I made 1000 pinwheels
instead of cranes
They were beacons And
wishes.
You lined your front yard  with them.
A dizzying kaleidoscope
lighting up your porch
So I would know when
I arrived back to you,
*home

I WAS born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women, gave me a song and a slogan.

Here the water went down, the icebergs slid with gravel, the gaps and the valleys hissed, and the black loam came, and the yellow sandy loam.
Here between the sheds of the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, here now a morning star fixes a fire sign over the timber claims and cow pastures, the corn belt, the cotton belt, the cattle ranches.
Here the gray geese go five hundred miles and back with a wind under their wings honking the cry for a new home.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water.

The prairie sings to me in the forenoon and I know in the night I rest easy in the prairie arms, on the prairie heart..    .    .
        After the sunburn of the day
        handling a pitchfork at a hayrack,
        after the eggs and biscuit and coffee,
        the pearl-gray haystacks
        in the gloaming
        are cool prayers
        to the harvest hands.

In the city among the walls the overland passenger train is choked and the pistons hiss and the wheels curse.
On the prairie the overland flits on phantom wheels and the sky and the soil between them muffle the pistons and cheer the wheels..    .    .
I am here when the cities are gone.
I am here before the cities come.
I nourished the lonely men on horses.
I will keep the laughing men who ride iron.
I am dust of men.

The running water babbled to the deer, the cottontail, the gopher.
You came in wagons, making streets and schools,
Kin of the ax and rifle, kin of the plow and horse,
Singing Yankee Doodle, Old Dan Tucker, Turkey in the Straw,
You in the coonskin cap at a log house door hearing a lone wolf howl,
You at a sod house door reading the blizzards and chinooks let loose from Medicine Hat,
I am dust of your dust, as I am brother and mother
To the copper faces, the worker in flint and clay,
The singing women and their sons a thousand years ago
Marching single file the timber and the plain.

I hold the dust of these amid changing stars.
I last while old wars are fought, while peace broods mother-like,
While new wars arise and the fresh killings of young men.
I fed the boys who went to France in great dark days.
Appomattox is a beautiful word to me and so is Valley Forge and the Marne and Verdun,
I who have seen the red births and the red deaths
Of sons and daughters, I take peace or war, I say nothing and wait.

Have you seen a red sunset drip over one of my cornfields, the shore of night stars, the wave lines of dawn up a wheat valley?
Have you heard my threshing crews yelling in the chaff of a strawpile and the running wheat of the wagonboards, my cornhuskers, my harvest hands hauling crops, singing dreams of women, worlds, horizons?.    .    .
        Rivers cut a path on flat lands.
        The mountains stand up.
        The salt oceans press in
        And push on the coast lines.
        The sun, the wind, bring rain
        And I know what the rainbow writes across the east or west in a half-circle:
        A love-letter pledge to come again..    .    .
      Towns on the Soo Line,
      Towns on the Big Muddy,
      Laugh at each other for cubs
      And tease as children.

Omaha and Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. Paul, sisters in a house together, throwing slang, growing up.
Towns in the Ozarks, Dakota wheat towns, Wichita, Peoria, Buffalo, sisters throwing slang, growing up..    .    .
Out of prairie-brown grass crossed with a streamer of wigwam smoke-out of a smoke pillar, a blue promise-out of wild ducks woven in greens and purples-
Here I saw a city rise and say to the peoples round world: Listen, I am strong, I know what I want.
Out of log houses and stumps-canoes stripped from tree-sides-flatboats coaxed with an ax from the timber claims-in the years when the red and the white men met-the houses and streets rose.

A thousand red men cried and went away to new places for corn and women: a million white men came and put up skyscrapers, threw out rails and wires, feelers to the salt sea: now the smokestacks bite the skyline with stub teeth.

In an early year the call of a wild duck woven in greens and purples: now the riveter's chatter, the police patrol, the song-whistle of the steamboat.

