a lone something in the sky
flies near, just by mischance
dazed by the smog,
bowing
and diving
downward
into the parting, cracking,
quaking
bellowing of tar
from the firy, sputtering lungs of these alps
eons worth of cries released in mere mouth-ajar gasps
of the earth diverging and converging
into the debt of always running clean,
running me
always downward,
as in the deep
deep
tessellations of rock
I become.

too still for my own good,
I guess –
another voice on the ash-flow tuffs of
breath to fill the mosaic
of sinewy
stripe-patterned goodbye and bygone
plating into the deep,
deep,
deeper caverns of the unseen sea
slipping off the mantle, an accident with intention,
as an echo caving downward into  

nothing,

nothing,

more

nothing

polluting the depths from the palisades,
scripture rupturing lowshore into
surrounding tissues like
igneous stone
dreams of clinks ringing,
of noise
a voice
on the ash-flow tuffs
in the always running-clean water
the purity of which I intercept,
the clear-ness of it;
a sinners window.

through what's left,
I see the clam
another mouth for and of the sea
unseen,
the pearl
as unsoiled as ever

One life by flames a Hero made

This just became a lot harder by its very nature I must cloak one identity shine all the light I can on the
Other harder because I was just reminded people find my writing hard to understand brothers at church
Out home can you be more simple use smaller words I could be stupid I’m a high school dropout I don’t
Know any big words well I did use imbecile in the seventh grade that was cool and got a reaction this
Started to be a tribute to a person who was rare although you can surely see glimpses of your dad
Brother or other male members of your family as I said to write you must follow truth strictly no
Deviation but before I could pay and honor the visible one another comes into view from the past with
This twist then he was the dark kight now he is a knight in shining armor the dark knight have him on
The Cross bar of a bicycle both of you have swimming trunks on you pass some tuffs with extra powerful
BB guns while your body shields him he lets off a litany of sailor inspired words directed at them they
Don’t return insults they open fire I have welts and his mother picks three B Bees out of my back did he
Feel any pain he was too busy laughing that was just one time not enough room here to give you the run
Down let’s just say as the only identifier he was a short racer came in first braver than the others but I
saw him in a class picture there is the strange part it touched my heart and then speaking to him on the
Phone my feelings were correct he is a great wonderful person then the stranger yet he so embodies by
Appearance and voice of the one I choose to honor here Stevie Rucker was about eleven that summer I
Met him his mother went to my wife’s church he was bright kind and melted people with his soft and
loving nature quite a contrast to his father a six foot four hard nose FFA inspector we were out at a
Restaurant in the city a foursome in the next room with a booth were using foul language I don’t know
The dim lighting could have been a factor but when this giant shadow fell on them and asks them to stop I
Don’t think they even talked loud after that. But this sweet little boy harbored a dream one day he was
Going to be a fire fighter then as dreams go it was shattered bad eye sight disqualified it was a dream
Worth fighting for so he took action a risky costly eye operation was the answer victory he moved to
Patoka California by now a wife and two toddlers a boy and a girl three boy five they lived in the foot
Hills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range ever where you were in great growth forest of course the
Red Woods get all the glory but take a stroll red clay earth and some of the most gorgeous nature you
Will ever find although the Great Smoky Mountains will give it a run for the money in a later story I will
Tell about them and the gnome mobile and the huge boar black bear that I thought I was going to have
To run to the car pull out my thirty thirty Winchester and start working the lever action to save seventy
Five tourists I put in Jeopardy by getting him out of a deep gully. Well life was good for Steve and his
Family he was living his dream our paths would intersect we stopped at Paso to break the trip in half to
Southern C and Disney land were heard about the fire in Dego it was bad enough that the whole LA
Basin was fogged in for two days the Santa Anna winds finally pushed it out to sea and up the coast I hit
It on the other side of San Louis Obisable in a gorge it was banked in and because of youthful lucky strikes and
Later sleep apnea I couldn’t breathe in the car until I hit the air conditioner well by the time we got
Home to check in at the hotel it was clear home is what Anaheim means in German then there was that
USA Today News paper again I looked and a face was staring at me older and thicker heavey set but I knew the face and then at
The bottom of the picture emotional train wreck a child so giving now as a man had given his life for
Strangers five to six hundred miles south from his home he died trying to save their homes he joined
Many others but these were fresh in my mind the folks who died in the fire storm in Oakland from the
Conflagration that took lives and homes and four lane highways on both sides couldn’t slow it down and
You have as much chance as out running a bullet as you do a fire as twenty five Idaho smoke jumpers
Found out they were racing out of a gorge scrambling to get over the top this natural configuration had
Become a chimney of living flame thirteen died instantly those others rolled over and away on flat
Ground at the top was spared. What could I do I wrapped myself in the only protection I could find he
Died a hero that kept the pain at bay how many times I invoked that statement it worked so well until at
The community center in Patoka where they honored Steve’s sacrifice it was televised Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger and other state dignitaries his fire house buddies and other fireman from everywhere
Was there and then they panned down to his mother and father his father wasn’t so large anymore and
It was the last time I could use my shield as I looked and watched Pat weeping Uncontrollably over her
Lost son I thought you would like to know of this wonderful person I will close with a thank you in the
Language of the Lakota Sioux as his service had part of it in the native language of his tribe Pilamaya means thank you
Steve you are an inspiration we bow to greatness beyond our understanding

