Self-Loathing Ghazal

Self-Loathing Ghazal

A bloated aged dancer gazes in the mirror, bare of clothing
Nauseated, flowing crocodile tears, stare of self-loathing

Juggling colored balls, the rotund circus clown delights children
Sorrow paints his comedic Emmet Kelly face, red scare of self-loathing

On a yellow school bus, the chunky girl sits alone, reading her book
Hides her face from the other children, despair of self-loathing

An artist, the huge butcher man fillets fish to culinary perfection
Massive belly covered with bloody apron, sloth bear of self-loathing

My bulimic sister purges breakfast with a long finger
She doesn’t know that I know, but I share her self-loathing

I study crushing cathartic confessions from computer diaries
Over and over, repeated stories spew wear and tear of self-loathing

Keith writes thoughtful musings in his online journal
Chants a quiet prayer to heal all the sadness, aware of self-loathing

My Guitar Has Strings

My Guitar Has Strings

A frame for my picture is what I need
A focus for my finer views
A border to keep out noxious creed
An outline to delineate precious hues

Unframed, like rivers the colors run
Edges chart the water’s flow
Boundaries contain bank’s overrun
Margins show where wild fish go

Some children color between the lines
Others simply splash around
Two Orientations of a different kind
Neither right nor wrong, a different sound

Because I play tennis with a real net
And you strum an air guitar
Our lives are richer since we’ve met, but
Our dreams are shared from a different star

Birds

Birds

Outside my window
Two ladies
Like chatting magpies

If they had feathers
And a tail
They’d fly the news

Rapid ugly words
Evil birds
Arouse my deep sleep

The neighborhood hens
This rooster
Gonna peck out eyes

Tired of these lies
Gossipy hags
Tittle-tattle spies
Outside my window
      At sunrise.

Messages

Messages

Late night visitors
Ominous jinn in my dreams
Appear night after night with
Startling messages
Threatening, they rise into
View, spirits on the horizon.

Emerge in shadows
Like dangerous messengers
Menace my secure fabric
Like a magic spring
Suddenly appear in the brain
Fiendishly fascinating

The glance of an eye,
Smell of coffee, some chance word
Whether in dream, broad daylight
Or insanity, brings visions
All sorts of vapors,
Odd beings, terrors, delusions

Unconscious signs
Carry keys to a new realm
Adventures, desired and feared
Self discovery
Destruction of the old world
Wondrous reconstruction

Bolder, cleaner more
Spacious, a humane life;
That is the lure, the promise,
The terror of these
Nighttime visitors, these jinn
Floating jewels in my dreams

Fragrance

Fragrance

Fragrance always remains in the hand
That gives the rose; it lingers forever
A scent follows from land to land
Fragrance always remains in the hand
Like footprints in the gritty sand
Your sweet bouquet leaves me never
Fragrance always remains in the hand
That gives the rose; it lingers forever.

KBris

13 Ways of Looking at a Blackberry

13 Ways of Looking at a Blackberry

I.

Among the cable car passengers
The only man working
A private eye with a blackberry

II.

Blackberry bushes, like small shoes
Cover the damp feet of Oregon myrtle
As birds peck the succulent laces

III.

In a jam sweet blackberries
Cause traffic jams
Along the pacific coast
In front of seasonal fruit stands

IV.

Patent not withstanding,
Will the Supreme Court
Depose the blackberry?

V.
Oh fat bears of Shady Cove
Why do you contemplate elusive fish?
Do you not know that the blackberries
Dance around the floor
Of the surrounding forest?

VI.

Curds and whey or cottage cheese
Little jack might’ve been pleased
With blackberry pie in the eye

VII.

Blackberries clacking like
Old Royal typewriters
Buy stocks from Starbuck’s tables
Over lattes.

VIII.

In Sonora a coiled culebra
Shades scaly skin
Under the thorny blackberry bush

IX.

Plaque unclogging blackberries
Head the list of good fruits
On my cardiologist’s wall chart

X.

Mystical artists
Juicy blackberries
Dribbling from my chin
Tie-dye my favorite
White tee-shirt

XI.

Through thin air chatting
Blackberries send each other
Valentine’s Day love
Expressions

XII.
The bushes are shaking
The blackberries must be waking!

XII.

She was crying all afternoon
It was raining
And it was going to rain
The blackberry read
“Goodbye my darling”!

