Smoldering

Some mornings torpidly plod

through fields and sod

of a green and emptied mind.

But what fertile thoughts,

I wondered, would start to smolder

within tiny clods of dirt

if midwives toiled

birthing seeds from soil

buried deep,

while sprouting unseen

changes budding

underneath?

BLOSSOMS FROM MIST

the waterfall tumbles,

        sprays and refreshes

a gaggle of oldsters
who chatter like mystics

stumbling with grit

as they blossom

from mist.

        

         replenished by this curtain

         of friendship and moisture,

      

         they spread well-seasoned wisdom,

         mischievous grins,

         broad wings of inclusion

across a base of granite and schist.

while the rest of us, wet ears alert,

enter quietly

to learn and to listen.

Let us not squander blossoms

but through persistent practice

gaze down often

onto this peculiar path

where color is born

from buds for those

with eyes that seek

to pause.

   Everything

Ten million geese,
maybe more,

paint the slate Autumn sky

in magnificent white rivers

converging here.

Wordless before such power,

we gaze upwards
at their dazzling dance,

their astonishing songs

of V-shaped beauty.

As tears stream

across our faces,

waterfalls of awe propel

us forwards

to a future where everyone stands

and is vulnerably longing,

and everything, absolutely

everything,

belongs.

   Early To Be Late

It’s early, yet the day’s dwindling into pieces.

Night came fast, sucked

all the light from flowers

in the park.

Green is gone for now.

These sidewalks are straight as Kansas,

misspelled ancestors’ names scrawled

in Swedish, Chippewa and Croatian.

As the slivered moon escapes its lair,

I can’t stop thinking of her, her thick

brown hair.

Even gas stations won’t take this pocket 

of counterfeit coins under acres of neon glare.

Parking the tired car with its empty tank 

on a silent street, I re-tie my shoe laces

and set out into darkness, dank as a steam bath.

A drizzle turns to rain descending,

holy water of a foreign home, 
black and cold, from unforgiving sky,

this dome, deaf and blind 
to all I've been afraid to ask.

     The Smell of Success

Bukowski burps out poems

like prednisone powered hiccups. Cigarette 

ash smears the Remington's eroded

keys. Stale beer stench,

crap gin and sweat floods his room 

hidden at the bitter end of a greasy 

hall. 

As yellowed fingers pound and drum away,

suddenly his eyes glaze, he's become

a crooning Vatican castrato!

An angelic chorus of staccatoed bliss,

of tender albino flesh re-makes him. 

My bad dream is I’ll never mate a muse

as fragrant, flush with life, with sacred

intoxication, as profligate or dangerous as his....

Though my fear is I may indeed sniff her

late one eve, erotic heat hovering

mischievously above my pen or keyboard,

and when and if so ecstatically invaded,

poetically overtaken, mystically shaken,

who then, I find myself pondering,

would mow the crabgrass,

spank the brats,

scare their chums,

clip these coupons,

raise the dead, or

pay that goddamn garbage bill?

                         Camp Kenosis

Be extravagant and empty! At break of a cold dawn’s call

relinquish every craving, squander the most secure camel,

the freshest of the flock, for a card game and let the smallest

prayerful clinging be left broken on clumped sand,

scorching every desire at your forsaken camp.

Rest, reflect, consider on the long climb towards a place to stand,

this companionless walk through acres of crisp stalks, thick

unwoven vines, a dormant volcano steaming sulphur from the crater

and circle obsessively the cracked mirror gleaming against a single

Sycamore and linger, look cleanly into your true face: that face

before your bloody breech birth.

Quick! Act kenotic. Look up the word if unrecognized. It’s Greek

to you and me. As the tall monk proclaims: “Silence is God’s original

language, everything else, just a poor translation.”

Carelessly, courageously take the unknown inside your dark uncovered home,

where the new guest, home from hospital, this swaddled friend of chaos,

tiny night crying king of confusion might magically become unchosen balm,

coherent and composed in this flow of completion, this scintillation

of starlight, camel dung and wonder where all, above and under,

are strangely calm and weaving love letters to every stranger.