Saturday, September 2, 2017

No Title

Octavio Paz was following me.
A sum dum sore shadow
Night brazen against street lamp
Projecting the projector
In negative, an errie other worldly self
I turn in a turn onto ties to see
The beautiful eyes that never
Made it into his poetry 
The beautiful irises that
Held and beheld stone and smoke
And...architecture 
I don't mind he, following me
Like that in books, like that
In other shadows creeping around
Just Stopping in time to plop down, flop 
Down, yes sir, real mind boggling 
Of who do that, who do what?
Sore cheek bones, and the groans
Moans of fine pursuit 
That turns onto itself, constantly 
Like dark and deep waters in the dark
thinking deeply of a spangled sea


Octavia Paz was following me.

Monday, June 12, 2017

A Language for the Unknown



When your name came across the loud speaker
I stepped away from the truck stop to listen.
Yep! That was your name alright, except with
an unusual rolling of the “r.”  I thought you’d
materialize like a narcotic vapor over one
after waking out of a fainting spell.
A butterfly came down and I kissed it.
I guess that was what I was supposed to do
on the sidewalk, in the moonlight,
with the large trees budding.
A Frisbee landed out in the field
and two pidgins clamored after it.
I handed them each a dollar.
I started to feel you were lost somewhere.
That somewhere misplaced was the luggage
that held your beautifully folded arms.
I reached down for your razor,
followed an onion to your feet,
its core pealed down to the tearful end.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

My Quiet Witness



Sometimes I wonder whether
my watery eyes or my knee ache
is because I kicked out the crutches
from some poor lass or was a good runner
who cheated.  The light keeps blinking
like cat in a bag drowning after my father
driving away from his wife, my mother
losing her license, my brother
unable to breathe at the end.
The whole bathroom sinking.
Giving us no other substitute.
A spyglass hoping to be evident.
A curl in the middle of a book
separating the epic tug after we’ve
been digging through the music.
God, sometimes I wish I’d be
forgiven long enough to sit down
on the rock I’ve been stitching
and convey the worn reason
the remainder of the night
looks at us with labyrinthine
perplexion. Or the real remembrance
 of things past and not some inability to translate
the title beats down on our canvas hearts,
but that is enough drumming for me tonight. 

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Into Evening

     on involuntary
                          platforms 
     steel rain 
           
  deafly
                   upon the minnows
  
                the water diving
sun darts
                 hold onto the air
   
      love  amid the evening
     
              other flashes



Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Crater



I need to say something soon before
my voice becomes a muffle and then
like stones in the stream bed.  The tips
of the hydrangea flowerets are blue
paint curls in the heart, color gently
flakes at the center.  Then comes the white
hot feeling of rolling an ankle over a stone.
Pollen dusts over the face of a stream.
The last stars from a crater of stars pass overhead.
I think, tonight, but the limitless
blue message of thought keeps passing me
like a downed plane flapping its baleful
advertisement.  Its impact like a good
person who cannot live up to an expectancy.
The letter carrier carries the apology.
I want to report the disappearance
to the milkman, but he is gone.
He has no business here.

Lacunal Contents

Today is not the day, and tomorrow
the landscape will not be ready
And the next day and the day after that, rare fruit.
Eventually, you stop wearing your vest.
The lighthouse lights on only odd
days of the week.

Something drops, like a pebble
behind every good gesture
and at the end of the evening
all good gestures drop
without the proper postage
like the morning paper
unto a yard
of a family who has been on vacation
for months and will never return.

And at the end of the evening
others drop like clothes

distracted by warmer places, and stopping
to rub the fur of dandelions from their eyes
drop the questions of their wives into a bird's throat.

A cloud drops gently over the landscape of the day.

This is just one occurrence in the processions of mysteries. 

Clever with Chalk

  Remember the morning   I came down and convinced   Us we were dead? Being too early And too quiet to prove otherwise  We believe it And a ...