Goldenrods and oak
Flecks of emerald and amber
Awake! vivid spring

I wanted to write a poem
Of You
That does not
Include me
But my first word here was
I and I
Want to say I’m sorry
But that’s also about me

You Oh Lord
Are beyond words
Anyway
Even the prettiest
Are shabby
Compared to Your Heart
Of love

Even words that sound
The same
As their meaning –
Scrumptious, Graceful
Sweetheart –
Are clumsy and ugly
Compared to
Your name

Words as fragrant
As their flowers –
Carnations, violets,
Goldenrods,
Dahlias –
Wither as weeds
When Your warmth
Radiates as midday
From the pages of Your Book

A poem of You
Needs only one word
Or ninety-nine
And it is finished

Dogs come wagging , sniffing cuffs
Then one howls , enough is enough !

Crows kaw kaw , 21 point buck I saw
The sky is warm wandering

Black man picks blues on porch
Sings about love's searing torch

Cow patty pastures , fire ant hills
Pastoral soothing wills

Red clay dust , powdered road
Goldenrods and one lost toad

Southern pines standing straight
Pulp's fiction tempting fate

My ! My ! smiling sigh
Where the wild wood flowers do grow

Loneliness can be pressed into a jewel
and hung in the window.
Spinning prisms across the walls of my
empty room.

It's brightest when the sun is shining;
the facets deep and ever-changing.
Light and shadow;
time and distance.

This is when it stings:
Every perfect evening (gull cries and clear skies)
hangs on the walls of my room in light-tricks.
Vignettes of sunsets; only refractions.

The daylight oranges over his long back,
it goldenrods in his hair, shadows lengthen
his crooked fingers, strong wrists.
He looks west.

The sun says: follow! The light is chasing me.
His loneliness is a jewel that he saves for me.

I lay close to you,
Curled to the shape of your stonework body
Tracing the vines crawling on your arms
To the lavenders springing
From your cracked palms
And your back is the meadow I bury myself in
Half-picking foxgloves and goldenrods
Growing on your spine

Day after day, I watch you
Wondering about the dreams behind
Your eyelids covered in moss,
Softly kissing the dandelion dust
Collecting on your cheeks
While stringing a garland of daisies
To wear around your head

I sit here, longing to taste the dewdrops
Hanging at the corners of your mouth
But until your wake, I will await
The sweet honeysuckle
That is your tongue

If I could taste your kisses on my tongue,
Then I’d be stealing nectar from the gods.
Your kisses like ambrosia keep me young,
Like bloom of endless summer goldenrods.

In this, a moment calls our lips to meet,
To kiss like kisses are the only touch,
Your lips the honey nature made so sweet,
A sweetness which can never be too much.

Our kisses in our intimate embrace,
Without a thing to come between our skin,
Our immortality is face to face,
You open up to me and let me in.

If life is never-ending when we kiss,
Then let us not that moment ever miss.

Time rides
but on wings of butterflies.
Hardly noticeable
as they flit by…

From flower to flower.
Underscoring the fragrant,
outlining the beautiful.

Yarrows to daylilies.
Lavender to pansies.
Goldenrods to marigolds.

Supposedly impartial yet,
seemingly bestowing
just a little more
upon those most pleasing.

And the unchosen only watch
with bitter, hungry eyes
that go unnoticed, unslaked
and
          unvisited.

i was born underground,
i was born with darkness all around
i was born with a voice
my own choice
but they never told me how to use it
so i was quiet.
so quiet,
listening for
the scraping of claws
and eating what they offered me
one day i felt
the sun on my face
and it was august,
the sky lit up like honey
and goldenrods swayed in the wind
and peaches ripened like blood on trees
and i had wings,
i had wings!
so i took to the sky
brushed the dirt from my eyes
and ran away from that accursed
brood
and my mood
rose up like campfire smoke to the heavens
oh what a heaven
there are more of us
and we're in love
so we sing and dance
and take our chances
zipping through the sky
on diaphanous wings
now i sing
and i sing
and i know
some people find it annoying but
i was silent and scared for so long
now im in love and
i know death rides for me
but im in love
there's no room for thoughts of tragedy
as long as you hold me and ravage me
all throughout this night
reverberating with the ecstasy
of all the earth's creatures crying out

Fifth commandment breached regularly
epidemic of gun violence in America
bullets fly, scream and tear into flesh
senseless rampant mass killings
rip across fabric of society
buzzfeeding, jump/kickstarting,
paradigm of mortality.

