement stairs
where bathed in a blue light like Chopin’s  no. 19 in E minor
sat a tiger burning bright.
up the stairs it bounded forth in muted strides
to the floor it pinned me under protest
in cemetery stillness it said hello.
the kitchen was an autoclave
I never asked for help.

my hometown calls to me in my sleep
like an indian death wail on a buffalo robe
so my eyes sink back into the firmament.
bathing in the predawn light
my bones are an old horse I ride,
I score one for the body then I get onto a plane
then I score one for the body and I get onto a plane
then i score one for the body as it lays dying without complaint.
kneeling before the Holy Cross by the roadside
I take note of really just how much room there is on the bed beside me
strange bedfellows are I and the space I’ve been given.
there is a queen sized outer darkness within my twin sized
gestures of self control.
the dusk is day now and the moon is the sun
and my hometown calls to me like Jericho’s Trumpet
sounding from inside the Pale.

in my hometown I am a pilgrim
I saunter towards the seaboard
where the docks hold greek columns that soar into the air
like the elephant’s legs in Salvador Dali’s “The Temptation of St. Anthony”.
nostalgia burns my throat like acids and bases
and the columns lead up to nowhere and this place isn’t
how i remember it beyond the Pale.
limping with thin soles
dragging a dull hypothalamus like a dead mule chained to my ankle
we would sit and watch our forefathers stare at the static on the TV
from their arm chairs in the dark.
we would offer them coffee and ask how their day was and they
would tell us that sometimes they feel like a lone alley cat.
It’s like my buddy's roommate when I would go to visit; always alone inside his room.
sometimes I would see him around town and say hello and notice his face and
see that he was still alone inside his room.

well, I have skin in the game and I have a reputation
and i’m attached to my non-attachment.
sometimes a subtle brand of disgust creeps in to replace my avarice
and sometimes I starve to death holding a long handled spoon
seated at Caligula’s table.
sometimes i can’t tell their maidenhood from their madness
so i hoard one for the body.
sometimes i remember the way bees will talk to each other by dancing
and how old men will tell you they’re afraid to die.
Sometimes I hand a *** a 20 and weep as I watch him fold it
into an origami crane.

while I was in town I looked up my former landlord
I held a fondness for the times when they didn’t use my given name.
I wanted to see my old room and I had kept a raven back then and
he assured me it was still around.
the room was now and attic and was much bigger than I had held it
in my memory, vast almost.
I ask the dust as it was thick upon the floor boards and something
felt abandoned in the air.
the roof was in disrepair and one whole side was nearly completely gone.
tranquil ribbons of cirrus clouds stood in the sky through the roof like
a child’s drawing.
“Is it like you remember?”, he asked.
“Way over in the corner there was a couch my brother would sometimes sit in” I replied.
I asked after my raven and he pointed to the part of the roof that still was.
from the shadows came a bird song like an irish low whistle from above the Pale.
“That doesn’t sound like him”, I said (more to myself than to my host),
“that’s an owl or something.”

Commanding the 'Crows Nest' in search of submarines on Panama City Beach
Our curiosity in real time demand , blanket oceanside Admiralty
Mariners were towing the ocean yachts into portland that day
Tales of Neptune , ambergris , running *** and rough sail
Riding the easterlies , filling our shell pails                                                        
A prize for gifted imaginations indeed , sand dollars and -
cirrus clouds above the warm turquoise Sea* .....

The boats in the harbor
flirt with the pilings,
their sails have trapped
nothing
and are flaccid,
the gulls scream at the masts,
scream while they lift
their spindly legs
and tiny feet
escaping
the noiselessness.

I sit with the sun
as it bursts
and the cirrus clouds,
like cotton,
are filled with blood
or tears,
or some brutal combination
of both,
as the needles
poke through the house
and the sun
is pushed out.

Martian Gothic
It was a unique environment.
They were unique people in a unique place.
A mountain fifteen thousand metres high with a vertical south face.
Two pretty Goth girls stood on the edge.
One footstep forward and it was a huge fall to the Martian plateau.
Three hundred metres in front of the girls was a fine layer of Cirrus cloud,
thirty metres thick.
The Terraforming had worked brilliantly providing a heavy Earth like atmosphere on Mars.
Olympus Mons was a great holiday destination for young East European adventurers like Hanneke and Silge.
Hanneke had waist length black hair and Silge shoulder length red hair with lip piercings.
Both were equally beautiful as the magnificent landscape straight out of a sci-fi film.
They were taking time out of their Earth based Martian Geology course after a short field trip.
A quick hike was a chance to chill out and take in the stunning views.

We are fluffy
      not stuffy,
we are bright,
       not dull,
we can be
      the lull,
before the storm.

More on that later, after the news.

Reflecting white light and we become bright,
pile us on one another a collective of light,
and airy, we don't take our selves serious,
we are much lower to the ground than cirrus.