PROCRASTINATION
By
Joe McDonald

Part I:

How often can I keep putting off everything in life that must be done to the point of frustration and despair?  

How often will my work sit and stare at me with the eyes of hungry children always whining their demands for my attention to each task always wanting my full being beyond my own inner abilities and doubt?

How often can I walk past the damaged concrete step on my own house that sneers at me everyday as I walk up to my front door?

How often can I make promises to old friends to get together, celebrate life, and not expect them to wait on my return call of cancelation because of illusionary diseases?

How often can I feign in my backyard the beauty of my roses, sipping white grape while the grass under my bare feet remains brown, coarse, and over grown with dandelions stifling all vegetation?

How often can I pledge my good faith to a worthy cause by ending up watching from the back row as the needs prosper or fail regardless of my lack of motivation?

How often will constant kicking of the can down the yellow brick road be considered the excellence of a long line of Shakespearean resumes?

How often will my lack of courage blind me to opportunities of abundance and force my family to a life of stagnant economic asperity?

How often will I consent to others disrespect of my mastery of skills to the verge of closing my mind to all that is important to dwell in a soup of anger, self-doubts, and ache?

How often will the peeling paint, blistering off of my house like shards of cheese at my wedding feast, augment my anguished indifference finding every physical, spiritual, and any other of a multitude  of “…Why not’s…” festering in my dome of “..Do it tomorrow’s…”?

How often can I rattle my saber of position, roar my battle cry of “Tomorrow” to postpone today’s tasks? Bundling them all into neat piles of future promise completions. All the time smiling a grin of a used car salesman.


How often can I sit on my couch on sunny Saturday mornings enjoying the sun rise? Its beams slowly sliding across the finished oak; warming my unkempt hovel to the boiling point that tuffs of unwanted cat fur dancing over the varnished grain like tumbleweeds in a Sam Pechinpah film. Yet, I sip my morning brew, acknowledging their existence but, my head movies are of other unattended illusions.

How often can my inability to act or respond be accepted by those who expect perfection in all things?

How often can I permit the disappointment of a moment fire the indifference toward the needs of the here and now?

How often will my journey up my front walk be changed from the joy of daffodils and hyacinths filling the air with aromas of lung cleansing delights only to rediscover the pine foliage  are still dressed in the lights of Christmas past?

How often will I put off leading because of failure of seeing the needs of those who need leadership? They cry out for direction but, plead for independence. I use the pleas to drown out the cries.

How often will I have the epiphany of a lifetime only to have inaction and fear
drag it down to the bowels of an enlighten brain ****?



Part II:

I keep plugging in the mechanism of delay to power the animal of the moment.

I blind myself over and over and over and over again again again again to my abilities of now in favor of promises of later.

I smell success in the air every time I do the nows but, the stench of celebration’s to come is easer, sweater, more in line with who I am and not who I want to be.

I hear the praise and accolades of present victories and in time I’ll drag my triumphs out over the gravel road of time until they have lost their luster.

I’ll blindly stare at the tube of adult babysitting, at images of various eye candies trying to escape my own drive to do and yet failing in this as well.

I can’t spit out the bitter taste of the act of putting everything off nor drown it in the wine of determination without repeated reminder that I am drinking from the same cup of vintage to come.

I spend much needed dollars and valued hours gorging myself on self-help aids and assistance. Only they too become part of the beast’s feast of my misused time.

