A cruel Jack Frost blows icy floss
          (in front of spring a’ burstin’)
while shiftin’ sheaves of withered leaves
          near freezin’ streams a’ thirstin’.
A pack reviled runs roamin’ wild,
          the alpha wolf wakes howlin’
then scents a lean and lonesome scene
          while on the lurk a’ prowlin’.

A cloud revolts with spangled bolts,
          and starry skies start closin’
as wild geese soar beyond death’s door
          neath naked moon a’ posin’.
Electric shafts, like fractured rafts,
          sail night’s cathedral caldrons –
their cracking curse makes herds disperse
          in random splayed and sprawled runs.

A she-wolf sighs with hungry eyes;
          the ancient wolf waits, bayin’ -
with weary back, he’s lost the track,
          his bandied legs betrayin’.
The brood’s somewhere in shrouded lair
          with mama left to mind ’em -
the wolf, a’ drag with empty swag,
          is on his way to find ’em.

The pack rejoins with weary ***** -
          perhaps its days are numbered.
In evening’s night, he’s feeling tight,
          with aches and pains encumbered.
As morning nears, with shaggy ears
          (one droopin’ down, hung over)
he’ll set the course with renewed force,
          for, yes, he’s still the rover.

When snow enshrines the timberlines
          and skies are ripped asunder
though young, lupine, they’ll stifle whines,
          as gullies fill with thunder;
mid echoes in the mouth o’ death,
          they bid farewell the lair
while panting puffs o’ crystal breath
          float, hanging in the air.

Their path is black (they can’t look back
          for herds long gone a’ missin’)
as dusk profanes the snow-bound plains
          the sinkin’ sun was kissin’.
Neath northern lights, with barks and bites,
          he keeps ’em all in motion –
the speckled scars of fallin’ stars
          display the night’s devotion.

The sky’s a’ blushin’ in the east,
          and hollow wind’s are sighin’
while buzzards freeze in gallows trees,
          a’ roostin’, rapt and eyein’.
These ghouls of prey, they’re spooked away,
          like tumbleweeds a’ blowin’,
by tilted head, white fangs tipped red,
          and warnin’ wail’s a’ growin’.

With snout upturned the moon’s discerned
          as well as wafts a wendin’
and muzzled growls and shriekin’ howls
          mark wolves in quests unendin’.
With fragrant hint, the wolf’s a’ sprint,
          the pack begins t’ rally –
in swift descent they’ve seized a scent,
          that’s flowin’ down the valley.

The wolf moves on behind the dawn
          and shades the pale horizon
as she-wolfs vet his silhouette
          each time they lay their eyes on.
With trek discreet, a trail is beat
          across a river frozen –
when day’s complete, just mice to eat,
          a choice despised, but chosen.

A stillness jeers the shaggy ears
          (one droopin’ down, hung over),
while caribou, with much ado,
          drift, seekin’ blades o’ clover;
the wearied pack picks up their track
          (with stony stomachs pangin’)
through endless seas of barren trees
          with ice like daggers hangin’.

The wolf invades forgotten glades,
          the pack stays close behind ’im;
the caribou, in his purview,
          seem far too far to mind ’im.
Above, a baleful moonbeam wails,
          “oh god he’s gonna’ catch ’em”;
the scene is grim, the Reaper dim,
          the night has gone to fetch ’im.

A moanin’ mynah’s crying loud
          as birds of prey are preachin’
to cravin’ ravens prayin’ proud
          and wide-eyed owls a’ screechin’.
The wolf, unrushed, is breathin’ hushed,
          his hollow eyes a’ narrowin’
and focused hard in fixed regard
          on herds they'll soon be harrowin’.

The morning breeze is ill at ease,  
          a surge brings sudden silence –
then haggard swarms launch poundin’ storms
          and hurricanes of vi’lence;
the herd’s surprised and paralyzed
          all over hell’s half acre –
the leadin’ buck’s run out of luck,
          he’s soon to meet his maker.

The old wolf creeps, the old wolf leaps
          on prey he’s been a’ trackin’ –
a deer adorned with branchin’ horns
          is torn by beasts attackin’.
The morning quakes, a shadow shakes,
          tined antlers left a’ lyin’,
and spattered spots and scarlet clots
          repaint the point o’ dyin’.

A magpie flies with frightened eyes
          (on ebon wings a’ wavin’),
spies wolfin’ jaws and sated maws
          of wolves no longer cravin’.
The snowdrift clears, a cool wind veers,
          a dying breath, moreover –
a wraith appears, with shaggy ears,
          (one droopin’ down, hung over).

Dawn’s sunbeams crowd, ignite a cloud,
          its threaded strands a’ weavin’.
The pack awakes and twists and shakes,
          for soon it’s time for leavin’;
it’s bleak, it chills on shallow hills,
          as she-wolfs come a’ nuzzlin’,
but north winds scold, the wolf lies cold,
          the pack stands back a’ puzzlin’.

On crimson snows neath perchin’ crows,
          the pack abides a’ guardin’;
while nights are tight with Harpy kites,
          the she-wolves wait an’ harden,
until a groanin’ blizzard stones
          the barren forest stowin’
his shaggy ears beneath the weirs,
          with icy hails ’a blowin’.