Mesquite Bush

Mesquite Bush

Herded into town
Snowbirds stampede the Wal-Mart
Like suicidal bison
Over buffalo runs
They mad-dash narrow isles
Of toilet paper, trinkets, towels

The vacationers
Become new residents
Tax-dodging sun worshippers
Hell-bent on living the good life
Playing bingo games
Black-topping desert mesas

Senior Centers
Rest atop red earthen mounds
Lost Harappan ziggurats
Containing secrets
Of ancient dead pharaohs
Lie astride dinosaur bones

Shiny hospitals
Magnets of healthy promise
Bring hoards of unhealthy herds
Senile citizens
In electric carts spin their wheels
In the desert's purgatory rays

Lush green pastures
Idyllic master-planned
Meadows replace marsh wetlands
Waiting for the birds
To return like old swallows
Follow paths to numbered flags

The town’s namesake
A lone mesquite bush watches
Shrinking sand dunes sift away
Like fine flour for pioneer’s yeast
As the cemetery rises
Like bread, waiting for dying
Snowbirds

Happy Meals

   Happy Meals  

  In the salmon-laden river
  Where the fish pause for a final rest
My eyes scan the water, eyeing the run’s best
       Where I see red flesh cadavers

        Rotting in sparkling sun
   Food for the circling osprey’s chicks
Carried to a treetop nest of straw and sticks
        Happy meals provided by a fish run

        From lofty aerie’s, swoop
     The graceful birds, talons like razors
  Grasp the dying fish, kill like deadly tasers
        Complete nature’s food chain loop

        Beneath the glassy pools
    Crazed by the upturned river gravel
  Row upon row of salmon roe unravel
        Bank deposits from downriver schools

        Tomorrow’s assured by death
      By carrion and flesh for birds and bears
  Blood and bones yield nature’s fertile shares
        One dies to live, one lives to die

        


        

Makeover

Makeover

Every twenty years
I’ve had to deconstruct
Remember myself again
After I wake up
Dreaming, I touch earthly skin
And pull it up over the bumps

Within lucid dreams
I construct my songs, my art
Infants, born wailing, longing
To suckle firm teats
My songs are born and come forth

I remind myself
That my dreams rebuild music,
Ethereal chords framed
Subconsciously
The detour signs are posted
I am in reconstruction

Terzanelle for Blind Man's Bluff

Terzanelle for Blind Man’s Bluff

A giant retina, the earth is going blind.
Cataracts cloud the once clear vision
Murky darkened images block the sun’s rays

Brown smoggy haze obscures wise decisions
Viewed through lenses of distortion, guile
Cataracts cloud the once clear vision

Deceit, war, pre-emption: a sightless style
Myopic, blind men lead the mindless blind
Viewed through lenses of distortion, guile

Blind Man’s Bluff, unkind, the game refined
Brinksmanship, an eye chart on the edge
Myopic, blind men lead the mindless blind

Teetering toes on the precipice’s ledge
Peer chillingly into the sinister chasm
Brinksmanship, an eye chart on the edge

Frightened eyes twitch like Saint Vitas spasms
Chant supplications, scream through silent nights
Peer chillingly into the sinister chasm
A giant retina, the earth is going blind

Kbris

Villanelle for Two Strangers

Villanelle for Two Strangers

You told me your sorrow and I told you mine
Our clouded eyes masking the light,
Two strangers frozen in a capsule of time

Words eased with pungent red wine
Revealed the horror of that terrible night
You told me your sorrow and I told you mine

I recalled the pain of my horrible time
While our gazes met in an awful fright
Two strangers, frozen in a capsule of time

You smiled at me, compassionate and kind.
A moment's relief from my psyche's blight
You told me your sorrow and I told you mine

Desperate stories of a different kind;
Neither of us wrong nor right
Two strangers frozen in a capsule of time

Fused together on a common vine
We sought solace from a shared plight,
You told me your sorrow and I told you mine
Two strangers, frozen in a capsule of time.
_________________

Off To The Races

Off To the Races

The quiet apartment deafens
White noise penetrates the interstices
Of my loneliness, intensifies the smallest
Breeze blowing through the wooden shutters

White noise penetrates the interstices
Of my solitary room, her shadow fills the
Breeze blowing through the wooden shutters,
A poltergeist, she looms everywhere