To a man across a thousand years I offer a handshake.
I say to him: Brother, make the story short, for the stretch of a thousand years is short..    .    .
What brothers these in the dark?
What eaves of skyscrapers against a smoke moon?
These chimneys shaking on the lumber shanties
When the coal boats plow by on the river-
The hunched shoulders of the grain elevators-
The flame sprockets of the sheet steel mills
And the men in the rolling mills with their shirts off
Playing their flesh arms against the twisting wrists of steel:
        what brothers these
        in the dark
        of a thousand years?.    .    .
A headlight searches a snowstorm.
A funnel of white light shoots from over the pilot of the Pioneer Limited crossing Wisconsin.

In the morning hours, in the dawn,
The sun puts out the stars of the sky
And the headlight of the Limited train.

The fireman waves his hand to a country school teacher on a bobsled.
A boy, yellow hair, red scarf and mittens, on the bobsled, in his lunch box a pork chop sandwich and a V of gooseberry pie.

The horses fathom a snow to their knees.
Snow hats are on the rolling prairie hills.
The Mississippi bluffs wear snow hats..    .    .
Keep your hogs on changing corn and mashes of grain,
    O farmerman.
    Cram their insides till they waddle on short legs
    Under the drums of bellies, hams of fat.
    **** your hogs with a knife slit under the ear.
    Hack them with cleavers.
    Hang them with hooks in the hind legs..    .    .
A wagonload of radishes on a summer morning.
Sprinkles of dew on the crimson-purple *****.
The farmer on the seat dangles the reins on the rumps of dapple-gray horses.
The farmer's daughter with a basket of eggs dreams of a new hat to wear to the county fair..    .    .
On the left-and right-hand side of the road,
        Marching corn-
I saw it knee high weeks ago-now it is head high-tassels of red silk creep at the ends of the ears..    .    .
I am the prairie, mother of men, waiting.
They are mine, the threshing crews eating beefsteak, the farmboys driving steers to the railroad cattle pens.
They are mine, the crowds of people at a Fourth of July basket picnic, listening to a lawyer read the Declaration of Independence, watching the pinwheels and Roman candles at night, the young men and women two by two hunting the bypaths and kissing bridges.
They are mine, the horses looking over a fence in the frost of late October saying good-morning to the horses hauling wagons of rutabaga to market.
They are mine, the old zigzag rail fences, the new barb wire..    .    .
The cornhuskers wear leather on their hands.
There is no let-up to the wind.
Blue bandannas are knotted at the ruddy chins.

Falltime and winter apples take on the smolder of the five-o'clock November sunset: falltime, leaves, bonfires, stubble, the old things go, and the earth is grizzled.
The land and the people hold memories, even among the anthills and the angleworms, among the toads and woodroaches-among gravestone writings rubbed out by the rain-they keep old things that never grow old.

The frost loosens corn husks.
The Sun, the rain, the wind
        loosen corn husks.
The men and women are helpers.
They are all cornhuskers together.
I see them late in the western evening
        in a smoke-red dust..    .    .
The phantom of a yellow rooster flaunting a scarlet comb, on top of a dung pile crying hallelujah to the streaks of daylight,
The phantom of an old hunting dog nosing in the underbrush for muskrats, barking at a **** in a treetop at midnight, chewing a bone, chasing his tail round a corncrib,
The phantom of an old workhorse taking the steel point of a plow across a forty-acre field in spring, hitched to a harrow in summer, hitched to a wagon among cornshocks in fall,
These phantoms come into the talk and wonder of people on the front porch of a farmhouse late summer nights.
"The shapes that are gone are here," said an old man with a cob pipe in his teeth one night in Kansas with a hot wind on the alfalfa..    .    .
Look at six eggs
In a mockingbird's nest.

Listen to six mockingbirds
Flinging follies of O-be-joyful
Over the marshes and uplands.

