Will To Forget

The rains came gray (as they always do)
and hard the torrents were,
he sat mute in a single room above
the crowded honking street with three
or four days of beard scribbled
across his crusted bloodied cheeks

and you suspended in sky above Tampa
read your vapid magazine and washed
your soul blank and clean of this high
crime with no discernible victim.

Smoke smelled of leaf and fire
twisted towards the ochre ceiling
where invisible words claimed
their prey between the splashed
and splattered crimson salty fluid.

The broken down door confessed
and sputtered its crossed out venial
sins as the man drooped limp
in the torn and faded chair

and outside the smeared window
fresh plump figs and lush canaries
sang their fruited mystic song.

The silver plane slid down
the third world runway in black
and oozing mud you’d this long
dreary day gladly call
your own.

And so the world's wheel turns
but never seems to learn,
and so the first wild fire
thirsts and burns
and burns
this gurney
of shame without
a human name.

CRIMSON POP

a red
balloon
aloft
pops

smithereens
of plastic
shards
play tag
against
the clouds

you grin
a big
wide
open
sky
smile

as crim/
son
shreds
float
soft
in
sweet
slow
plops
of sound

then
descend
like
sprinkled
candy
to
verdant
solid
ground.

Tilting the Lilting

oh you windmill tilters
who skip and run
amuck fly fre/
quently awry
in green and red
checked kilts

and laugh at
the sweep of
history’s torn
and raw
scraped skin

these ruddy pink
forearms of shock
and lack
hold the world,
keep it on some
meandered
muddied track

where an embrace
of wish and wonder,
rarely of cold brass
plundered facts,
pulls us into fields
of lust and misplaced
trust or freeze,

raise your goblets
swill the burnished
liquid please
and toast the twin gods
of wine and wasted
acts so slow
obscene and fat

you so truly good
in your trim
and lilting gait,

your freedom
and your fluid taste
an ultimate stream
running blue
clear and cool

a simple depth
redeems, this lack
of any haste.

DEGAS' DANCERS

several women in blue
dresses float
and dance
like soft new angels
across a large canvas

my paltry words
on this page
cannot convey
their absolute beauty

the mind is ravished,
awakened it sprays
and it spills
waterfalls of delight

the thrill they give me
day after day

thank you Degas
you who married
the light
and painted its play

your azure poem
graces the wall
has once and
for all become
the best sun
in our sky.

for a good friend

her ocean her church
her nights an aged train

rolls cross twelve states
of desert and sage

her gloom and her worry
through her thin body
burrow and lurch

as fear and salt tears
and how she’s
demeaned

soak her skin slowly
leaving it clean

where each cell
in its lone nest
yearns to recall
the clear feel
of hope

in light
tunnelled
between
where it’s
soft
silent

and safe
to begin.

The Day

the day I live each moment
with newborn trust
graceful gait
and creative strut
of wild free thoughts
which truly touch
each node of being
in my red heart’s
richest core

lose that stammer and
anxious thirst
for empty glamour
as crusty archaic patterns
dissolve like sugar crystals
in pooled warm milk,

has not happened yet
in truth it seems..

is this possible
to resolve,
perhaps redeem,
for such a rusty
unevolved
unruly
plagiarizing
fool as I?

BLACK SOCKS

oligarchs, unctuous oafs
in black socks, these
tricky storks parked high
in clouds of hubris
above Majorca’s cliffs

carry dark pockets
of coin and cash
which contain other
people’s spilled
treasure

and lock out
caged flocks
who thirst
for the cool
justice
of leisure,
the pure
refreshing splash
of old school
pleasure,

while waterfalls
of change roil
and crash over blocks
of granite,
fruits of workers’
tasks and toil
collect in dank
pools below,

slowly sink
towards the brink
as greed that grimy
stallion gallops
over bodies
bleeding through/
out the planet,

writhing raw
in stagnant ponds
of hidden needs
caused by un/
bridled
capitalism’s
dirty deeds.

Train Trip

the downtown train station sparkled at noon
as six or eight passengers lugged bags
across a grand gleaming room and yet
you sat shrouded in that cloud of ongoing
gloom, tears like winter rain washed what
remained of your too soon departure to mun/
dane Midwest towns with odd names
announced with a frown in the dark
by a tired black porter,

he sang off

not out

of tune.

I FALL

I fall towards
the drift of sleep
and see the day
begin as snow
and breezy chill
upon the streaked
window.

You speak
these words
soft as suede
or lacey fern.

I hear your
trill and song
until we loaf
three days
and eves
on rafts
of deepest
peace,

Feet sit
pell mell
upon
this rock
where time
is still,
so still

and clear
breath
like god
herself
expands
a spacious
well.