In my solitary room, her shadow fits
Her body's form impressed upon my bed
A poltergeist, she looms everywhere
Radiates a sensual scintillating scent

Her body's form impressed upon my bed
Reminds of recent passion shared
She radiates a sensual scintillating scent
Refuels my desire to hold her again

A reminder of recent passion shared
The memory of her smile, touches, kisses
Refuels my desire to hold her again
The quiet apartment deafens

Rude Awakening

Rude Awakening

Snake bit, I shake the potent, magic loadstone
Deemed to possess dark curative powers
Mistrusting modern medical mischief
Cold and clinical

Preferring Amazon shamanistic rituals
I digest the entrails of a green tree frog
And rub beetle dung across my bared chest
Medicine man smiles

Around the glowing fire naked dancers swirl
Rhythmically thumping cardio spasms pound
Between intercostal spaces like jungle drums
Undulating beats

Masked, tattooed, a witch doctor chants songs
As my fading spirit rises; is revived
My heart harmonizes with the toucan’s call
A black magic cure

Rapid eye movement, like a freeway fast lane
Jolts me from deep slumber, shatters the nightmare
The groundskeeper’s mower completes my dream
Hellish, surreal

The dreaded day has arrived, the doctor is in
My hand searches for the mythical loadstone
No such luck.” Follow me please”, the nurse commands
Sweetly she smiles..

Kbris 2006

Grinning Ghazal

Grinning Ghazal


Sunrise, through the glass window, I glance at your face
Breathing softly, a summer breeze, romance on your face

Every lover finds freedom at the soaring statue
Where liberty ignites the torch of France on the face

High rollers get lucky at this roulette wheel
Where balls, like hot lovers, take a chance on the face

Evening, on the promenade, couples murmur
And stroll, arms locked in embrace, a trance on the face

Cupid’s fire burns. We sweat until we bead, heated up
By the flaming arrow archers lance in the face

Lift me up, darling, in your hot air balloon, to the moon
Which smiles like a Cheshire cat, we’ll dance on its face!

Sestina For Seasons Audio Read

Sestina for Seasons

Sestina for Seasons

Winter trees, matchstick soldiers guard the house
Bare stoic sentries, snow- covered protectors
Bolt upright, steeled against arctic winds
Cast ghostly evening shadows on eaves
While a snow owl portentously hoots
A warning, forecasting floods of spring

Bursting buds, like popcorn kernels signal spring
Pink and white blossoms accentuate the house
A primavera frieze brings joyous hoots
From the sun-starved snowbound protectors.
Dripping icy stalactites fall from eaves
Like frozen darts lost in a Chinook wind

A warm kiss, the summer breeze, a hot wind
Stimulates the fresh succulent sap of spring
As burrowing creatures emerge from houses
Into the bright solstice beneath the eaves
Sing summertime praises to their protector
Deific orisons, the barn owl hoots

Dog days bring ennui, no one gives a hoot
Sagging sails still the vessel without wind
Drooping sunbathers wear sun protectors
Squinting, bodies oiled like coil springs
Ready to pounce on the coming fall’s eve
Await cool nights, autumn’s dawn on houses

In the mountains quaking aspen houses
A palette of multicolored tree shoots
Reds, greens, yellows splash nature’s eaves.
Leaves soar like Chinese kites in the brisk wind
Dance to nature’s mystical music, life springs
Into the cycle of seasons, earth’s protector.

Changing seasons, armament for the protector
Sojourn in phases, a pulsating light house
Illuminates birth, life, death, eternal spring
Through heat, cold, wind the tree owl softly hoots
A role call of names in the eternal wind
Ancestor’s voices echo from the eaves

The horned bird, a protector warns with hoots
Resonating through eaves as a light wind
With a spring rain bathes the peaceful house

Kbris 2006

Bionic Moog Machine

Bionic Moog Machine

My heart’s bionics
Pace my daily biorhythms
With a steady thumping beat
Synthesizes sounds
With auditory sensations
Cycling through my musical veins

Your battery’s dying
Said the cardiologist
Extracting the wires from my
Hairy bared chest
Pacemaker, my Moog machine
Its voltage diminishing

For these seven years
Undetected impulses
Electrical drum beats
Determined my dance
Soon I’ll dance with a new
Device, a powerful woman

A new immigrant
Incised into heart’s country
With a skilled surgeon’s hands
Deftly connecting
Disconnecting atria
Wires, electrical leads.