The storm abates and terminates,
          the glacial wind’s subsidin’;
the past is past or passin’ fast
          and life goes on abidin’.
The herds, today, roam far away,
          not thinkin’ of the dyin’;
the pack’ll stray from day to day,
          ’a stalkin’ hard and tryin’.

As spring sneaks forth upon the north,
          they’re lean without their leader.
A she-wolf (bound with belly round)
          strains neath a budding cedar.
Upon the morn a whelp is born
           (the future forest drover)
in new frontiers, with shaggy ears
          (one droopin’ down, hung over).

It snowed today and I hope
the plows find your body
under a snowdrift. I hope
you are frozen to the core.

I

I dream of journeys repeatedly:
Of flying like a bat deep into a narrowing tunnel
Of driving alone, without luggage, out a long peninsula,
The road lined with snow-laden second growth,
A fine dry snow ticking the windshield,
Alternate snow and sleet, no on-coming traffic,
And no lights behind, in the blurred side-mirror,
The road changing from glazed tarface to a rubble of stone,
Ending at last in a hopeless sand-rut,
Where the car stalls,
Churning in a snowdrift
Until the headlights darken.

II

At the field's end, in the corner missed by the mower,
Where the turf drops off into a grass-hidden culvert,
Haunt of the cat-bird, nesting-place of the field-mouse,
Not too far away from the ever-changing flower-dump,
Among the tin cans, tires, rusted pipes, broken machinery, --
One learned of the eternal;
And in the shrunken face of a dead rat, eaten by rain and ground-beetles
(I found in lying among the rubble of an old coal bin)
And the tom-cat, caught near the pheasant-run,
Its entrails strewn over the half-grown flowers,
Blasted to death by the night watchman.

I suffered for young birds, for young rabbits caught in the mower,
My grief was not excessive.
For to come upon warblers in early May
Was to forget time and death:
How they filled the oriole's elm, a twittering restless cloud, all one morning,
And I watched and watched till my eyes blurred from the bird shapes, --
Cape May, Blackburnian, Cerulean, --
Moving, elusive as fish, fearless,
Hanging, bunched like young fruit, bending the end branches,
Still for a moment,
Then pitching away in half-flight,
Lighter than finches,
While the wrens bickered and sang in the half-green hedgerows,
And the flicker drummed from his dead tree in the chicken-yard.

-- Or to lie naked in sand,
In the silted shallows of a slow river,
******* a shell,
Thinking:
Once I was something like this, mindless,
Or perhaps with another mind, less peculiar;
Or to sink down to the hips in a mossy quagmire;
Or, with skinny knees, to sit astride a wet log,
Believing:
I'll return again,
As a snake or a raucous bird,
Or, with luck, as a lion.

I learned not to fear infinity,
The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,
The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,
The wheel turning away from itself,
The sprawl of the wave,
The on-coming water.

III

The river turns on itself,
The tree retreats into its own shadow.
I feel a weightless change, a moving forward
As of water quickening before a narrowing channel
When banks converge, and the wide river whitens;
Or when two rivers combine, the blue glacial torrent
And the yellowish-green from the mountainy upland, --
At first a swift rippling between rocks,
Then a long running over flat stones
Before descending to the alluvial plane,
To the clay banks, and the wild grapes hanging from the elmtrees.
The slightly trembling water
Dropping a fine yellow silt where the sun stays;
And the ***** bask near the edge,
The weedy edge, alive with small snakes and bloodsuckers, --
I have come to a still, but not a deep center,
A point outside the glittering current;
My eyes stare at the bottom of a river,
At the irregular stones, iridescent sandgrains,
My mind moves in more than one place,
In a country half-land, half-water.

I am renewed by death, thought of my death,
The dry scent of a dying garden in September,
The wind fanning the ash of a low fire.
What I love is near at hand,
Always, in earth and air.

IV

The lost self changes,
Turning toward the sea,
A sea-shape turning around, --
An old man with his feet before the fire,
In robes of green, in garments of adieu.
A man faced with his own immensity
Wakes all the waves, all their loose wandering fire.
The murmur of the absolute, the why
Of being born falls on his naked ears.
His spirit moves like monumental wind
That gentles on a sunny blue plateau.
He is the end of things, the final man.

All finite things reveal infinitude:
The mountain with its singular bright shade
Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow,
The after-light upon ice-burdened pines;
Odor of basswood on a mountain-*****,
A scent beloved of bees;
Silence of water above a sunken tree :
The pure serene of memory in one man, --
A ripple widening from a single stone
Winding around the waters of the world.

I'm stuck in a snowdrift
That you led me to
No place to take shelter
No reason to
I'm stuck in a snowdrift
But you're not by my side
You left me to freeze
You left me to die
I'm stuck in a snowdrift
Memories dance in my mind
I'll be okay my baby
Our love will keep me alive.