Look at songs
Hidden in eggs..    .    .
When the morning sun is on the trumpet-vine blossoms, sing at the kitchen pans: Shout All Over God's Heaven.
When the rain slants on the potato hills and the sun plays a silver shaft on the last shower, sing to the bush at the backyard fence: Mighty Lak a Rose.
When the icy sleet pounds on the storm windows and the house lifts to a great breath, sing for the outside hills: The Ole Sheep Done Know the Road, the Young Lambs Must Find the Way..    .    .
Spring slips back with a girl face calling always: "Any new songs for me? Any new songs?"

O prairie girl, be lonely, singing, dreaming, waiting-your lover comes-your child comes-the years creep with toes of April rain on new-turned sod.
O prairie girl, whoever leaves you only crimson poppies to talk with, whoever puts a good-by kiss on your lips and never comes back-
There is a song deep as the falltime redhaws, long as the layer of black loam we go to, the shine of the morning star over the corn belt, the wave line of dawn up a wheat valley..    .    .
O prairie mother, I am one of your boys.
I have loved the prairie as a man with a heart shot full of pain over love.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water..    .    .
I speak of new cities and new people.
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
  a sun dropped in the west.
I tell you there is nothing in the world
  only an ocean of to-morrows,
  a sky of to-morrows.

I am a brother of the cornhuskers who say
  at sundown:
        To-morrow is a day.

Like sipping coffee with cigarette in hand,
watching waves rise and fall while stepping through warm sand,
you are peace of mind.
Like smelling roses during sweet sugary May,
Laying down after a long lingering day
you are an exhaling breath.
Like the tops of roller coasters about to drop,
Watching number wheels spin until they stop
You are anticipation.
Anticipation going over again in my head
Like a pinwheel being hushed to tread
Constantly spinning.

No second chances!
No do-overs!
That is one of the regreatable rules of time.

No more pigtails & pretty dresses,
No more Horsey-back & Piggy-back rides,
No more Tee-ball & Soccer,
No more Marry Poppens & Wizard of OZ,
No more Popcorn & Video games,
No more homework & bed time stories,
No more marshmellow roasts & snipe hunts,
No more sand castles & sand dollars,
No more Sparklers & Pinwheels.

No time to pause & reflect!
It can only cause regret!
Enjoy it along the way while you can.
Everything is temporary.

Flecks of violet, patch-quilt  loofah skin of  sponge-green iris, gold dusted
Emerald  eyes... wet stones in flesh tone, parachute baskets; paratroop lids
Descend... thin paradigms slip ; adrift upon a Seam of Tears. A saline Sea - with
Glass floor; lensing starlight over mint pink trampolines
covered in tiny copper filings,

And two Black Pools that Expand.
Two Sunbathing Night Blossoms -

Dead center. Unmanned...

Her cheekbones encroach upon Cataracts of Vacancy.
Lipid lathes of Lethe ; lips departed... red zeppelins, moist and mute . pontoons
Plump and mindless. Bee stung -
Open.

Soft mimes, glide
Over bleach and stain; over -
bone white; glide
Over Nicotine sigils, hiding -
in off-white
Enamel...

like anonymous petroglyphs for Dentists.
or Rosetta Stones for a lethargic Tongue.



II


Theta-wave turbines, throw rods and spark nods ... as others speak.
She resembles a dream-catcher’s mitt.
Words hiss now, and solid mist, twist the tell o' gram.
Into Fable's Armada !

Fog.... fog rolls in...   She rolls in, Beneath  a New Between. of Chasms
Hazardous grammar spasms, stammering -
Deaf tones of Diction -
All This ....In the Good Ear.
An Ear Of Cornucopias Delete.... The Dry Cob
Of  Annulled
Speech. [ but Morphine ]

Maybe a half-dozen kernels of distinct cream ; velveteen vague...
Or vivid - pleats in pure radiation.
?
Perhaps,  varicose inanities are expiation enough to drown a Kraken ?  Maybe God Happens ?

Let Ampule be the Judge.  Let Pack Mules be Priests.