I awake every Monday with dreams of a new but, I’m so accessible to countless distractions. By Friday I face the inevitable doom of looking back over the landscape of a week gone up in the flames of the undone.

I try to grab each day by its throat. Choke out the desired results. Only it offers the slights resistance and I let it go to torment me from its lair growling “…not now, not now, not now…”

I’ll spend time with my mate for life. Half of me is relishing the moments with her. Half is wandering over the tablets of what I haven’t done.

I have mismanaged, misused, balled up, blundered, fouled up, mishandled, muddled, muffed, spoiled, and fumbled the footballs of my life again and again avoiding all that has to be done now driven farther down the boulevard. Constantly stopping at any insignificant store front; staring at juvenile trinkets of distraction.

I have sinned over and over again. I offer prayers to anyone who will listen. Begging for the enlightenment to solve my weakness. “… quia pecccavi nimis cogitatione verbo et in cogitations, et in hoc opera, quod ego facere non, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…”



Part III:

Who else do I have to make suffer in confused patience waiting for the promised end results of my superficial excellence?

What has to be done to make me arise from the ash of self doubt, indecision, and fear to conquer this demon within my psyche?

Where are the answers I seek in my time of apathy?

Why has this inferior deity have such a grasp on me?

When! Again, when!!! When will I face this issue and start to find the peace of timely attainment?






(“… that I have sinned through my own fault in my thoughts and my words, in what I have done and what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault…”)
Part IV:

I have lived with this for over a half century.
Trying to climb out of the hole of misused time.
Falling back into my penitentiary.
Serving a sentence of intimate crime.


The venting is complete, pity-pats written down.
My confession exposed for all to share, witness.
If this public sacrament exposes me a clown.
Mock away; have your jest. For I could care less.


My Ginsberg rant is to open doors of avowals.
To aid in my cure; in hope start my salvation.
To trust myself; to believe in oneself. I am all.
To look into the morning glass willing a reincarnation.


Only I can face the beast and make it heel.
Down inside I have to find the straight for each day.
Try a new, lighter approach; a new Don Marquis feel.
“…procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday…”




April 2014

When I look at you I see love
It lives all over your body
From the tuffs of your hair
To the tips of your finger tips
To the right side of your face that smiles more than your left
And that love, you wear it like a metal
And it makes you bold, so bold it
Makes me nervous and forget how to talk
And how to tell you that my love is more subtle than that.
You have to listen to it to see it
It comes out late at night after you place your metal on the dresser
And I’m not so blinded-
When your eyes are shut tight
And then I know the only way to your heart is through your ears
And I whisper to you that I love the smell
Of your skin
Or that your lips on my head is the only validation of my worth
That I will ever need.
I love you in words that live hidden in my head
And I know you look for them when you pull me
In closer, when you search my body for mutually shared feelings
But I’ve never been one to sew on feeling to blouses
Because I’ve never trusted a laundry machine
Not to tether my heart’s delicate fabric
So please, just listen to me speak.
Note the pauses in my sentences and
The dips of my voice, the clicks my tongue makes
When I say your name and follow it with I love you
Please know that your name has never been as safe as it is
When I hold it in mouth.
And I will never bit down on it
And love will always be on the tip of my tongue
And you will be the only one safe there.