A Cowboys Christmas

We've been making this run
For twenty odd years
On up to Kansas
To bring back some steers

This time weather came up
The wind started to blow
And as it got colder
We were buried by snow

We needed a place
Where we could get cover
We had to find somewhere
One way or the other

Christmas was coming
And we'd not back it home
We were out here all frozen
But, we were not alone

The wind it kept blowing
The snow piled high
We lost three cows in the night
They were destined to die

They were weak when we got them
The walk was too tough
When the weather moved in
Well, that was enough

We hunkered down round the fire
Kept it tended real good
We'd gone and collected
A supply of wood

Christmas was coming
And we'd be away
It's the lot of the cowboy
To be away Christmas Day

The snow it got deeper
And more cattle were lost
We were stuck going nowhere
And dead steer were the cost

We were all round the fire
When the sky opened wide
The clouds disappeared
They all moved to the side

There in the heavens
Was a shining bright star
I'm sure it was one
All could see from afar

It lit up the country
With a sparkling glow
All we could see
Were the steers, and the snow

It was then that we realized
That Christmas was here
We had just gone past midnight
And the sky was now clear

We dropped to our knees
Said a prayer to the Lord
We still had our lives
And our feelings just soared

We'd beaten the storm
And would be on our way
We would still not be home
On this Christmas Day

We slept for a while
Then we ate, hit the trail
We all now had
A new Christmas tale

Christmas had come
With not presents or fuss
It was Christmas regardless
Inside all of us

A cowboy spends Christmas
Where ever he might
Whether out on the job
Or at home for the night

Christmas is Christmas
Without trinkets or beads
It's a feeling inside
It is faith, that one needs

So this cowboys Christmas
Was spent moving the herd
Kneeling down in a snowdrift
And sharing the word

The white banks have risen high.
The smoky powder fills the sky.

Blooms of consciousness are frozen still.
Consequences of dying on that hill.

Time slips, blurs, no longer stirs.
As thoughts dim, and pain confers.

Darkness consumes the glistening tomb.
Life gives in to the doom and gloom.

The first was like a dream through summer heat,
  The second like a tedious numbing swoon,
While the half-frozen pulses lagged to beat
  Beneath a winter moon.

"But," says my friend, "what was this thing and where?"
  It was a pleasure-place within my soul;
An earthly paradise supremely fair
  That lured me from the goal.

The first part was a tissue of hugged lies;
  The second was its ruin fraught with pain:
Why raise the fair delusion to the skies
  But to be dashed again?

My castle stood of white transparent glass
  Glittering and frail with many a fretted spire,
But when the summer sunset came to pass
  It kindled into fire.

My pleasaunce was an undulating green,
  Stately with trees whose shadows slept below,
With glimpses of smooth garden-beds between,
  Like flame or sky or snow.

Swift squirrels on the pastures took their ease,
  With leaping lambs safe from the unfeared knife;
All singing-birds rejoicing in those trees
  Fulfilled their careless life.

Wood-pigeons cooed there, stock-doves nestled there;
  My trees were full of songs and flowers and fruit,
Their branches spread a city to the air,
  And mice lodged in their root.

My heath lay farther off, where lizards lived
  In strange metallic mail, just spied and gone;
Like darted lightnings here and there perceived
  But nowhere dwelt upon.

Frogs and fat toads were there to hop or plod
  And propagate in peace, an uncouth crew,
Where velvet-headed rushes rustling nod
  And spill the morning dew.

All caterpillars throve beneath my rule,
  With snails and slugs in corners out of sight;
I never marred the curious sudden stool
  That perfects in a night.

Safe in his excavated gallery
  The burrowing mole groped on from year to year;
No harmless hedgehog curled because of me
  His prickly back for fear.

Ofttimes one like an angel walked with me,
  With spirit-discerning eyes like flames of fire,
But deep as the unfathomed endless sea
  Fulfilling my desire:

And sometimes like a snowdrift he was fair,
  And sometimes like a sunset glorious red,
And sometimes he had wings to scale the air
  With aureole round his head.

We sang our songs together by the way,
  Calls and recalls and echoes of delight;
So communed we together all the day,
  And so in dreams by night.

I have no words to tell what way we walked,
  What unforgotten path now closed and sealed;
I have no words to tell all things we talked,
  All things that he revealed:

This only can I tell: that hour by hour
  I waxed more feastful, lifted up and glad;
I felt no thorn-***** when I plucked a flower,
  Felt not my friend was sad.

"To-morrow," once I said to him with smiles:
  "To-night," he answered gravely and was dumb,
But pointed out the stones that numbered miles
  And miles and miles to come.

"Not so," I said: "to-morrow shall be sweet;
  To-night is not so sweet as coming days."
Then first I saw that he had turned his feet,
  Had turned from me his face:

Running and flying miles and miles he went,
  But once looked back to beckon with his hand
And cry: "Come home, O love, from banishment:
  Come to the distant land."

That night destroyed me like an avalanche;
  One night turned all my summer back to snow:
Next morning not a bird upon my branch,
  Not a lamb woke below,--

No bird, no lamb, no living breathing thing;
  No squirrel scampered on my breezy lawn,
No mouse lodged by his hoard: all joys took wing
  And fled before that dawn.

Azure and sun were starved from heaven above,
  No dew had fallen, but biting frost lay ****:
O love, I knew that I should meet my love,
  Should find my love no more.

"My love no more," I muttered, stunned with pain:
  I shed no tear, I wrung no passionate hand,
Till something whispered: "You shall meet again,
  Meet in a distant land."

Then with a cry like famine I arose,
  I lit my candle, searched from room to room,
Searched up and down; a war of winds that froze
  Swept through the blank of gloom.

