Granny's Advice

Granny's Advice

By the side of my bed,
an antique old bible,
a gift from my granny,
long dead and buried.
I held it to my heart
and could almost hear her words
pulsing through my veins.
Remember, something told me,
remember, and keep reading.

BirdSong

Bird Song

The leaves shimmered like diamonds,

each with elegant ice crystals

woven into their branches,

as the wren skated around the forest

searching for seeds, singing hello

to winter in high soprano.

To The Father Who Never Returned

To The Father Who Never Returned

It has been a lonely world without you here.
Your shadow was long. Nobody to follow.
There was no one to teach danger and pitfalls,
to warn of lurking demons.
I cried while the smoke trailed behind you,
puffing goodbye to a frightened boy.
Montana was always being thrown away.
Watching the Kenworth
I crossed my heart four times-
once for you and our mom-Inez,
then Myrna and me.
You never heard the words that I whispered,
a prayer that you'd return soon.
You, in your truck, made the world mine.
For sixty years, I have lost your face.
Its shape, a vague outline
mouthing words, "See you soon".

Night Out at the Theater

Night Out at the Theater

The curtain falls across the vacant stage
  the lonely crowd drifts slowly through the isles.
The actors backstage soothe their seething rage
  and leave the world with fantasy and smiles

Now dims the glimmering spotlights from the view
  and in the air a saddened spirit holds,
save where the stagehand hums his tune anew,
  and sleepy stirrings remind the tale as told,

far from the annoying crowd’s empty life,
  and empty dreams that never yearned to fill
the void, we feel the thrill, without the strife,
  the theater-a cozy fire from winter’s chill.

Brushfire

Brushfire

A half-life our ephemeral love
disintegrates before chosen time.

Incomplete, incongruous inchlings, as
saplings downed in brushfire. Half-

grown conifers unprotected by the majesty
of adjacent redwoods, stark-naked, virginal

seedlings, sap-filled, untested urges slowly
seeping under a searing solstice.

We burn into blazing night- ashes, remnants
of what might have been:

a lush forest.

New Orleanss Wake (A Paradelle)

New Orleans’s Wake (A paradelle)

The beat’s engrained in your brain, drummer boy
The beat’s engrained in your brain, drummer boy
Always tapping paradiddles on parking meters
Always tapping paradiddles on parking meters
Your engrained paradiddles beat, always parking in
The engrained tapping drummer meters, boy brain

You refuse to snooze behind cool blues, jazzman
You refuse to snooze behind cool blues, jazzman     
You incomplete with no beat of thumping feet
You incomplete with no beat of thumping feet
Thumping behind blues cool beat you refuse,
You snooze jazzman, incomplete

Katrina awakened a soulful sound, horn blower
Katrina awakened a soulful sound, horn blower
Bluesy riffles rocking, rolling Bourbon Street
Bluesy riffles rocking, rolling Bourbon Street
Rocking blower, bluesy horn, street rolling
Katrina, Bourbon Street sound, awakened riffles

Rose the dead in the wake’s wake, grim reaper
Rose the dead in the wake’s wake, grim reaper
Improvised tunes of French Quarter moons
Improvised tunes of French Quarter moons
Tunes rose grim dead in the reaper moon
Of improvised wake in the French Quarter

Cowboy Up Pard

Cowboy Up Pard!

Ride’ em cowboy! Get’ er done!
You’ll have to ride the meanest one.
An ornery, stubborn cussed bull-
Get ready, yer hands gonna be full

Ride’ em cowboy! Get’ er done!
You’ll love this mean son-of-a-gun.
He’ll snort, jump, twist and turn,
Jerk yer hands until they burn

He’ll shake yer ass from side to side,
Let you, feel his wild ride
Then he’ll turn the other way
Toss his horns, as if to say:
Eight seconds longer than a day

Yer rump won’t stay upon my hump,
Better cowboy up old chump.
Ride’ em cowboy. Get’ er done!
Eight seconds more until you’ve won!

Cabin Dream

Cabin Dream

Chipmunks frolic in the wet snow
Smoke trails from chimney fire,
I, to my warm bed retire
and listen to the north wind blow.

I hear your voice, sweet and low
and feel the memory of desire.
Chipmunks frolic in the wet snow.
Smoke trails from chimney fire.

In dreams I cry “Please don’t go!”
I hear the crackling funeral pyre-
ascending ash, a murky black crow
dressed in sorrow’s grim attire.

Chipmunks frolic in the wet snow

Sonnenizio from a Line by Charles Wesley

Sonnenizio from a Line by Charles Wesley

Where shall my wondering soul begin?
No comfort to wander in darkness
through wondrous bolts of lightning
through wonderments of the soul’s labyrinth,

lost in a wonder of purple haze.
Should I begin-an explorer with wanderlust
through the wonderful world of bawdy nights,
a flying wonder-boy of reckless abandon?

Or must I wander cautiously, on tip-toes,
leaving small footprints, wondering if life
will crush my wondrous spirit sooner than
later? I wonder, I wonder, I wander-

a wunderkind searching for the Holy Grail.
I wander far, wide. My path long, frail.

The Morning After

A Rondeau After the Morning After

Hon, it was nice to feel your warmth today.
You stoke me like blazing coals. I play
tunes, drink ale,  resistance of my nerve lulls
the deepest feelings from within. It pulls
like taffy. I shall cast aside dark thoughts,

embrace light. Live, laugh. Sip sweet draughts.
I drink away remnants of my desire.
I need: a warm bagel, hot coffee soothing my lips,
Hon. It was nice

pretending to be unchanged, you, same-
lying there, (You really have no blame
here) My last sip washes away the fire.
I pray that I once again feel your warmth
without sorrow- that tomorrow I’ll say,
Hon, it was nice.