Grandparent’s parents friend’s wise neighbors our generation right now and individuals as well are
Seeing and feeling an assault our world war is in domestic and business on a global scale we have such
Help and blessing in those lives and voices many social elements such as front porches are gone
Replaced by rear patois it says private more than it says welcome we can revisit those times and places
Just recall those precious faces right there you have created a calm place the most needed reality of our
Times those powerful forces can walk out and meet the storm yes it will blow threaten and frighten but
Stand or set mull or muse but by all means deeply entertain their collective memory they spoke words
That reached forward to our time they did what you’re doing now they restored brokenness from
Broken People who called to their past and found normal everyday people that cast giant shadows of
Thought Experience and victories that were won in indescribable places of hardship they passed a place
And started to weep deep wounds were exposed and it caused you to look at them with curiosity and as
You did you see the lives and their successes you were bolstered and became proud you need to
Channel that into your life those sweet memories are building materials of love and care they were and
Are guardians with keys and weapons many a hill and upset they faced it is and was their greatest
Concern that they instilled these truths in your life you have to remember the continued stare they gave
You they were trying to see if you were getting it you will serve yourself well to remember those
Priceless times it came in all climes gray days’ sunshine or rain I think the rainy days were best I want to
insert this piece it will help
Secrets Revealed by the Rain
The girl of special quality and beauty set looking out through her rain stained window he was passing by
So he snapped her picture it created a moist foggy connection to the world that is seldom seen
Aloneness reached through the glass a tinged soft sorrow ran greater than the edge of the picture eyes
Were fixed with longing but what only the soul could address that question maybe in miles or in days
That ran back to lost love or maybe it was searching through hope to find a bright future where the man
Of Her dreams was walking in her direction maybe she could see through the rain and it allowed her to
Make a decision that she had wrestled with for many days and on a steamy streaming window she
Found power to release her emotions let spread and dissolve into a different form that would be her
Guide out of limitations a quiet note the perfect cord that underscored what she was leaning toward
Before her world was to cut and dry now with the assistance of a window pane and the beautiful falling
Rain she could ***** in a great arching that encompassed great and small natural points that speak in
Their essential language from what they are and how they relate to one another in the grander scale
Moments of fluid motion instilled in her the gift of wondering and from branches to soft tuffs of grass
To the glory that is all around in the sky and on this sacred land to her was described truth that pierced
The maze of confusion that to her were a fault and an intrusion that is only bridged over water if it is
Only As deep as glass in a simple window but it truly can refigure the world and give right assessment to
To problems that hold you in a tangle of predicaments and it is so funny how they loosen when you
Spread your vision through the width and height of a rainy day window and through a connected
Unseen desire but one that is deeply felt you touch the unseen and wisdom comes on **** frost and
Writes to you a secret message for your eyes only that in detail clears all the doubt and confusion away
And leaves you beaming out on a changed world not unlike yourself that has been changed also and it
All Occurred through the most pleasant frosted glass
Take this stimulation a warm cup of tea you get the idea what is most mutual and beneficial go
With it as your guide you will see the gentle rolling hills smooth country roads that fall away
And you will ask who painted such skies of peace that speak and reach so refreshingly into my
Souls you were given life but at no time were you ever said now go on your own and don’t bother
Me how much you suffer will be determined by how much you Forget Him and all the helps he
Built into your life we are children and we can’t win without our Father and mother earth is our
Mother as He designed it our Founding Fathers the community fathers our earthy father’s that he
Gave call remember him and the riches of life will be known your poverty will vanish your
status will be what children they are can anyone ask for better

Let me be a woman you write of
with montaña curves
tuffs of hair

I want to be admired like chile
and upheld like your literature
kiss me with ink and paper
acid free
and coo me with love letters from mistaken authors

pablo, release your fire
and aim towards my fur;
Am I not a worthy candidate
for an unhealthy obsession

Getting it

First this will be short and sweet I feel I have lost the connection. I need to stop read refill the tank or at least purify return intensified
Any way what I get is light I admit I didn’t get the appreciation of light in New Mexico first not being a painter or into photography
Is a hindrance then going to Santa Fe was for me just like the grass hills of California this is different than the desert scene around Taos
When you first enter from Texas on the east its Identical to Colorado I did get the action from the light gliding down the high way at
Different lengths of the sun with classical music that I never otherwise listen to the purple sage is a wonder and the drive to California
Through the southern route it is tremendous it is a Painted Desert mesas red cliffs arroyos adobe architecture the bare and sad housing of
Our first people no manner of light helps all it does is darken your mood and lets anger flare to drop back to the most common light
In the home there again it depends on the amount years ago or at least the houses I lived in didn’t have ceiling lights just lamps in the
Corners even as a kid I knew that was bogus it would been fine in a castle the dark texture and gloom would have set the place off just
Right but in a modern house you felt this darkness fine for barbarians to roar in but was off putting now the light drenches shines on
glass table tops deepens off of black leather gives large black flat screen television a feel of art again never one to be in the market but
I have searched for ever for a painting that would touch me so deeply have an effect that was unforgettable a lot of times I have gotten
Close but not yet I find it in nature and along highways see a farmhouse across the fields in the distance the widows a blaze in sunlight
And then continue another later in evening twilight diffused soft a low glow somehow the soul is engaged like at no other time the soul
Must identify as it works to soften as a filter the harder harsher outside life predicaments you appreciate a fence line especially one let
Go from painted white to weathered gray tuffs of grass protrude the gold and gray complement one another add the splash of proper
Sunlight gorgeous or a painting an aged city with the narrow street a house bathed from its own color by bright sun light have the
Door ajar dark shadows for a short distance show sparse furniture your mind can invent the family show their hard existence
Deepening perfecting the painting the ocean waves the delightful green seen in the curl reaches farther than the shore most days seem common
But then those days not quiet even time but the sun flares it holds a golden flash the green grass every tip fired to perfection trees buildings blazed
In a special glory wonderful undying light divides darkness enhances makes it endearing I get that much and that is enough for now
Until the master of light vanquishes all darkness that is evil then we will finally really see