As Others speak, Our Lily,  decrypts languidly left of linear... dislodged -
from Lexicons ....with long Odds, Against...
She Relents, Relentlessly-  And Utterly

Utterly Regardless...

She aborts pregnant ( .... )
pauses.

All this Fog rolls in... Agnostic.
She Robs
The Cuckoo... She De-bones the Soup
with Disjoint Comments.
And Scuttles
The Broth.

She's all Starlings and Polaroids.... Savage Pinwheels  and Aurora Vandals.

She's  All Plasma...
And Rapture -
with No Handles ...

She's Both Ends ... Burning
NOooo Candle .

A Wee Atlas; Shouldering A Loss
Ever Since Her World  
Was  Dismantled ..  A  Burden ( ... )
Lily
Phantom
Shrugs  

And Random Drugs..Atlantis.

When the first sweet scent of summertime,
sifted through the sea-salt scented air,
so many things and everything
were bright, light and happy-go-fair,
the Summer Life with you was finally here.

As soon as our bare feet hit the wood bridge,
running from the road up over the dunes,
great grey seagulls squawked, dove and swoon,
we held hands together, one and one
made two,
dash-dancing across the shiny sand with you,
dressed and undressed in our Summer Life moods.

Colours like pinwheels spun like yarn,
flashed and clashed bright orange to blue,
you danced and giggled like a loon,
pulled me up and so close, so close
to you,
that I had to dance, I had to dance like a loon,
I just had to laugh and dance and laugh along with you.

How we played, we frolicked beneath the beachy sun,
belly-surfed upon the waves just for funny fun,
flicked flecks of sand from our sticky picnic lunch,
shared swigs from a big blue thermos jug
of fruity-fruit yummy punch,
sharing and caring beneath the Summer Life's sun.

By evening-tide the air grew cool,
you called me 'lover,' I called you 'fool'
-with a big ol' blanket draped over our shoulders,
we kissed and cuddled, growing much bolder,
falling flat back
upon the mighty mattress of sand,
feeling the mists of the waves licking our hands,
as the Man-In-The-Moon arose and shone,
to dance and laugh with us on the Summer Life's throne.

The warden’s bewildered, the keeper’s amazed
as the gate gapes behind us, a hole in the haze.
Our steps seem uncertain, the cobblestones crazed,
pearly stars burn above us like pinwheels ablaze.
Though lanterns hang vacant in streets staring blind,
broken paths paved in puzzles compel me to roam,
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The cannons keep calling, the piccolos shriek
and the druids drift, drumming, while pale pagans speak.
They’re urging me forward, my senses they’ve mined,
and the trail is erupting, come hie to the hills
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The looking glass glistens, a firefly glows,
and the brownies leap lightly on tiny tip toes
for the twilight’s collapsing, which serves to remind
that as dusk turns to dust, with no time for farewells,
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The ponies of plunder prance, passing nearby,
as crusaders on stallions cast stones from the sky.
The figments they’re facing have paid them no mind,
but our broncos are bolting. Corral what you need,
                                        I’ll not leave you behind.

My visions are swirling, they flash from the crown,
from the rainbows of summer, the tinsel in town.
While the compass wheel’s spinning, the minutes unwind
inside evening’s auroras – so cling to my cape,  
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

Drooping droplets of wax adorn pinched candle wicks
while the vampire steeple’s cathedral clock ticks
of the terrors in tombs where ****** flames lie reclined
with their flickers fast fading – abandon the glim,
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The orphans and widows lean into the breeze
watching horrified hangmen descend to their knees
for the angel of mercy’s no longer inclined
to forgive vengeful  phantoms (oh Furies of night!) ,
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The bandits are brazen, the highwaymen lurk,
some imbibing dark brews of a hag’s handiwork,
mostly gulping from goblets like goblins maligned.
Woman! Widen your wings, catching wisps of the wind
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The lepers laugh, leaping from tombstones of steel
chasing rollaway caskets on luminous wheels;
while their shadows shake, shrouded, twixt trees intertwined,
twisted time melts at midnight, take hold of my hand,
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The gremlins *****, grinning face down in the dust,
while the sprites and the pixies are watching nonplussed.
They sling bolted arrows at spectres enshrined
within winds somewhat flustered, just fly from your fears
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The tattered toy teddies and raggedy Anns
have escaped to the skyways in kid caravans
but now, spellbound by fancies, know not that they’ll find
their parade’s evanesced into echoes of dawn –
                                       I’ll not leave you behind.