I searched day after day, night after night;
  Scant change there came to me of night or day:
"No more," I wailed, "no more"; and trimmed my light,
  And gnashed, but did not pray,

Until my heart broke and my spirit broke:
  Upon the frost-bound floor I stumbled, fell,
And moaned: "It is enough: withhold the stroke.
  Farewell, O love, farewell."

Then life swooned from me. And I heard the song
  Of spheres and spirits rejoicing over me:
One cried: "Our sister, she hath suffered long."--
  One answered: "Make her see."--

One cried: "O blessed she who no more pain,
  Who no more disappointment shall receive."--
One answered: "Not so: she must live again;
  Strengthen thou her to live."

So, while I lay entranced, a curtain seemed
  To shrivel with crackling from before my face,
Across mine eyes a waxing radiance beamed
  And showed a certain place.

I saw a vision of a woman, where
  Night and new morning strive for *******;
Incomparably pale, and almost fair,
  And sad beyond expression.

Her eyes were like some fire-enshrining gem,
  Were stately like the stars, and yet were tender,
Her figure charmed me like a windy stem
  Quivering and drooped and slender.

I stood upon the outer barren ground,
  She stood on inner ground that budded flowers;
While circling in their never-slackening round
  Danced by the mystic hours.

But every flower was lifted on a thorn,
  And every thorn shot upright from its sands
To gall her feet; hoarse laughter pealed in scorn
  With cruel clapping hands.

She bled and wept, yet did not shrink; her strength
  Was strung up until daybreak of delight:
She measured measureless sorrow toward its length,
  And breadth, and depth, and height.

Then marked I how a chain sustained her form,
  A chain of living links not made nor riven:
It stretched sheer up through lightning, wind, and storm,
  And anchored fast in heaven.

One cried: "How long? yet founded on the Rock
  She shall do battle, suffer, and attain."--
One answered: "Faith quakes in the tempest shock:
  Strengthen her soul again."

I saw a cup sent down and come to her
  Brimful of loathing and of bitterness:
She drank with livid lips that seemed to stir
  The depth, not make it less.

But as she drank I spied a hand distil
  New wine and ****** honey; making it
First bitter-sweet, then sweet indeed, until
  She tasted only sweet.

Her lips and cheeks waxed rosy-fresh and young;
  Drinking she sang: "My soul shall nothing want";
And drank anew: while soft a song was sung,
  A mystical slow chant.

One cried: "The wounds are faithful of a friend:
  The wilderness shall blossom as a rose."--
One answered: "Rend the veil, declare the end,
  Strengthen her ere she goes."

Then earth and heaven were rolled up like a scroll;
  Time and space, change and death, had passed away;
Weight, number, measure, each had reached its whole:
  The day had come, that day.

Multitudes--multitudes--stood up in bliss,
  Made equal to the angels, glorious, fair;
With harps, palms, wedding-garments, kiss of peace,
  And crowned and haloed hair.

They sang a song, a new song in the height,
  Harping with harps to Him Who is Strong and True:
They drank new wine, their eyes saw with new light,
  Lo, all things were made new.

Tier beyond tier they rose and rose and rose
  So high that it was dreadful, flames with flames:
No man could number them, no tongue disclose
  Their secret sacred names.

As though one pulse stirred all, one rush of blood
  Fed all, one breath swept through them myriad voiced,
They struck their harps, cast down their crowns, they stood
  And worshipped and rejoiced.

Each face looked one way like a moon new-lit,
  Each face looked one way towards its Sun of Love;
Drank love and bathed in love and mirrored it
  And knew no end thereof.

Glory touched glory on each blessed head,
  Hands locked dear hands never to sunder more:
These were the new-begotten from the dead
  Whom the great birthday bore.

Heart answered heart, soul answered soul at rest,
  Double against each other, filled, sufficed:
All loving, loved of all; but loving best
  And best beloved of Christ.

I saw that one who lost her love in pain,
  Who trod on thorns, who drank the loathsome cup;
The lost in night, in day was found again;
  The fallen was lifted up.

They stood together in the blessed noon,
  They sang together through the length of days;
Each loving face bent Sunwards like a moon
  New-lit with love and praise.

Therefore, O friend, I would not if I might
  Rebuild my house of lies, wherein I joyed
One time to dwell: my soul shall walk in white,
  Cast down but not destroyed.

Therefore in patience I possess my soul;
  Yea, therefore as a flint I set my face,
To pluck down, to build up again the whole--
  But in a distant place.

These thorns are sharp, yet I can tread on them;
  This cup is loathsome, yet He makes it sweet;
My face is steadfast toward Jerusalem,
  My heart remembers it.

I lift the hanging hands, the feeble knees--
  I, precious more than seven times molten gold--
Until the day when from His storehouses
  God shall bring new and old;

Beauty for ashes, oil of joy for grief,
  Garment of praise for spirit of heaviness:
Although to-day I fade as doth a leaf,
  I languish and grow less.

Although to-day He prunes my twigs with pain,
  Yet doth His blood nourish and warm my root:
To-morrow I shall put forth buds again,
  And clothe myself with fruit.

Although to-day I walk in tedious ways,
  To-day His staff is turned into a rod,
Yet will I wait for Him the appointed days
  And stay upon my God.

Do yourself a favor and keep scrolling.
Our first snowfall began at 9 a.m. this very morning.