Please don't let what I have to say cloud your judgement in anyway!

We are piling up to be the top of the heap
want recognition for the sunny day, around noon
living it large looking the part too,
we are the flat bottomed cotton *****.

We are the fairest of the fair, but beware as the day advances,
we may get bigger, darker taller and you take your chances,
to be about and about, there may be a change in the atmosphere,
how is that anxiety about thunder and lightening dear?

From cotton to solid rock tall,
from mole hill to mountain,
thirty thousand feet is all,
hope you don't mind if we take turns
blowing through, easy to find us
no fuss, look for the Jekyll and Hyde
you know the Cumulus Stuff.

Unfolding into itself, inviolable
in prosaic self-*******,
a boundless repertoire
of shape yearns forth surreptitiously
from inscrutable amniotes to claim
time as its own:

  Here a thicket
  of sycamores, there a baldaquin
    of pinnate branches, yonder
      a periphery of marigolds, below
        a cacophony of hyraxes, above
    the corpuscle of a lynx, the mid-flight
   jink of a darting swift and moribund
  crawl of a mollusk;

     Hymenoptera coaxing
     their haploid broods into teeming
     life as a cell of the swarm
         and viviparous apes cajoling
         suckling chimerae at the fathomless
         fountainhead of a rosy breast;

       Higher still,
       Cirrus cephalopods traversing
       the trench of sky, dandelions
       hitch-hiking the drift of a barren plains'
       wavering hum on cockchafers'
       forewings and a turbine's
       bombinating pulse, the chattering
       of roots ravenous for depth --

Jittering bangtails the hallowed echoes
of lascivious manes --

   inchoate sprout-hood the daedal
   nonage of towering evergreens --

      the plaintive shrift of elegiac
      redbreasts a goad to silent elation --

A likeness unlike
     (vocabularies of vertiginous blinds)
          (the eyes of ignorance closing)
             (the mouth of the mystery)
                that spurns the truth of tongues

                     is nature naturing.

I. Parade Square

I can still feel the blisters from the hotplate ground,
the tar off my marred body,
imagine my acid sweat coercing my eyes
to burn with an perverse, masochistic
fire for this
torture
my tongue could never profess.
Running or sprinting blind, and
then a rumble above, force open my eyes to
watch the undercarriage of the SQ A380
hang low like a
ladder.

II. Swimming Pool

Usually we swim here,
or get cooked by the sun,
but there was once we pumped eighty
because the FT was bored and wanted to go
home,
early.

III. Cookhouse

Pre-dawn,
we sit down half-asleep,
milo in hand,
a lump of oily I-don’t-quite-know-what on my plate.
Every table a section-full of once-boys
taking a glimpse at the outside world through flat rectangular
window panes that hang from the ceiling.
At 0600, Channel News Asia plays the National Anthem,
and I wonder why we don’t sing it
anymore.

IV. Range

It is going on two months in this foreign land
Two months of having not shot a single picture

A single snug trigger-click, snap-shot
Burst of colour – bang! – picture

Tangy black three-point-eight-two kilos that
Hang off me like a corpse-like appendage

Two months of wading through picturesque scenery
Lilac cirrus sky, or the sleeping shadows of silhouetted trees

And no chance to shoot any photos
But the picture of simulated ******

As I point and pull, hear the
Trigger-click of my camera go

bang.

V. Grenade Ground

When I picked up the little
inconspicuous
olive thing, and placed it in the pouch
next to my left breast, beside my
heart,
I couldn’t help but ponder
if that was how the Bali
bombers
felt like, moments before they
died.

VI. Beyond the Sphinx bridge

This is another world;
a world filled with so many dark
memories
I cannot write about it.
I would have saved you from drowning in your
waterlogged grave, except
I was drowning
myself.

On the long ride back
to camp,
I gazed into the distant twilight, thinking,
we may sit in the
same
tonner, but in actuality
we all find our own roads
home.

VII. Coy Line

When I shower I close my eyes,
feel the slow trickle of water from
the broken showerhead, and
imagine myself in a hotel villa, or
one of those luxury hotsprings.

When the lights go off I lie back,
gaze out at the orange floodlight that
shines through the panes,
illuminates my teary face,
darkens my world
to a quiet, uneasy
sleep.

VIII. Ferry Terminal

Every book-out
I let the man scan my card,
puff up my shoulders
and catwalk down the dock
with a sense of newfound authority.
I’m a civilian now.

Sit and hear the low rumble of the ferry
get louder and
louder
like a plane on the verge of taking off;
like a soul on the verge of
escape.

The fire of life spreads across the wide  horizon, not even the great Atlantic can stop it now. The lack of wind sends a storm of blood ******* fiends to nibble at my *****, enjoy my juices!