The wind’s my enchantress, beguiles and commands
me to search for my fortune in faraway lands
and whispers her mysteries of passions entwined,
for the wind is Isolde – unfurling my sails
                                        I’ll not leave you behind.

The gauzy nightdress caresses her thighs
as her bare arms, trembling feet defy
the gnawing, gnashing wind.
The world hangs below,
teetering on the edge of a cliff.
She turns, back to the open air;
taxicabs panic below her.
She tilts, arms whirling like pinwheels,
and falls into freedom.
Serenity, it seems, is found in flying,
if only for a moment.

Yessir I have felonies
and melodies both melancholy and miraculous
paragraphiculous and ridiculous
stole some shows and some thunder
thighs like two day old pudding slap 'em and ride the waves
sike
drink up some dishwasher detergent chased with lead paint
not for the faint of heart just the stupid as ffffffffuuuuuu when under the right noises
and boyses and girlies all singing their swirlies
and twirlin' 'round like pinwheels of tin steel
ten feet off of the ground
hillsides like pill boxes full of coins and coincidences
unmeasured instances of grief and shame without a blame
no face to force hate just mirrors to show fate
and the stars in the sky with their winking teasing ways all
fall to the ground
will be dead within days
but they are not forsaken, maybe only spared
to avoid seeing the moment when sunny didn't share
and all went dark like absence of creation
animation of fears all mixed and respun into dope dubstep
to be grinded and mashed
and spat back up into the trees

Civilized mankind has a unique way,
To party and celebrate a most special day.

Potassium and sulfur, mixed with some coal,
Can reduce a mountain into the hill of a mole.

Gunpowder is thought to have China as a start,
Ceremonies commence, fireworks a part.

I always thought, it amusing to find,
Warfare and festival are two of a kind.

Powerful explosions that disable and destroy,
Have the ability to give the masses such joy.

Here we go, let the bash begin,
Guaranteed to give, your face a grin.

Let's add some luminosity to this summer blast,
Firecrackers and sparklers make the jubilee last.

Pinwheels are nailed safely to a tree,
Furiously twirls colors for all to see.

An aerial assault aloft, hear them roar,
Yellows and greens, in the air they will soar.

Flash flaming fluorescence, blue and red,
Envelop your eyes, dancing in your head.

See the trail of a missile, zipping in flight,
Shiny illuminations, all through the night.

On the ground at the end of a fireworks show,
Blazing stars and stripes, a flag created, watch it glow.

The fourth of July is America's time,
A birthday blowout, drinks with lemon and lime.

This frolicking is filled with food, family and fun,
Independence day, I wish it never was done.

Please visit poemsbypaul.com

1.
immortal stone
rolled away.

2.
..........pinwheels rolling on
O O O O O O O O O O O O

then just
flatlining  ---^-^---^------^--------------------^----------------------­------^--------------------





S T, 8 July 2013

Crater deep dimples filling hearts with mirthful spinning pinwheels. The sun rays illuminating the iris full of expectations, stories, lustrous joy, life. The energy shared in space made weak knees crumble. Silhouette causing brainwaves running rampant. The architecture of your shape is staggering. Staggered right through thoughts. Elated fingertips never found a better home. Hair blessing the wind with its presence. Giving flow to nature around. Flow through my life. The orbit already taken place. As simple as the circle I see in your glance. Smile again. Memorizing forms, unique, pictures, keeping them stored in a treasure chest behind my bones.  Completed. Play your algebra once more.  Lets get acquainted. Equal to the wonders of our body. Like the landmarks spread upon your skin like a treasure map. Let me discover you. The entrapment you caused upon my ability to speak is stammering. When did Things become so simple. Beauty slammed through ideas of broken bodies. It's an archive. Your body. Sun kissed and blessed by the noon. The way you illuminate under the vast open everything. I find my eyes fixed upon yours. Lost in the translation of their movements. Closing my eyes to imagine the holographic wonders taking place behind your reality. The turbulence in your chest is ever clear. Beauty isn't a word that I can make sense of. Not when I am presented with you.