Down came crystal ice, lacy clouds, and with it came the seasonal side of human troubles. I found my self transformed into a filthy romantic, gazing longingly out the window, wrapped in a wool blanket and holding my little brother who smiled at the Frosty the Snowman cartoon on TV. With the cold always comes the chills. The ones that shimmy up your shirt as you stand in the bathroom, trying not to look in the mirror while you undress. The chills that creep into your veins through open wounds and wind themselves around your rib-cage. I couldn't feel the warm air shooting from the vents while I sat beside them. I couldn't taste the Jack-In-The-Box daddy brought home at midnight. He put on an old movie and slowly everyone drifted to sleep. That's when I stole a few hours for myself. Taking my little doe-eyed puppy out into the yard, tossing him into a snowdrift for the first time. He cowered there for a moment, before darting back onto the deck, staring in awe and terror down at the snow. I lit a stolen cigarette and plopped down into the freezing mess.

I had a little too much to eat and felt like sleeping right there in my dampened jeans and Joe's Crab Shack t-shirt. I thought about putting out the Pal-Mal stick and being a straight-laced little girl for the holidays. I thought about the stinging of my latest stress-relief therapy (a bit of a home remedy) and also about Robert Plant's hair. Soon enough, after endless replays of my favorite music videos, my mind had emptied. The frigid air had ****** all my thoughts and memories from my head like a vacuum cleaner. All that remained was a sense of impending doom. A needle in the base of my skull, every nerve-ending in my body was pinched by icy fingers. Someone was calling my name from inside me, My own skin was shifting and rippling over my muscles, trembling and tingling. There was somewhere I had to be, something I should be doing, someone who needed my help. I sat up and looked around the yard, from the chain link fence, to the gorgeous view of the valley and the city *******, to the ugly siding of my manufactured home. My eyes darted back and forth, my puppy, the chicken house, the dead rose bush. I was alone, alone with my dog in a white miracle. Every snowflake looked like a stray bullet, raining down on me from the gods, but kissing my cheeks and melting on my feverish skin. I wished i could fall like that, and drip onto someone's lips or cling to their eyelashes.  But i was here, alone in the darkness with smoke-scented gloves and breath, in a yard of dead grass frozen in a flood.And then I started to cry. I didn't know why, I still have no idea what kind of madness washed over me as I shivered, my *** soaked and my nose running. But I sobbed and sobbed and put my head between my knees. The snow had gathered on the shoulders of my woolen pea-coat and sprinkled down as I shook and gasped, I must have sat there for half an hour, listening to a train go by in the valley, singing to the empty streets, trying to pull myself together. I'm still shivering even sitting here in my warm bed. But at that moment, I was as fragile and fleeting as the very dust that had settled across the entire town.

I managed to dry my eyes and stumble back through the front door tailed by a whimpering brown pup. Everyone, still crashed on the couches and floor, unaware of the scraggly disaster crawling through the living room. The Christmas tree twinkled in the corner and the TV played static. I kissed my baby brother on the forehead and slipped my lighter back into my coat pocket. The season had set in, the snow was here to stay. I was left wondering about the madness of  the season and the sanity of the skies.

Every year,  water freezes mid air and falls onto the earth in heaps of cold white heaven. It's a ******* miracle. It happens every year without fail and yet somehow it surprises and amazes us every time.

It is ok to be
not
what you are
still
becoming. She said
"you're not special." Grinding teeth and sodden rails. My car is exhausted--
downwind, held in the air like branches of birches and pines
humming with each blatant engine-stroke
which fall onto that bleakening
icedock and curl-- culled passengers tossed to sea;
unavoidably
sharp veer left, beyond surreptitious and frantic spectators
and through a once-pearl snowdrift straying into my mind.
M
C
M
L
V
Turtlenecks can't keep us warm and soup can't clear my throat.
I choke on
sliced rubber, seatbelts cut halfway-- from
Spring. pluck us like cattails
amongst my marshy solubles.
Exposes my larynx she-- ubiquitous sonnet spews forth.
What contrite aberration, wears Kalapodi temple dress
made of rose petals blown in beneath love's column
and presses with her thighs my vision?
There is nothing more to say-- meals served
raw on Winter holidays. Steaming
spoonfuls dried up on her palate--
Special in the way I left you there.
Special in being the same as I should have been.
And I, no-- I!
I can not talk any longer! The clouds I thought to taste
won't allow me to
rain
be-- once dangling from the ceiling, my dripping prevented
with a pale, cotton daub.
You see
the paramedics
even as they sheath my torso
and hold your head with thorped sieves:
The driver steered his vessel wrong
an action which robbed his passenger's breath.

This one here's me aged three
at a trestle table for little ones,
snapped with a box Brownie
at the Miss Rosebud parade.

Fresh as a daisy in crepe paper petals
under an eternal sun.
There's my brother dressed as a magpie...
just out of shot.

I remember that dress.
Yards of love sewn into a snowdrift
of crisp petals tumbling into my lap
under the Singer where I sat shuffling

impatiently to the machine's rhythmic rattle,
mesmerized by my mother's puffed-up feet
on the treadle,
my brother's whining cry...
just out of shot.


copyright © Caroline Grace 2011

Once,
after twenty years of fruitless scribblings,
a composer finally crafted his magnum opus.
Then a gas line sparked and exploded
killing the man and his work.