The spout
Of the battle
Shouting
In inconsiderate
Babble about bling
While i'm saddling
My steeds
Manning the machines
And breathing easy
Before i speak
Clearly to your dreams
Interjecting the theme
Of the losing team
Cheering in victory
Snickering in mockery
I remarkably sing
In drowned out tones
And zings
And i'm gonna be
Everything you been
In a week
And its weak
That i win
And you grin
With your arms up
Hooray!!
But you lost today
Too dumb to know it
But showin it
To everybody
Rhyming
Isn't about money
Its about diction
Metered rhymes
And harmony
Arming the
Alarmingly
Disarming memes
Of scattagoried kings
Euphorically
Seized
In the lean
Of delivery
Creativity key
The breezy
Sleezinous
Sheened
In the has beens
Gassed up
Gin drunks
Grunting whats
In response to love
Callin bluffs
On the tuffs
Of your huffs
And shrugs
Whatever punk
I got a foot on you
And your ****
On my side
Talking over you
Until you shut
Out the light
With your mouth
Over your eyes
And your house
Of flies sized up
In tough love
And shoved off the shores
To the unexplored oceans
In the notions
Of severed portions
Aborted with a snorkel
In the cortex
Of Oxygenated
Brains showing you
A thing or two
So ******* vein
Watching you strain
To speak
To breathe
To think
When your ready
Il be brief
A pat on the back
And declaration of king
Before you bend over to be
Blessed by the best
In this contest
Im tested
Only of my patience
In the vagrancy
Of your empty words
Freshly matured
In manure
Skewered
In the lured
Obscurity
Muraling
The masterpieces
Stealing thesis-es
With the soul content
Of cheeseless pizzas
Sauceless in the lossless
Belligerence
And im tempted
To kiss
My fists
And commence
To smash out the comments
To astonished onlookers
Booking for Brooklyn
When im shooting
Blood across the pavement
With fury of a patient
To fairfax and back
To break the bones
Of your home
Set your soul apart
From the heart
That pumps lumps
Of *******
From the start
Of your every sentence
Ill take two seconds
To count on your blemishes
To settle this
In nubbish
*******
Stumbling
From a kid
Im only kidding
In my giving a single ****
Get with it
The mic is yours
And ill freely admit
To being bored
Here you go

....

We’ve got sweat-slicked brows, tuffs of loose, knotted hair
Our limbs dumbly droop and we stand on the roof

Of a three story flat up in Prenzlauerberg
Near five a.m. when the night’s at its end

When we shuffle our shoes and sometimes tip the *****
From the bottles that we’ve all left scattered around

Then the beer trickles down and it spreads on the ground
And turns the rooftop tar a shimmering black

I feel through my shirt the thick summer heat
The hairs on my arm, the trees in the street

Are bathing alike in a warm morning dew
And the cigarette smoke we let slip from our throats

Catches the first red rays as the sun shows its face
Through the chemical haze out in east Lichtenberg

We face the source of the light as it floods through Berlin
Not the city we know in this tangerine glow

In this rich warming shine that is washing our eyes
Black industrial pipes start to wiggle and writhe

And their steam hits the scaffolds, whose
Metal fingers grow limber as they stretch through the street

To shake the red trees from their lumbering sleep
Then the leaves that they drop start to flee and get caught

In the stares of facades in the communist bloc
With the refusal of death on their hot, heaving breath

The parks are all built out of paper and gold
With fountains that spew streams of molten stone

Our apartment stands firm in the boiling sea
Of the scars of old days which swell, throbbing like waves

It’s the city lain out, moving, alive, and just like that
A light, filmy rain sprays a sheet on the town

We try to claw it away, but the curtain stays down
Then we stir, soaked in the sun and the rain

It’s the start of the day
And we can go home to sleep and dream of sunlit Berlin

Miryam stands beside
two Arabs
and a camel
to be photographed.
Baruch presses
the shutter
of the camera
and the scene
is captured.