A down comforter
On a frigid winter’s night
My companion pacemaker
Provides warmth, rhythm
Security, necessary comfort
A tiny lithium friend

Tomorrow I go
Into a sanitized room,
a cold surgical chamber
Tomorrow I go
For a new dancing machine,
To thump away the lonely nights.

KBris 2006

Big Chief Sleep Easy

Big Chief Sleep Easy

From my kitchen window I see your mountain
Named by nomads as Big Chief Sleep Easy
Footed by arid desert, napping in the sun
          I’m in a trance

I’m in a trance, mulling over the spirit
The spirit that brought you to this sacred place
A spirit that lured you away from hell
          An abusive hell

An abusive hell, a place of disarray,
Chaos, bedlam, where you knew no quiet peace
Where your children, seeking peace, fled for their lives
          Pained, tortured lives

Pained tortured lives, seeking their own solace
Solace in times of disappointment, a must.
A must, essential as earth, wind, water and fire
          To avoid hell’s fire

To avoid hell’s fire you traveled far, died
Died a broken heart, in the mountain’s shadow
The shadow where you lay, the peaceful shade of
          Big Chief Sleep Easy

The Vanishing Valley

The Vanishing Valley

The valley, a woman lying on her back,
    legs spread wide
           wet by constant rain
                her geography.

An immense fertile expanse screams as
  She’s slowly raped
      By brutal land grabbers
          Profiteers of progress

Her once lush fields concretized, paved
    Over with Super-sized Wal-Marts
          And parking garages
             For posh restaurants

The new cowboys ride golf carts and
      Line up at Rite-Aid
          To fill prescriptions for
                Limp dicks

Where o where have all the cowboys gone?
                  She sobs.

Grad Night

Grad Night

Chanking cherry pits redden
The columella nasi, wrinkle his
Ophryon as he feels obdormition in his
Minumus from the belt’s keeper.

A feat of hair drapes his left armsaye
And images of jarns, nettles, grawlix and
quimp-Comic book cusser squiggles
float like hemidemisemiquavered notes

he presses the cell phone’s octothorpe ,
closes his eyes , stomach wambling
as he waits-no answer. Behind him, a delicate
scroop- a woman putting letters in the snorkel box

Phosphenes flash, head hurts like a blow from
A hammer’s peen, bends over to tie his shoe and
Fumbles with a missing aglet lace. A bitch, this grad
Night; running in circles, liripipe trailing mortarboard.

My Secret Room

My Secret Room

Is a love nest
Where passion flourishes
As I kiss your lips and
You crush me with writhing heat

Where our whispers, like wind chimes
Ping against each other in brisk love tones
Of unintelligible, irresistible rhythms
Where old lovers dance flawlessly

My secret room is a message center
Where I receive mail, memoranda, photos
Blog notes, calls, instant messages, chats.
Raw logs, like floating river rafts, negotiate

Rapids to be processed at the mind’s mill
Where news of war, love, death, grievances
And grief are sorted into small woodpiles
Treated by separate emotional processes

My secret room is a writing workshop
Where each new day begins a tabla raza
My mind a blank slate where word on word
Phrase on phrase begins to fill the page

Impressions, thoughts, ideas, fragmented
Snippets- debris from a comet’s tail, travel
Sunward to thaw out and re-form, create
Anew extraterrestrial mental images

My secret room is a dining room
Where sumptuous candlelit dinners
Inspired by creative Food Channel chefs
Tease the palette and nourish the soul

Where sated, like sunning sea-lions
Dreaming with incoming waves,
Of silver-sided salmon onrushes,
We happily greet the day’s end

My secret room is a chapel
Where prayer and meditation accompany
My days and nights, awake or asleep
A cell for the solace of my soul

Musings of grandparents, parents, children
Aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, sparkling glass
Fishing floats of all shapes and colors wash
Ashore like a swirling mass of history

My secret room is a kingdom
Where my regal seal imprints its realm
Where an invisible moat protects my castle
I am King Richard, the Lion-hearted!

Snowman Blues

Snowman Blues

Eyes on the shadow came to rest
At Gobbler’s Knob he did his job
Punxsutawney Phil passed the test
Eyes on the shadow came to rest
With winter’s chill, we’ll still be blest
The snowman’s blues we’ll sing and sob
Eyes on the shadow came to rest
At Gobbler’s Knob he did his job