Her golden hair in noon day’s light, aflame
burned an image in heart’s depths
even the fields of sun flowers seemed envious
as fence climbing roses reached up to see
beauty, that in beholding eye’s bias, florets

She waits there, in still-life discovery
a blossom undisturbed and fragrant
one can hear the buzz of desire stir
a hive of expectation and frenzied dancing
soon petals will open and pollen promenade


-cec

“Pillars, rampaging lions and boars, horse ****,
what more can one ask of a hero’s wit?
Well, here he sits, waiting for the next temp job!
How much more do I have to pay for a mistake?
I told the wife and kids I was all wound up with Olympic PTSD!
They just happened to wake me in a fit of rage and terror,
and they did not fit into my fit, so they played and paid.
Now it's, Heracles this, Hercules that, and don't forget; bring me golden apples, or tend to the herd in west Jesus or other,
and blah, blah, blah, your so strong ...
maybe you can help the neighbors move a couch out?
My friend Sampson went through similar *******
then his old lady, Delilah, gives him a bad haircut
which sends him into a rage, creating a scene.
I mean, I’ve had to smell the bad breath of monsters,
cut off their heads only to get pennies on the dollar or worse, no compensation except,
‘Good you came in time Herc ...’
I move mountains for folks and get **** from the gods!
What’s more, I get no respect from these young’nes;
they tease all the time that my lion cloak and helmet smells!
I just want to tear some heads off and punch them to pulp!
So, I've been laying low checking out the Amazons
having a nice draft of Soma and planning my next trick.”

-cec

fact check: Hercules did not know Sampson! He made it up!

How  fleeting the sandy grains that drop
through narrow remembering of yesterday
ephemeral flowers that graced a table vase
now dehydrated still life, garden scattered

How the vaporous past presumes the future
lensed by present reflection’s myopic trust
further receding into hammered glass icons
erected edifices to a longing life portrait

Unpredictable, unstable, a butterfly vortex
arising from a bottle of smokey possibility
constant in ever capricious choice and predictability
a mutual mutability of then and now’s  protean toss

-cec

Hobbler, the crow, was lame
but he had game, and props
being a few other birds, not game,
city birds, begging and scavenging
savaging, all the same road ****
chill when humans came close
they became verbose, false bravado
for weightless bags of bone and feathers
whether or not noticed, scurrying
ducking under benches, cars, then
flapping half a bird lap up, down
around the service lamps; the scamps!
Their pirate leader does its one leg hop
and one can imagine a gang plank stop
with a heave-** flank and up they rise
into the market sky and to return
short of a ****** but gang none-the-less

-cec

Where is the center lost?
found in a raga’s tabla
and the meandering river
of a sitar’s harmonic dream

When does childhood end?
it begins in silent oceans
bursting open with wet life
grasping with tiny fingers

How does the hourglass last?
moments to minutes, limitless
each grain a sandy shore
mountains turned upside down

-cec

“The Attic warbler pours her throat,
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,”

A blackhead chickadee arpeggeos across the plum's branch,
white petals floating down to pointillist path,
where a green and muddy ground catches moist spring.
Minuscule wing swarms dance circles and zigzag tunes
to April’s breezy baton in overture to nature.
Snow-bells, pawnbroker hang, while crocus stand in purple/yellow ranks of elliptical rooted silence.
Oh gentle air of ancient curious prīmo vēre,
what wonders will you issue forth and form?
With outstretched arms and hearts we welcome you,
your nurturing ways of equanimity in equinox so true.

-cec

"Ode to Spring" by Thomas Gray

Wonder Wart-Hog succumbed to his powers,
“Was it the beer?” on his adopted planet
raised by hillbillies who were unable to eat him
As misanthropic as his neighborhood denizens
he is fated to bring swine justice, to the greater evil villains,
with his haphazard hog combat
living in a welfare toothed city scape
with broken-bottle-wielding alleyways
our superhero lumbers and snorts forward
into the breach of the seedy underbelly
of a schizoid society seeking hoodie anonymity
or zombie relief in a pick your poison age
This “Hog of Steel” though mild mannered
in his unaltered ego of Philbert DeSanex
fights for a labored truth, law and order
while delivering absurd antics on unsuspecting consumers of fascist pickles and bureaucratic saltines

-cec