Since January first
two thousand and twenty three
countless innocent people lost lives
deliberately, yet randomly targeted
shot dead at point blank range
merely going about
their ordinary business.

No clear cut motive nor profile
delineates active shooter(s),
who could be either (or any) gender
and range in age
from grade school to septuagenarian.

The latest homicides woo,
and appease the grim reaper,
where gunman(men)/women slew
***** deeds done dirt cheap
many baker's dozen innocent people
unknowingly and unwittingly drew
(rather gurgled) their last breath
choking on splintered blood vessels
beckoning, issuing, and twittering minimal
horrific animal primal gasps and groans.

Adversarial criminal minds
finds yours truly to interject
reasonable parenthetical rhyme without reason,
thus I temporarily tack tangentially offtrack
with cogent concise contemplation
to extemporize, lyricize, and soliloquize
brutal nasty senselessness
perpetrated courtesy fearsome
half cocked pistol packing maniacs,
whereby evils unrelentingly replaying nightmare
(exceeding cruelty by magnitudes administered

courtesy rocky horror picture show)
of gruesome carnage broadcast across
social media platforms
of killing fields anew,
in the minds of those unfortunate souls
who bear witness to deadly crime,
where odd stark juxtaposition
elicit skeletal goldenrods yellowed stalks
adrip with morning mountain dew
encompassing fresh footprints,
where berserk humans

prowling in the tall grass
(them of naked ape infamous
zoological niche) lately trod
in search of human prey
welcomed unsuspecting killer(s) true
colors transformed into hideous monsters
predictably soothing savage beasts
undertakers grisly task patching
shredded bodies after homicidal maniac
fired bullet(s) setting corpse
recalibrating counting queue.

As month one of new year
(according to Chinese tradition
water rabbit constitutes animal de jure)
allows, enables, and provides
brisk business for crematoriums
or funeral parlors.

Whether native American citizen
or foreigner (perchance student) slain
survivors bereave and issue final adieu,
whether gentile nor Jew,
perhaps including
child named Caillou
instantaneously slain, who
knew
not what felled them
engrossed amidst social ballyhoo

ex post facto registering grievous hue
pallbearers accentuating somber view
eclipsing most recent prior massacres
similar to previous you
ululations reverberate yesterday's sorrows
without handy dandy blue's clue
lame motive explaining
cold blooded slaughter
vis a vis unsurprising discover re:
firearms Jane/ John Q.

Public kept stashed loaded, deployed...
guns up the kazoo
cocked, gauged, primed...
for unleaded opportunity
to unleash barrage
invariable generating hullabaloo
to curb ****** violence
trumpeting predictable brew
ha ha alloyed against National
Rifle Association almighty

elephant in the room courtesy hathi howdah  
supported lobbyist's motley crew
(think three ring circus)
versus increased uproar
protesters chorus nearly few
tile opposition pitted grand Poobah
despite alarming statistics shew
plus increasing fresh gravesites dug
amidst freshly mowed fescue
attesting to wanton shell shocked
headlines indiscriminate brew

tilly assaulting sensibilities
without rhyme nor reason
yet, yours truly doth boo
leave rampant hatred
directly linkedin to
former "FAKE" commander in chief,
(biden his time as patient hunter)
whose acrid, horrid, rabid vitriol
still darkly colors political hue
man gushing ****** fountainhead few

ming and appreciable frothing
lathers up right wing supremacists
greenlighting smoldering new
bile radicals hot headed
volatile mindset whereby
self anointed anarchistic Guru
possibly fuels global warming
evidenced by displaced Inuits
flooding courtesy melting igloo.