I sit around the remnants of someones idea of good time and rekindle the flame. Smouldering seaweed is enough to keep those ****** parasites away from my blood. Drift wood catches, crackles and keeps the morning chill at bay. Crows, chipmunks and chickadees call out to one another.

As the ruby grapefruit awakens from her slumber I notice that the moon is in full bloom behind my head. The king and queen have set and their masters have come out to play.

Miniature seabirds preform impressive aerial stunts while searching for their morning meal. Hungry crows check for crab corpses as the crimson Sun makes its first appearance atop the curvature of the world.

Reflecting rays blind me and cause spots in my vision. The price you pay for looking into the soul of God.

Cirrus clouds soaking in coral rays. Mother duck feeds her young. Cool sand between my toes. Searching for sticks to spread the flame, running free, no better place to spend one's hard earned sand doller.

A great expanse of northern sky;
Cirrus clouds,
faux marble blue and white.
Late afternoon’s golden sun;
red autumn leaves,
fire on fire it seems to me.
Tall, silent, Mast Pine forests
haunted by Owls,
ancient Indian spirits
and dreams of sailing ships
on wild Gulf Stream rides
across the sea.
Waist high fields of Ragweed and Clover
rippling with the wind.
Clear, crisp days
geese in flight.
Iridescent dragonflies zigzagging overhead
like jet-fighters
hunting mosquitoes.
Noisy crows squawking the news,
people in the back forty.
A deep blue, Lapis sea
sparkling in the breeze
just beginning to chill.
Ohh…what a feeling;
these late summer
just a blush of autumn
cool New England days.

The Moon searches out the night
During the day sits in the background
Probably knitting a scarf of clouds
Pick one drop one, Cirrus follow by Cumulus
Allowing the Sun it’s all day brilliance
At night trumping all that coloured time
With a soft monochrome thrill
Wrapped in its unravelling grey black scarf
Bit of a night owl our Moon

Throws quite a few shapes
During it’s month
Revealing a little Edwardian anklet
And then to tantalise
Following with its full scandalous magnificence
A bit of a flirt our lovely Moon.

Our Moon has many beautiful scarfs
Holding hands and touch shoulders scarf
Or soft hand on the cheek while lips meet scarf
Hide under here together and pretend we are alone scarf
Let’s do something mad and feed the ducks at night scarf
And that warm promise don’t break my heart scarf
Bit of a romantic our lunatic moon.

The painting of clouds
is
eyeful
Mermaids
and Nereids
forget
swimming and
gaze
at
the mackerel
sky
The nimbus
creates
a smoky blue shade
on freshets
I wanna catch the cirrus
I can understand the phenology and the hydroponics
I cherish the rumblings
of thunder
My distress
has been submerged in
a flash of lightning

I’d fling the sun far into your cut corner
and shove moonlight broadly onto your toenails
you would want for so little
as the oceans carry you to shores of your water borne desire

wicked is the world stream when high hopes pegged precarious
onto chalky lines that shift like changing clouds
and lend its kind illusory touch under the lee

end dashed like outcast mirrors whose use
is rod cracked like inside the core of acrid earth
where awaits hot lava in secret fissures to melt all ropes
to bridge so narrow a wing's gapped fluke

jerking maestroms circle overhead
inducing desultory plunge
finger pointing, egg-beating, giddy whirly whirl

a day will come as yet unknown
when soul rags are panel worked and hylic sheathed
when latticed treats, as American as apple pie
will fill that tabled sky decked with cirrus tablecloth

averted seeker squint feels that cat-eyed wonder
flattened insect on a troubled screen with translucent beauty wings
lets in a dry smile ***** of real life dust in heretical relief

rupture
        ventilation
bolt that flippin' door – shut out the ****** world – make fast the curtain sides
broach the unslotted gap you know is yours and proclaim it wide: open sesame!
gouge your way into me - till I’m fully plugged with light
caulk me with your fingers till my spine near cracks
spike my heart with currents from the milk rush of you
pierce my thigh strips and whip the whetted words out me
tap into the slinky slices of my pervious skylit want
there will be no occlusion as arches meet under shuddered pleats

no, I have precious little time or heart to draw cute sunshine panels onto your retracted sleeve
in that stead, I can really be just plain me
who’d  eagerly wrench pale-blue patches from the sky cloth
and steal in zest moonbeams from lovers’ eyes
and heartily fling the sun your way and rob its life-giving warmth
and gladly rip up torn foliage from its homes
along with pert petals from fickle floral parties

if only these were things you’d want
yet, well I know whatever be the pains
there waits little gain
feral feline will trouble little more
heart swing derision flies poor as sad plighted answer rings on

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  .
~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  

what about the gull
                          with a wayward splash
or the balanced blend
of cirrus and ash

foghorns throw
the pock wave
sewell stragglers
and bonny boats
earn their keep