Once,
a sculptor knelt on a beach
to mold an intricate scale model of ancient Greece fifty feet long.
But no one saw it,
save the moonlit tide as it soaked it’s way through the replicated sand pillars.

Once,
a lone mountaineer gathered up his courage
and embarked on a climb never conquered.
He summited
just before freezing in a snowdrift.

Life is a thin rice paper.
It can burn.
It can tear.
It can decay.
It will expire.

However,
it can also be painted on with colors
more vibrant
more stunning
than the shades of the soul.

Once,
there was a universe
that held a floating rock with water and heat and air.
Then a life formed
and the universe observed itself…

…If only for a while.

frigid wind –
a snowdrift and the dogs
at the back door

--

winter painting –
mostly grays
on my palette

--

warm spell . . .
the snowman leans
into the sun

--

icy wind —
the dead spider
spins in its web

.

"Fall Down"he cried, and the walls were blasted in all directions,
The roof was flung over the top of the world
as he stood among ruins lighted by a single taper.
He listened to the ***** music, not recognizing it at first but having gained an appetite, he proceeded across the blackness  to satisfy his hunger in the only available light still living.

The goblet that she held aloft had a fiery glow about it.
The green ball of radiating light that shone was not an emerald but something from his genetic memory of forefathers that had somehow embedded itself obsessionaly in his brain.
He began speaking, asking awkward questions that held little or no meaning to her.
She answered cautiously, then stepped over the dead pine needles to comfort him.
It seemed to her he had been wounded in the war of Love, and his amour welded securely in place had left its mark.

He took a step towards her"may I kiss you"? he asked.
His amour clinked slightly as he took her in his arms with all the warmth of a log fire in late December .
All the leaves yellowed at once and a double file of moons passed through the heavens.
There was a strange sound in the Christmas sky
She felt strangely at home in this alien world without time, where flowers capitulate and the stars do battle in the endless heavens, rising in turmoil, falling at last to the ground, splintered and bleeding.

He had become deathly quiet.
She searched the glowing embers for for an answer, but the answer came from deep within herself.
Now she understood, for a few brief moments , he had confused X with Y.
His armor had been breached.
Slowly he turned his head and forced himself to look away- ashamed.
The blood flowed from the open wounds in his biceps,
and ran down his body and dripped from his fingertips profusely
His world had jumped backwards, as had hers.


"Drink"? she asked.
He gulped down the hot liquor.
It burnt his insides.
He felt a change and his strength returning.
"Some things never change"she said softly
His inquiring eyes searched her face for meaning
There are, she said things that have long ceased to be objects,  and emotions that stand solely as never -to -be calender occasions, outside that sequence of element called time.

He had armed himself well, to guard against his vulnerability and fear.
He slashed expertly at any deeper meaning that could have been hidden in their encounter.
Gleefully he dismembered her word by word, rejecting her love as a pettish ideal.
Inwardly she wept and her heart bled and it bled, fouling the floor with her infernal animal juices, dripping and running until life itself was reddened, and their ****** had become a Winters night Nightmare.

He turned and fled into the night.
It was like running through a waist- high snowdrift.
He knew it was wrong.
He was compounding his error by running
The night was silent now, it was endless, It slanted towards the end of the world.
It gave off its own light.
There was no sky- nothing overhead.
He was alone.
His own voice echoed back to him from the wilderness.
"I HATE YOU" ..........."ANIMAL"..........."I HATE YOU"


Gathering his thoughts and shedding his armor,
he returned to make amends, surprised at his own since of honor and chivalry.
His boring apologies seemed to her a functional disorder,
that occurred for pretty flimsy reasons.
First times are always special she explained
The pins and needles are gone through and Ive caught my breath again.
They agreed to be parted as friends.
She watched as he walked away,
Honor, armor and fear still intact.
They had smashed the clock of time ,
and feasted on the ten or so ages of man.


A tiny pool of water lay on the palm of her hand.
The residue of another world, another generation.
A little momentum left behind, like a tear shed unsuspectingly.
She closed her eyes in disbelief, but couldn't stop the seeing.
The impulses of nature had become a reality.
The evening sky looked as it never had before.
The morning sun shed tears that turned in turmoil.
A flash of metallic light covered the night sky.
Her world receded for an instant, then grew stable again .
Seconds later her palm was clear and unblemished.

She had embedded herself in the armor so dearly held by him.
She stood for the last time in this alien world.
In the midst of an explosion of thought,
she stared frightened into the deep blue mirrors of his mind.
How could he know of her nightmare?
This abstract tragedy,   that he so unknowingly had become a part of.
Her saddened eyes watched him leave her life as abruptly as he entered
pledging her heart and silent love to him for ever.

It was a windy, wintery day in spring;
I had on my summer clothes.
Then it started snowing and
My nose, and toes, soon froze.
Why did I not wear a warm, wool coat,
With a scarf, and hat, and such?
I can only say, that on that day,
I wasn’t thinking all that much.
I guess I thought that I was cool,
But what I was, was very cold,
And if my Mom had been around that day,
She’d have said, “Son you’re too old,
To be running ‘round in a short sleeve shirt
On a windy, wintery day.
Son, you’re dressed
Like it is summer, and it isn’t even May.”