Rumpled feathers wrinkled in time
switchfeet running on a half battery
a horrible situation if you aren't accustomed
but to the rest
an average day-
breakfast lunch and dinner
nutrients, calories, sustenance
cherry bombs make lovely sundae toppings
then all goes nuts-
kaboom, kaplow
may all the tall ones wear pin striped suits
and carry pinwheels
and pin buttons of political preference to breast pockets
out pops golden sunshine
rays of gamma and joy
proletariat eternity
cannot decide
between juvenile altercations
or the same ole same ole way of *******.

White cotton
and pink lace
pictures of castles
far away
children laughing
pinwheels blowing
in her room
a garden growing
a little Mozart
a little Top
a little smile
one teardrop
an "I believe"
on her wall
in the window
porcelin dolls
angels fly
about her house
and faerie dust
on the couch
the smell of roses
everywhere
endless infinity
in the air
prisms dancing
in her eyes
and I just never
wonder why

Tara is a little girl…she does pinwheels and cartwheels on crowded  traffic signals and yeah …she has a small baby monkey who helps her…*


Tara
Little Tara
Tonight I leave my
Pen to sniff
hunger ghosts
Rumbling in your belly…


Yes..
sniff from
Miles and miles apart
From your own
Ragged world
Of pin wheels
And cartwheels
Emaciated monkey babes


Ah ! In this hollow
Poetic world
Is it only rhythm
I seek …

Even as cold winds
Enter those  gaps
Expanding forever
In your innocent
malnourished psyche…


Tara..
little Tara
tell me ..
how to give
a closure
to this verse…


Do I ask
You how
Your new year
Had been

Or..

Do I
Fish that
Rusted coin
From the bottom
Of my purse and
Toss it on
To your eager
Waiting palm


Tara..
Little Tara
Tell me


Helpless as I am  
Shrouded
In my opulent hypocracy
…

As you are

…shivering
In your humble poverty

I just want to be
a Duke of a Universe
is this too much to ask?
I could use
The Black Hole as a pool pocket
and the planets as pool-*****
and declare you
Vice Duke inspecting graffiti
on planet restroom walls,
and you report to me
those words of wisdom
of Plato, Nietzsche, Kilroy and cornbread...

I just want to watch
comets streek across
the heavens
and watch tiny pulsars blink minute rotations,
and newly created stars explode
and belch their heavenly gases
And see masses and masses
of nebulae
stretching outward
like blowy-toy-pinwheels
And I'll take the " Big Dipped"
and dip it in the " Milky Way"
while playing marbles
with tiny asteroids
And use the heavens as my
painter's canvas
and splash on newly Constellations
And use the many Suns
to warm my chilly hands,
The return from farthermost
planets of Sunless Lands

Oh my BOSS!!
I'm getting too serious
as you can easily see
And why worry?
Because I'm already
a Duke of a Universe,
The talk of the playground campus
The talk among every prominent
Neo-Freudian and Neo-Skinnerian
The talk about my wisdom writings
found near almost flushing toilet
at "QUACKSVILLE UNIVERSAL UNIVERSITY"
Here come the med cart
Here come the med cart

That's all folks

Once upon a time
The sky turned darker than black
And I was lost
But then
There were two lights
Brighter than hope
And you stepped forward
With eyes like shiny pinwheels
And pulled me into the daylight
So
I love you.

I miss the crinkle smile
lines slithering up your
cheeks like canals on
the Martian surface-
evidence that life was once there.