Song of Belonging

night chants its life away
in the steely garden
of lost desire,
a foster mother rants
and pounds her gravel
fists in the boxed in
room downstairs.

you wait and plot
for the day your life
begins again and London
or Madrid or even
Omaha holds the street
of future’s home,
a gutsy clan
of real belonging

a safe surround
and fertile
field where joy
careens

is known
as your place
complete
of one well
earned
story,

and what’s best,
your serene
and very own.

WOVEN COLORS

rambling homes with faucets
that drip the whole night
and stain white enamel
leave me mumbling, lost
in long pubescent hallways
where white walls are colored
and smeared by wax crayons,
rainbowed extensions of stubby
pink fingers

as the ghost
of your smell
floats in thin air
and our unborn child
beckons with grace
once hidden goodness
back into life,
its treasures unfolded
to open and welcome
a day of soft peace
and continual stillness

a fabric woven
into cloth of sad
memory
yet leavened by
gold threads
of surprise
and dear time’s
ripening green
moments
ready for action
and the pure
telling of truth.

to you..

getting to
know you
is a pure
delight

now I
see
how stars
feel
when em/
anating
light.

Portrait of Ms.'Dear Idiot'

she sat in her bulldog
cloud of black
a turgid fist primed
to flash a fast smack,
a work of nature
we’d best track
remember to not turn
our backs

while she guards
her earth
packs a whollop
she’s an angry dog
so alone
in her growl
and snarl

her grueling day
at its deserted
edge where
bicuspids like
butcher knives
blind and threaten
to rip and tear
the lone hiker
whose only crime
is a wish
for adventure
in the strong
safe arms
of mother nature


she lives emboldened
in her barren anomie
and everyone's an enemy
at a dried and bouldered
end of this washboard
road where no one
dares to play
or display
a simple
smile.

buzzed like a bee hive under radar's sight
she pulled at her hair, twisted it tight

‘til tulips bloomed and scented the night
with subtle perfume for this tasty bright
bevy of friends,

when of a sudden like a bolt of gold
laughter’s wet eyes blasted
wide,

exploded tears into
streaks of light.

TRESTLED AND STACKED

her breasts were trestles
for my iron train,
we tripped we nestled
as our steamy ride
powered and plunged
through soft sheets of rain
on steel tracks laid down
by Chinese men
living in shacks
drained of joy
by years of toil,

they sit silent and still
after fourteen hour days
their acumen sustained
while sweat stained
and stacked in
profane rows
like oily sardines.

Where Have All The Florists..?

‘m’ starts in the midst
of alphabet’s thick soup.

she rose from her mattress
groggy as a dethroned pope.

I wonder aloud where all the florists
have gone? Gone to gay bars
everyone..

when will they ever fern?

when will they
ever fern?

she sings half asleep and they
turn oh they turn
like chicken on a spit

a fancy rotisserie of revolving
door themes….

when will it ever turn?

when will we ever learn
not to scorch and spatter,
spurn and be spurned?

brief nugget

I am the briefest nugget
there’s a glint in my gut
where insistence sits
and won’t let go.

You are a taut tight line
strung high at noon.

We walk between two
towers at night
for nothing,
yet do.

It matters immensely,
humility shall
rue the day
we fail to pray.

Complete quiet
persists as wind
whips and twists,
flowers create
hypnotic scent
in mist,
scintillate your
fire-mind.

We parachute
like human kites
into gaping craters
and lakes which wait
to purify what’s fake
and refine what’s great.

The melting begins
its immortal stew
of joy and chagrin.

Overheard at the Support Group

My wife’s lesbian lover is an angel
of the Lord, her hair in purple curlers
she is by my ‘ex’ adored,

if they took a trip by covered wagon
flooded rivers they would ford,

since they hooked up
on heaven's sod
I’m a fearless wild brazen god,
wield a crazy razor sword.

SCORCHED

When the train stopped dead
on the burnt out trestle
you stood up straight
to wet your whistle,

a storm of lies baked
our hearts
while the long hot day
descended deeper,

scorched by fire
our life our art.

the horns
are gold
they
blow silk/
en sounds
through
the song’s
fresh air,

this brisk
breeze is
made for
play,

yes we
laze and
sashay as
brass trum/
pet or bird
aloft
on strip/
ed wing
for days
and days.

DREAM

paint and brushes crash to the floor
as father’s envy blackens the day

yet after I say what I have to say
claim the truth of his hate for me,

these art supplies scattered
down on the earth
may bring forth what’s real,

more solidly grounded,

melded inside
my intrinsic worth.

Sweetness

such sweetness writes
in perfumed ink
across a cerulean sky,

wafts deep within
welcoming
earth's
moist,
complete reply.

ROSE

one rose shone
in a garden
throughout
the quiet hours
of night,

the day opened
like light
or thick
golden
honey

our jars
overflow

as far from here
a ripple of color
and ringing of bells
begins....