But my brain was filled with other things,
Like what to say on my first date,
And how not to get there early,
But make sure I wasn’t late,
How I thought the shirt would
Match my eyes, make me look kinda buff,
And how much cologne I needed,
Was that too much, or not enough?
How to act if her Mom and Dad were there?
Or if we were alone together?,
With all these thoughts inside my head,
I thought naught about the weather.
Still snowing when I went around
A curve a little fast,
I tried in vain to hit the brakes,
But I guess I hit the gas.

The car was stuck, and I was
Late, still had eight blocks to go,
I tried running on the sidewalks,
But now they were covered in snow.
I slipped, then tripped, and landed
In a snowdrift four foot deep,
This can’t be real I reasoned,
I’m in a nightmare. I’m asleep.
But it wasn’t a dream, I was wide awake.
I was shivering; it felt like frostbite.
Surely my dream girl was worth it,
We could still have a wonderful night!
Finally, I climbed the steps to her door,
Rang the bell, and it opened wide.
Her father said, “Son, can I help you?”
You must be freezing, c’mon step inside.”

“YesSssir, I’m hhhhere, to pppickup your daughter,
Cccan you sssee if shshshe’s ready to go?
Thththankyou for letting me in
Sssorry ‘bbbbout all the snow."

“Son, she’s not here, he shook his head slowly,
I’m afraid it would be a long wait.
Not sure when she’s coming home,
She must have forgot she had a date.”

Phil Lindsey 1/12/17

It’s snowing,
It’s blowing,
The white snowdrift is growing,
So grab a mug
and we can glug
down cocoa ‘till the morning!

cracks in
the surface
spiderweb crisscross
across the frozen eyelid
of the lake

cracks in
the surface
split dendritically
across the ragged planes
of my arctic fingers

capped with
weather-worn callouses

swimming through
my thick hair frosted
with sun drop water crystals
and dry winter dandruff

snowflake scalp fluff
finger fly skin flurries
and I'm a coldfront

I'm a thunderhead
icicle snowdrift
I'm a rolling cloud
ice gale moonmist

trekkin through the
frosted forest with

fairy dusted
smiles and
snow filled
mittens

I'm a
fickleberry
tick tack
pick pack
**** it like a
smoke stack and
poke it with a
thumbtack
through the front
and out the back
and swan dive
into the cork board

leave it for another day
move on forward but
don't forget to stop
and pray

tongue tied
in a knot today
like a cherry stem
tongue tried
quite a lot, I say

to carry them
ever-powerful silly
magic mouth sounds

I went for a walk today.

/ my newest self-published collection of poems, [depictions of reentry], is available now on Lulu.

will send for free a hard copy to anyone interested in writing a review – make request to bartonsmock@yahoo.com

book preview on site is book entire

some poems from it:

[liftoff]

the scarecrow loving puppet put a pop gun to the head of the soundman’s lamb.

-

my last meal
was my mother’s
voice.

~

[attic radio]

the fattest baby in the nursing home can’t chew with its eyes open.

it’s a slow day.

looking into the future
a skeleton’s
dog
sees only
sticks.

lightning
marks
the robot’s
church.

~

[meditations on depth]

the mouth
of the thing
that eats
in fog
a doll’s
head

-

the holy spirit
high
on the bricklayer’s
toothache

-

a cat person
at death’s
door

-

poverty

a belonging
moved
by many
mirrors

~

[seeing]

bored as a slaughterhouse

crow / angel

on a skateboard

~

[depictions of reentry (xxi)]

the barn
bat
with the eyes
of a diver’s
shadow…

the dads were all digging
the nudes
were thinking
small

every chair
an electric
chair

in daylight, that motherless grief

~~

/ my first non self-published chapbook, [infant cinema], is available from **** Press.

I currently have three signed copies available for free- make request to bartonsmock@yahoo.com

excerpt, here:

my child. my diver who wets the bed. my worrier who rescues domestic scenes for animals accused of gaslighting. my swimmer. bather of grasshoppers. my lovely bird alone in an airplane.

~

two things to do on an empty stomach are:  

hold a séance.  

follow the spider’s trail of abandoned birthmarks.  

~

in the video, the young woman is being force-fed cake by a man with a ruined tongue. my mother can’t eat and watch at the same time. your mother is holding me and wondering what happened to this thing. our fathers are veering into the realm of film criticism. where you are depends wholly on my sister’s makeup. god’s parents have no concept of time.

~~

/ also, ending tomorrow, is the goodreads giveaway for my self-published thing, [FOUR], which includes four recent titles of mine in full along with some newer poems.  

some poems from it:

[the many]

as an uncle
can enter
any garage
and sense
the absence
of a nailgun
so
can a holy man
prepare
a meal
in the missing
church

~

[purlieu]

a bruise, a school

of fish.  a caterpillar

crossing

the floor
of hell.  a thought

sick
to a son’s
stomach, a winter

glove
in spider’s
nightmare.          

~

[mouthings]

a brother
dodges
suicide
with a piece
of paper
that doesn’t
work. a mother’s
blood

goes white
at the ink
of amnesia.

bus stop, breastmilk
there was

no me.

at what would god
not
be caught
dead? speaking

is how we talk
to the words
we say.