She pays
the two young men
and they walk off
with the camel
talking in
their own tongue.

She adjusts the bikini top.
Brauch puts away the camera.
Someone said
they expect to be paid,
she says.
Why not,
Baruch says,
watching her fiddle
with her bikini bottom,
her fine behind.

The Moroccan beach
is deserted, except
for the departing men
and camel further
along the beach.

She complains of the heat,
fingers her fuzzy hair,
stares at Baruch,
scratches her nose,
gives a Monroe pose,
hands on hips.
Take me like this,
she says.

He obliges.
He shutters the camera,
his eyes capture,
stores away her image,
in more ways
than one.

She talks of his drinking
into the small hours
in that Tangier's
night club
the guide took them to,
the belly dancer,
the snake charmer.

On the way back
to the camp
in the back
of the truck
with the others,
he remembers,
the kissing,
the embracing,
stirring his pecker.

She talks
of the early morning sky,
the smell of kebabs,
her feeling heady,
how she thought
he'd come to her tent.

Too tired,
he says,
besides I had to think
of your reputation.
Others would know.

I'm not a nun,
she says,
getting me stirred up
and then leaving to stew.

They walk hand in hand
along the beach,
the tide coming in,
touching their feet.
She talks of her parents,
medical professionals,
the boy she had a crush on
who went off
with someone else.

Baruch feels her pulsing
along the wrist,
his fingers holding there.

She talks of the other evening
when they came down there
to escape the noisy party
at the camp, the dancing,
the music, the wine.

He recalls the darkness,
the deep tuffs of grass
before the beach
was reached,
she and him,
kissing, embracing,
moonlight shining,
stars like scattered
sparkling diamonds.

No one missed us,
she says,
no one knew
about me and you.

He remembers
the echo of music
over head,
the gentle breeze,
distant voices,
her murmurings,
sound of sea
upon the beach,
both feeling
and touching,
giving pleasure,
each to each.

she has eyes like ice
and a mohawk the shade
of bubblegum

she's an artist
and a misfit
outfitted in
ethereal attire
the flows off her
alabaster skin
like wisps of shadow
or tuffs of smoke

she chews on her lower
lip when she thinks you
aren't looking and has
a nervous habit of
biting her nails
the polish is chipped
and cracked in some
places and sorely
needs a new coat

at first glance you
might think her fragile
but the subtle smirk
that tugs at either side
of her mouth belies a
quiet confidence
a take-no-prisoners
sensibility
a ****-it-all
attitude

not grounded in apathy
but nurtured in non-compliance
her lack of conformity is more
than some youthful
stage of defiance

she is disobedient and
everyone says they're afraid of her
that she scares them senseless
but i kissed her once and
we stayed friends after
i think she knows me better
than i know myself

she stands in the corner
of seedy concert halls as
cigarettes leave a haze above
the heads of pre-teens and
old metal-heads nurse their
alcoholic beverages
everyone pretends she is
somewhere—or even
someone—else

but not me
we stand together
sometimes we hold hands
and i catch her smiling
out of the corner of my eye
from time to time

Your over sized eyes offer no kind of fear
Mostly just a jovial inquiry
Into the most trivial causes of our existence
You eager little child

The tuffs of you hair sprout sideways
A random treble of camouflage comfort
As if to explore
Not obstructed by some code of calamity

Not a paw or a hand
The tiny tongs of your fingers spread
grasping some house wives fruit salad
Your nails colored like a stained cigarette

Once pried away from the comforts of your cage
You grasp tightly to the mixed fabrication of my dress
Ever so snugly you claw at my hips
With your coarse outer being longing for more

If I loosened my grip you would tighten yours
Not out of fear
But of pure connection
Even in this writhing heat who could not welcome this kind of embrace

Once placed in a tree
Your head swivels as if on a pike
The look on your face indicates you are on the best acid trip of your life
Perfectly content just to be staring at my face
Examining the purple shadows
And the hidden valleys of my eyebrows

Sunbeams radiate from your egg shaped contemplation
You are dewily mellow old friend
When you look at me
I want to burst into ironic symphonies of bliss
The love of a sloth

Your hat was pushed back on your head
so your hair could stick out in little tuffs
like black duck fluff
shadowing your forehead in crazy patterns
that I liked to trace with my eyes
because they'd lead me to your eyes
which were always cool.

