~~~

Quivering horizons


A palette of picturesque love
stipples weary seascapes
in amethyst ribbons,
pink carnation reflections
blush upon lip glossed beaches
caressing blue skies' gaze
and flip flop yearnings,
quivering horizons
of bougainvillea blooms
drench our hearts,
so we pause silently  
as a poetic sunset
paints a masterpiece
in twilight brushstrokes
inspired by our
*euphoric daydreams

Gods, what a black, fierce day! The clouds were iron,
Wrenched to strange, rugged shapes; the red sun winked
Over the rough crest of the hairy wood
In angry scorn; the grey road twisted, kinked,
Like a sick serpent, seeming to environ
The trees with magic. All the wood was still --

Cracked, crannied pines bent like malicious cripples
Before the gusty wind; they seemed to nose,
Nudge, poke each other, cackling with ill mirth --
Enchantment's days were over -- sh! -- Suppose
That crouching log there, where the white light stipples
Should -- break its quiet! WAS THAT CRIMSON -- EARTH?

It smirched the ground like a lewd whisper, "Danger!" --
I hunched my cloak about me -- then, appalled,
Turned ice and fire by turns -- for -- someone stirred
The brown, dry needles sharply! Terror crawled
Along my spine, as forth there stepped -- a Stranger!
And all the pines crooned like a drowsy bird!

His stock was black. His great shoe-buckles glistened.
His fur cuffs ended in a sheen of rings.
And underneath his coat a case bulged blackly --
He swept his ****** in a rush of wings!
Then took the fiddle out, and, as I listened,
Tightened and tuned the yellowed strings, hung slackly.

Ping! Pang! The clear notes swooped and curved and darted,
Rising like gulls. Then, with a finger skinny,
He rubbed the bow with rosin, said, "Your pardon
Signor! -- Maestro Nicolo Paganini
They used to call me! Tchk! -- The cold grips *******
A poor musician's fingers!" -- His lips parted.

A tortured soul screamed suddenly and loud,
From the brown, quivering case! Then, faster, faster,
Dancing in flame-like whorls, wild, beating, screaming,
The music wailed unutterable disaster;
Heartbroken murmurs from pale lips once proud,
Dead, choking moans from hearts once nobly dreaming.

Till all resolved in anguish -- died away
Upon one minor chord, and was resumed
In anguish; fell again to a low cry,
Then rose triumphant where the white fires fumed,
Terrible, marching, trampling, reeling, gay,
Hurling mad, broken legions down to die

Through everlasting hells -- The tears were salt
Upon my fingers -- Then, I saw, behind
The fury of the player, all the trees
Crouched like violinists, boughs crooked, jerking, blind,
Sweeping mad bows to music without fault,
Grey cheeks to greyer fiddles, withered knees.

Gasping, I fled! -- but still that devilish tune
Stunned ears and brain alike -- till clouds of dust
Blotted the picture, and the noise grew dim --
Shaking, I reached the town -- and turned -- in trust --
Wind-smitten, dread, against the sky-line's rim,
Black, dragon branches whipped below a moon!

The wind's fingers reached into his collar,
pinching him with the cold
With another stroke of the paintbrush
The blue mixed with the gold

The walkers who ventured o’re the shore
Stared at the mumbling man
Whose teeth were stained with yellow
And drank to calm shaking hands

The burning lights blurred in the water
Pooling refractions and ripples
He captured the heavenly bodies
As the canvas he covered in stipples

Azure he blended with the indigo,
canary and honey and flax
The cool and the warm melded in one
candle and moon, wane and wax

Soft falls the light in the harbor
The stillness of night overcast
In the river he cleans off his brushes
And turns round for home at the last.

after the rain
tide out
  the sea
   a sliver of mauve silk
    in the distance
     sand pockmarked
    with footprints
   like paintbrush stipples
  a mishmash of patterns
naked to the sky
all pastel hues blended
with a slippery finger
  ultramarine
   into a violet yawn
    into a lavender blush
     into an apricot kiss
    the mellow slosh of water
   chatter
  sun setting
as a pinkish glimmer
slithers over the beach

Visualizing marbles, closing my eyes I see a few at a time
Indigo blue mysterious and impenetrable shooter
Bubbling and flowing honey colored amber marbles
Perfectly clear crystal ball-like marbles
Translucent jade green sphere-like marbles
Multicolored with white stipples - Earth-like
Practicing over and over still cannot visualize them without word labels.

feeling sultry,
the air encircles the fan palm trees

afflicted stray cloud,
stipples in vain on banal sky

the presence beside the window,
hangs between sleeping and awakening

the soul starts to chat
with your images on window glass

the lithe summer night journey,
embraces the creaks of mind

the thirsty sleep,
drinks the dreams heartily

the grieved ship,
itself becomes the consoling sea

this summer night-
this journey-
the first inclination
towards each other-
these senses recall you

as i tie my heart-beat to your anklet
as i accomplish the wings to meditating caterpillar
as i trim the curves of rainbow in water-drop
as i gift the freedom to the breeze

you become my word
you become my journey
you become my love
you become the wait at my destination!

the lithe summer night journey,
embraces the creaks of mind
negotiates with the memories of bodies
it is an attractive incomplete devout journey !

Rings on rosewood linger
from a cold glass of ice
that warmed but soon after,
whose contents evaporated away.
My chaser became the room,
matching it twice
in form and temperature,
Would never have stayed.

So I roll the glass
with a retrograde tilt,
but keep it in place,
but keep it at hilt
such that knurls on the crystal,
jagged knuckles on the base,
make it thump in a path
and it steps and it stilts
in its own kind of track
while connection with the ground
through multiple laps
stipples neatly on a plane—
infinite curve by singular tack.
And this motion is contained
to the confines of the round
of a bullseye-mark stain
where a highball was put down.

Reminds the afternoon patina,
the hunching over my piano,
the warmth of its shade of cocoa.
And the mug I placed on its bench,
where subsequently the lacquer
gave way to warmer matter
and a matte “O” was forever etched in print.

Reminds of sap-stuck fingers
that ailed us backwoods explorers,
that neither the soap nor the hottest water
could manage to separate.

Reminds of the smell of the road
that gashed through wild mint
with its tire-milled dirt pounded thin,
and the hazel dust that arose
and managed to stay ever close
when the little Sahara was traversed again.
Those clouds would form and move and clove,
and the dry would pinch in your nose;
yet it seemed the only stretch of land
to never see any rain.
And now it strikes as strange,
and I’d love to explain, but can’t—
the green was never killed,
while cleaved, and beaten, and grilled;
it managed to weather the dust
and ride on the cusp
of the electric months after May.

These things don’t peel away.

Reminds how none of this strays
too far from the path,
or too far out of mind,
and the nature of present and past,
how inseparably they bind.
Like the light to the glass,
one moves through the next,
and all the moments hug tight,
each forebears another's context.

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.

Sawtooth skeins
of water candombe in
achroma, winds at
two-five, the water that
hits the roof el contestador
and the water that hits the water
la tumba. The procession leaves limpid
stipples on ***** plex and
renders finches pointilistic;
the peeling periwinkle deckwood
has the dewey quality
of a runway model,
glossed with the bay's blue sploshing.
Beyond this, deeper in the gray:
mountain striates
in harsh gradient,
spring to myrtle to a blueish-reseda,
redwood peak nodes
anchors for erratic heartlines.
The drumbeat pulses these lines
at their mist-vaguened edges
and moves all.
It's a flash, fifteen minutes of
California rain.