~

[stratum]

two brothers come to blows over which sister likes fast food more.  a man we want to love is shadowboxing a snowdrift from the parable of touch.  blood is a food group.  I pray to my hair.  call my footwork by name.  take my time

with amnesia.  

baby facts include being born again in the museum you were carried to.

I climbed to the top of a snowdrift mountain
with me I carried all things sacred
I looked down on a world all around me
and felt a wind blowing ever so free

I let all things that came to be
inside my heart that made me live again
touched by Spirits of ones that come to me
their visions of hope I could see
as blood of my Ancestors in my veins bleed
and Mother Earth gives me all I need
on this journey of a road turned red

Their wisdom now taught to me
for that of which I feed
my eyes no longer blind to things I see
as the drums beat to Spirits that dance
I stand proud in a Warriors stance
on this path now my destiny

They give my strength of who I now became
in my soul we are now as one
giving me my courage to fly
as their Spirits forever ride the sky
into a new rising sun
where our hearts now beat the same
Spiritwind ©2014

Few candles
left for all of this

now comfort comes
in well thumbed books
and blankets..

A twist
of snowdrift hair
that tags you late
for thankless life,

released

a look-back
over years that taught

retreat


From
the cabin
of your fevered eye,
a love that passed you by
still shines,
impossible
in distant vistas

always
out of reach...

A wanderer with no home
The way without road
Had rotten by sicknes
And legs're going float

I'm walking the woods and the fields I've not knowed
I meet up the persons, who've taken by turmoil
I'm looking desireless to treasures of toil
In case that their souls took corruption and spoils

My only follower
Is my lonley shadow
And eyes have been closed
By grey hair's pay down

My only own package
Is staff and old note book
Which I will write down
For other's mind forelook

I'll stay in a harsh land with cold wind and passions
There's no place for bards with their thoughtless regressions
There'll be only me and a century pinetrees
Replace up the building of steel and my blindness

In hovel my body
Get warned by fire
And well with fresh water
Will cool the heart's dire

I'll put my old staff in a snowdrift with dashes
When my robe is almost converted to ashes
Then I will transform in a cold river's flowing
And flow down too far to remember the calling

expectant pike laughs
oafishly, snowdrift bragging
apologists eat

two brothers come to blows over which sister likes fast food more.  a man we want to love is shadowboxing a snowdrift from the parable of touch.  blood is a food group.  I pray to my hair.  call my footwork by name.  take my time

with amnesia.  

baby facts include being born again in the museum you were carried to.

HOW THE BLACK SHINES

He remembers
the particular

glance of sunlight
off a bird's wing

so that the black
shone

for that second
and forever

and how he had stolen it
from the living tapestry

of that only moment
and if one were to go back

it would be found
to be missing

thieved from Time
and how now

the typewriter keys
raise their angry little fists

and strike the page
in rage

and the tiny ting when a word comes
to the end of a line

and the stolen sunshine and
the shining of black

become
the words

that are offered
now

this seeing at seven
become a bird of words

startled to find
itself now

on the snowdrift
of a page

snatched from the memory
of a child who is

no longer a child

Do you ever wonder, when the leaves dance in the wind, if stones get jealous?
Or, when the sun dives, bleeding through the evening sky, a silver tear slides down the moon's pockmarked face?

Do you ever wonder, if the glistening mist through weeping willow's boughs calms the whispering winter winds? Or quiets it? Is the snow their silent tribute, falling from the stark still clouds?

The wind you see, is madness. The spring sings after stillness, after soft snowdrift coats the landscape in white. The earth grows cold and thaws and crawls slowly out of slumber.

Spring sings and birdsong rings though the air. The flowers peek up from their beds and summer starts to stir.

The wind is madness because, as the brightest summers go on and on and the bees banquet seems never ending; the nectar ain't eternal.

It's the earth's lament, not winter itself, but the unending cycle. That's how it goes and that's how it blows.
I wonder if the earth cries hurricanes?

Pleasant confusion in the multicolored LED's,
blinking blue icicles, dangle dangerously,
threatening to fall and pierce my eyes,
I would move, however, I am stuck in a snow angel.
Or rather, a snow angel stuck me here.

Eggnog showed me the way, held my hand in its mug handle,
as for the snow angel, she is hiding in the cave in the
snowdrift somewhere below me.
Laughing hysterically.

Santa and Frosty are also here,
grinning cherubically at my situation,
yet they offer no help, despite my pleas.
Slowly I begin to feel the Christmas Spirit.

Rudolph finally helps me out of the drift,
his red nose blinking wildly as I pull on his halter,
I stagger to my feet and stand to people clapping,
they begin to sing Silent night, as I go in the house.

Yellow wears slippery shoes, an unhappy god.  

Will Watson be eaten by the painted

shark?  Expose juniper’s indifferent root.

Loft enigma.  Foofaraw say of Plautus’

devising, glad plumy benefice scattered

without combustion glowers, marigold all along.

February ignition, mucilaginous haecceity’s feldspar,

Longinus’ styptic calendula ha ha

ha frequently obtrudes following moody feints.

Though mountain disagree, hushed

siempre blunts impediment.  Obvious martyred

snowdrift kitsch stipples precious

lumpen.  Grinning centurion reached

what rebus released, old ******’s witty toenails.

We have arrived slain twee nightingale.