Or the way your laughter could penetrate
the depths of my dead skin like
harmonious frequencies
erupting from a kitchen muse.

And where your hands touched
so did Midas follow;
and where your hair spiraled
out of your face in pinwheels
so did galaxies imitate.

The bed is colder now that you
have stepped away.
I miss the depressions in the sheets.

Oh yes I miss a lot.

But most of all I miss
what I never thought i would miss-
the ability of your lips to create
the sweetest music I’ve ever heard,

a thousand lyres playing in unison: I love you too.

Ravens dance upon highwires.
Flashing pinwheels spinning in their beaks.
The merry-go-round grinds,
Its rusted gears, squealing into the wind.
Book pages whirl and fly off into the sky.
The fox’s cry to the butterfly
Went unheard in this whitewashed night.

her voice shakes like a mud wall
in an earthquake, slurry and moistened
with beer, struggling to stand
in my ear, each fall of my boot chokes
further up the hillside neck,
her left behind cry cakes into my footsteps

then bleats SEAN! I’m gonna fall
my legs hurt, I’m worried the poison
of fear will melt her to sand
but I trust she doesn’t need assured looks
or words, just strength in her back,
her spine’s solid as mine, but she forgets

I wait at the top, the dome
where all upward strides will always lead
an inverted pit for sinking stones
too stubborn to abide to gravity

there at the top,  the moon
pinwheels in time to deep and dizzy
breathing that yanks up my rooted bones
plants them in pieces outside of my body

her form summits at a crawl
but buries hurry in her voice and
comes near, commits a cold hand
SLAP
just begging to see my face broken
why would you run? you’re a ****
but my abandonment was a sign of respect

Grand finale

The leaves rustle
Like crackling flames in the autumn breeze
Citrine embers , captivate
Widened eyes of an imagination
Remnant limbs outstretched
And ashen
Sweeping bristles of natures broom
A wave of fire , a dragging cloak
Hanging on the shoulders of the sun
Summers grand finale
The final act , up in a ball of fire
I watch the leaves rustle
Like pinwheels
Dipped in crimson orange
Rolling off into the horizon
A recycled canvas
Waiting to be dipped
in snowfall
Scrubbed with a winter sponge
And ready
Ready for springtimes pallet
Of gemstone hue's
And a brush melded
In morning dew and sunshine
And to start the cycle again
Until
summers grand finale

We laughed and we fought,
we cried like children ought to
We pulled our pinwheels
against a never ending sky
pleading for the moon to stay behind,
if only for a little while

Hearts, not heralded in art,
Are broken, mended,
Beating, fragile and still.
We are surrounded;
The unknown to know
The aches and pleasures,
The confusion with love and despair,
Remorse and resentment;
The empty longings,
The burning fulfilment.
Cave walls, train trestles and sidewalks
Are sprayed in verses of universality.
The coupling, birthing and dying
Are the continuous unison that endures
Through the elasticity of love.
Ready to wrap the unravelling.
Our teeth may become straws,
Our ears pinholes,
Our eyes pinwheels,
Our skulls pinheads,
Our bodies pincushions;
But keep heart.

From out of the rain
Like a pinwheels in the wasteland
Water soaking up the sun
Careening, spinning away
Still leaving the unbroken skies

Splintered, inspiring rainbows
Donuts of fragmented lights
Misted drops in motion
Spun, shattered diamonds
Little tricks of stars

A kaleidoscope of mirrors
Each of mystical themes
From sky to barren earth
So short in flight
Hearty in life

That tremendous fall
Of a single drop, from heaven
So far to break, always apart
Explosion of color, to earth
To sing, eventually, again