You were always cool.
I felt that.

You made me feel pretty and you tempted
all my senses with the way your hand
would linger around my hips,
one finger dipping into
the backside waistband of my jeans.

I used to bite my lip but now I just bite yours.

Then you cut me out like the bad part of an apple,
biting around the soft parts just to get to the core.
I never saw you unless it was by some accident
that your reaction to my presence solidified
my conception that you'd do anything to prevent
having to pass me.
And now I'm not sure if you ever even looked at me.

You never really cared--
I was junk
that you could play around with until the rust set in,
until the shiny parts dulled,
until you were done and needed a new one.

I'm not sure if you ever even saw me.

The Baker boy down the street is a peculiar thing. His book bag is a familiar sight around town, its red and aged with dirt, it’s anchored to his back by brown straps that are torn and excrete small little tuffs of white stuffing. Like the kind you’d find inside a teddy bear. The large front pocket is scribbled with poorly drawn cartoonish characters. Doodles one could assume to be depictions of imaginary friends and by the boy’s sheepish and largely odd demeanor one could also assume these imaginary friends were probably spawned by the lack of real ones. The boy’s book bag is more familiar than the boy. If only because his face solely exists in a light tan hoodie too close in color to the completion of his skin to readily differentiate between the two. Either way, the Baker boy usually always has his head down, this allows for a small ***** in his posture that pushes his book bag up to the very top of his back, making it very prominent, making it something like a substitute for a head. People started recognizing his book bag as the boy himself. In their minds they could see it as clearly as they could the faces of their own children, spouses, close friends. They gave his book bag the same recognition and remembrance of aesthetic value as one would give to the details of a face. They notice quickly and with the same concentration a new rip in his straps as they would a pimple on someone’s chin. He never spoke. Not to anyone. Not a word. The kind of recognition given to a person’s voice with whom you are familiar is a sign of their presence in your world, a kind of confirmation of their existence other than their physical self. The Baker boy used a sound instead, lacking a voice. The specific sound the Baker boy used to validate his existence in our town sounded like the soft scratching of an itch, a repetitive petting of his book bag strap that marked conscious thoughts from underneath a silent exterior. He did this when he was nervous, or if he felt he was being prompted to speak. A repetitive thumbing of his book bag straps.

Secrets Revealed by the Rain

The girl of special quality and beauty set looking out through her rain stained window he was passing by
So he snapped her picture it created a moist foggy connection to the world that is seldom seen

Aloneness reached through the glass a tinged soft sorrow ran greater than the edge of the picture eyes
Were fixed with longing but what only the soul could address that question maybe in miles or in days

That ran back to lost love or maybe it was searching through hope to find a bright future where the man
Of Her dreams was walking in her direction maybe she could see through the rain and it allowed her to

Make a decision that she had wrestled with for many days and on a steamy streaming window she
Found power to release her emotions let spread and dissolve into a different form that would be her

Guide out of limitations a quiet note the perfect cord that underscored what she was leaning toward
Before her world was to cut and dry now with the assistance of a window pane and the beautiful falling

Rain she could ***** in a great arching that encompassed great and small natural points that speak in
Their essential language from what they are and how they relate to one another in the grander scale

Moments of fluid motion instilled in her the gift of wondering and from branches to soft tuffs of grass
To the glory that is all around in the sky and on this sacred land to her was described truth that pierced

The maze of confusion that to her were a fault and an intrusion that is only bridged over water if it is
Only As deep as glass in a simple window but it truly can refigure the world and give right assessment to

To problems that hold you in a tangle of predicaments and it is so funny how they loosen when you
Spread your vision through the width and height of a rainy day window and through a connected

Unseen desire but one that is deeply felt you touch the unseen and wisdom comes on **** frost and
Writes to you a secret message for your eyes only that in detail clears all the doubt and confusion away

And leaves you beaming out on a changed world not unlike yourself that has been changed also and it
All Occurred through the most pleasant frosted glass

A dark line snakes along the shoreline
Vanishing into a towering temple
Home to the finest Michelin cuisine
The ravenous crowd awaits, raven-clad, fangs out.

Chef Yukinosuke’s obnoxiously fragranced guests
Survived his expertly orchestrated dinner with death
They devoured his fugu main course, without remorse
******* with a familiar demon, gatekeeper to hell

Muffled screams can be heard behind the rice paper curtain
A clamor of voices arises, one can hardly maintain
The merciless knives wielders, red lips kissing bone
Eternally insatiable of sins they can’t atone

For. Yukinosuke adjusts the nori bond
Of this new victim, his room will be fond
One poised drop of noir caviar in her navel
Her scaled-tail undulates, tale-tell

Signs of her struggles before slaughter.
Queen of the seven oceans served with a side
Of whipped up seaweed cream from the tide
Her breast perspiring under a life-like lotus flower.



Before her, watering mouths stare in disbelief
***** men eye her perfectly tamed skin
A woman sadistically touches her finger to her shin
Yukinosuke’s knife glistens, still free from grief.

Marred mermaid munched at midnight
Lusterless tuffs of salt-streaked hair
Vanished into thin air.
A trampled on silky red ribbon in lieu of a gag
Remains. Her turquoise scales to be made into a bag.

April 8, 2018

Xtra Tuffs, forgotten. Ten mornings to go.
Let us start with ten miles to Ewan Bay.
Passing Granite Bay and rocks that crowd Junction Island,
seals furtively eye us, and orange-footed Oyster Catchers
stay grounded while gulls erupt into flight and frantic shrieks.

Zip, peal, zip: from dry suit to tent.
Storm teacher. We learn water below,
water above, water without, and water within.
At Bog Island, fingers are colorless, wrinkled fruit, and we
must think of wetness in layers.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
Bog Island becomes a convalescent home, made of polyester tarp.
To stay warm, Yoga in the rain. Two are napping.
While we rest, beached ice become snarling growlers,
I see and listen in the quiet way.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
Before crossing Jackpot Bay, we visit a waterfall.
While we lurch to avoid bear ****, dark blurs leap into vertical flows.
Tonight, we tuck our tents under a canopy
of alders against a rock wall, slicked with falling water.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
Four days of dampness and heavy brows. The sky teases with streaks of blue
that enliven ice-green bergs. Suddenly, sun spills over clouds.
Wordless gasps and elation melt our moods.
Glacial air chases warm rocks. We race to dry our gear.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit. Again Island found, in Gaanaak Cove.
Blueberries drip from the bushes like the rain of the past four days.
Yellow arnica stand like sunflowers, and I feel her here.
The commuting breeze sounds like morning traffic on the Glenn.
Chenega, that achy glacier, growls like a distant tarmac.

This morning, rays of sunshine dance on my tent for a few seconds.
Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
We arrive to Nassau Fjord as unwelcome, party crashers
To hundreds of seals lounging on their icy chaises.
Don't Go, I think. We were uninvited.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
Haibun, Didactic Cinquain, and Diamante:
These formulas are like the handrail method Jonathan teaches for reading a map.
Intentionally point off course to the stream that goes into the lake,
or veer to intersect the road to the parking lot.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
At Dual Head, the tide is a mirror to itself.
The echoing waves, equal and opposite to my breath.
I relish the watercolor and poetry on the beach under our
first and only setting and then rising sunshine.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
Despite the small-craft advisory in Whittier yesterday,
We are delivered from the Sound on calm waters
​as we reunite with family and former self.
I believe I am more than I was.

The city slept on me

Cold bench bed
Newspaper blankets
Stuffed inside
My ***** clothes

Hiding under
Overhanging
Balconies
Or laying on steel grates
That coughed up
A little tuffs of heat

Till the sound of feet
Kicked me
As the mad masses marched on,

March’s farm of snow
Cultivated stiffness

Rigidity
Became my dream

Death became
My warmth

Hope melted
Faster than
Those flurries

And I was buried
Under a layer of
Human coldness

My civility and patience
is a burden that
hangs tightly
around my neck,

a constricting cord
that chokes me
till I am raw
with reserved rage.

Tiny tuffs
of black smoke and flames
burn me
from the inside out.

Till the pain of the world
drowns me
in a salty sea
of grief.

While others thrive off greed
profiting from pain and destruction,

I wait for some
sort of civil revolution,
or karmic retribution
that never strikes back;
Biting my tongue
till the red squirmy thing
just jumps right
out of me
and I cannot speak.

the wild turkeys cross at
the same point of the road
everyday
no matter how many times
they lose a member to tire
hood or window
they cross and bleed
flapping and loving

the field is miles long
moments created and
dissolved in the fog
tuffs of feathers marred
and sacrificed

Florence
meet me once more
in the ditch of the road
and we'll kiss atop foul
corpses