I am waiting for the moment where I pivot and all that I can envision now is a blacktop and white dotted lines, maybe lanes of rolling white whipped green churning pinwheels going long down the road with a stalk of cud in my mouth can I ever go and unthink like the caramel burnt stained car chair that I rest in as a finger comprised of ash that will collapse in any second and Im telling you its beautiful to let go and see the small blue insects mixed up in a whirlwind of gray flecking flickers that you may capture with a white plastic bag it reads “shoprite” you remember times at the a&p; that was ay-em-*** to toddlers who were smarter to not distinguish between what seems and what is according to the strangers who walk the street, seem foreboding, and yet retreat indoors to steak dinners and why weren’t the tater’s in the oven at half passed six? Maryellen. I told you. I told you patriarchal. I sing from my molehill. My mother always fixed me a cherry pie told me I had the nose of a rodent and so I found my fathers gun, JOhny, white America, puh, would you think I’m on drugs because twenty-one and throw up when looking like chalk smeared on top of cheeks, these bones are feeling a bit decayed wont you examine what you’ve done to…who are you? And nowhere it goes. Nowhere it goes. I sit here im ****** you think it’s a joke but this blurb is worth
Less
Bag of blue sanddollars
Dipped in wax
With a wick
And a pick
A guitar string
And a tick-
Tock
Tick
Tock
Tick


Give it a lick
Peanut butter off a stick
I dunno whats to do or did
But theres a whole lot of mess out there
And we all are using it to smear messages in the listless purple filaments that cloud the sky

I’ve heard admonishments and thin mints in girl scout boxes ive eaten around glass patio tables with blue waters squarely pooled im sure your hair gel is swelling the heart of some hungry shewolf who will nibble or bite or swallow you, I do not know which one is which. But ive heard laments about nations and ignorance and I’m not sure who is more to blame or what could be a solution but to speak largely and loudly id need a microphone and a lot of ears or no a telescope and a broadcaster or better yet digital tools and the internet. Communication is the sopping soggy wet piece of bread that floats in my milk bowl and by the time my orange kitty paws move at it, the loose and expanded bits disintegrate and sink. A sink has a drain that gets clogged and we all must stare at it until it is cleaned and if I’m not the one cleaning my drain then who is the one cleaning my waste?

what do you call that--in the morning?
between dried citrus fruits, orange and
lemon pinwheels strung on fishing wire
persimmon and crystalized cinnabar
soft bread rolls wrapped in muslin
with filtered sun refracting
through the crown glass
around her head like parhelion--
and she touches the spices
sumac, saffron, fennel, mustard seeds
and she touches the dishcloths
and she touches
and she touches
and she touches.

Under the humid air
I sit, on my lofty rock and stare
as warm summer heat rises
I look toward the burning horizon

Butterflies dance by together,
enjoying the sultry August weather.
While nearby sprinklers twirl
and pinwheels whirl.

A breeze gently wisps across my skin
as birds fly by, weaving out and in.
Settling on a limb to rest and sing
before ruffling feathers and taking wing.

Bright with summer's flowers
Adorn my garden bower
with intoxicating smells
of magnolia, wisteria and bluebells

Some of August's simple treasures
brings the most delightful pleasures.


ALesiach © 07/26/2019

This is the story of my daddy's sad rations, his mad reasons he left in the basement there, I found out directly, direct reasons for no other keepsake; no hallmark memories he tossed off left bottles broken in the bottom of a brown box in the bottom of the brown sun-burnt grass in the backyard where green onions grow in a big brown box outweigh the grass--they stand upright, strong & solid like ledgers--solid as baseball diamonds mingling in the summer heat cast shadows over the tired yard where children play--they yell and fall down over each other weakly, strongly, pathetically, unknowingly, hypnotic marvels in their silence, in their stupor, in their bliss imaginings, I am a child too far gone--too far off watching, I regard them as a stone villain, as a requisite somebody made of vinyl pinwheels, as a time-sprung witness to the watching world, the undone mechanisms spiral dignity. I was solid. I was solid. I was venturing a minute's glance at pity. I was lost in an eternity of forgetting. I was hung on lines too high to hold me. I was hauled out of a torn envelope in the fire pit, reassembled, reasoned to be dead forgotten.