Upon a Midnight Clear

Upon a Midnight Clear (A sevenling)

To him three gifts they bore:
frankincense, myrrh,
chests of gold ore

From him three things they took:
conscience, peace,
goodwill towards men

…and then they crucified him

O My God (A fib)

O My God! (A fib)

Om
Om
Om om
Om om om
Om om om om om
Om om om om om om om om
Om Mani Padme Hum chants the monk, to break of dawn

O My God

O My God! (A double fib)

Om
Om
Om om
Om om om
Om om om om om
Om om om om om om om om
Om Mani Padme Hum chants the monk, to break of dawn
My feet are killing me cries the girl, whose shoes are gone
Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch
Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch
Ouch ouch ouch
Ouch ouch  
Ouch
Ouch.

All in a Days Work

All in a Day’s Work

Stealth fighter.
Black invisible ghost.
Death-bird of Hell
hard-wired for lethal strike,
electronic eyes a perfect 20-20 vision-
tearless orbs scanning from cold, dispassionate deep sockets.
A voracious vulture scavenging above fields of innocent brown mice-
rice farmers oblivious to the smoke, thin vapor trails snaking through cloudy pockets
rockets raining like sleet, an effusive hailstorm of unnatural disaster.
Deux- ex- machinas, surreal specters like fallen Icarus,
unseen by ordinary mortals. You’re metallic
justice dispersed deep within
bowels of Cheyenne Mountain
obliterating the unseen.
Stealth fighter

Amuse Me Oh Muse!( A minute)

Amuse Me Oh Muse! (A minute)

Thirty lumps of durable coal
thirty days toil
we chip away
throughout the day
to satisfy urgent poetry whims.
We seek bright gems
small rough diamonds
some magic bonds
a small reward in which to bask
is all we ask
a poem that sings
to wear like bling

Glacial Solitude

Glacial Solitude

Midnight. The sky is completely clear.
Ice squeaks beneath my boots, settles in the snow.
I rest at the mountain’s rim, gaze staring out
over the vast basin, over the multitudes-
in pain, stoned, loving, nursing sick, babies,
lonely, restless, as the world spins in turmoil.
A shooting star falls from the crystal sky-
over the jagged city of Jerusalem
the ice lolls, transparent and silent
sheltered within blue glaciers.

Christmas Memory

     

Christmas Memory

Yes I adored them, the holidays of early winter,-
The pine cabin, children with rosy faces,
Fragrant smoke rising from the chimney,
The cozy hearth, red with radiant yuletide warmth
The piercing joviality of your Christmas tales
And the last hopeless and desperate days we shared.
,

Cody Got Stomped in the Head by a Bull

Cody Got Stomped in the Head by a Bull (a minute)

Soaring through clouds his passion-
jet fashion.
Current rider,
soul provider
riding on the luck of the draw.
Bad bold outlaw,
poker player,
soothsayer
jerking on a wild Brahma’s hump.
Old rodeo chump
now you’re dead,
and all is said.

Sodium Pentothal Miasma

Sodium Pentothal Miasma

Ectomys and ostomies- actors
of the sterile theater bow under
the surgeon’s scalpel, encores

of life or death –precise incisions
to be or not to be, measured
decisions playing God in an

absurd theater of precisions and
revisions-diseased visions; seconds
split between dark and light.

The white metastasis of red space
disappears in cauterizing smoke, and
for now I see the sun’s curtain rise again.

Blue Love Letter

Blue Love Letter

Fat pink clouds hover in the sky
In the green going of afternoon
Your blue letter makes me cry
I pray we’ll be together soon

Wheat sighs yellow in the field
Crimson tears flood the sad moon,
brown face behind silver shield
I pray we’ll be together soon

Each enfolded in  pyramidal mystery
the golden ball, square in the room
love triangle, our peculiar history
I pray we’ll be together soon

I taste red lip upon red lip
And hear the call of liquid loon
Await return of your black ship
I pray we’ll be together soon.

Lady From Mass Limerick

Lady From Mass Limerick

It seems like a lady from Mass.
Who oughtn’t have passed foul gas
Struck a match on the plane
So they put her in chains and
Said we’ve now grounded yer ass!

Homeless

Homeless

In an abandoned mine
gold dust
adorns the walls

The One Ghazal

The One Ghazal

Too elusive am I? Too illusive? Too much a feared one?
I attribute the moon. I’m an exceptionally
weird one

The songs I sing are symphonies: blue codas wrapped in truth,
but lying I become an ever more
endeared one

Prefix, pronoun and amphetamine was Prometheus with fire.
awesome was his wrath rendering him a
Seered one

Sheep in low meadows suffer like sun-stroked sunbathers,
separated from the flock,  I become the
sheared one

Jungian mandalas , whirlpools of consciousness
emanate from green dreams seeking the
revered one

Embrace the Wind

Embrace the Wind

Arctic flatulence shakes the eaves
Snow falls like frozen leaves
We cuddle beneath our blanket warm
Hibernating bears avoiding harm

Deep in our den hot flesh stirs
Shielding against cold winter brrrs
Snug in our bed, we work our charm
Hibernating bears avoiding harm

Your lips, your hips, your furry coat
Stoke the fire and make me gloat
Ignite my body’s smoke alarm
Hibernating bears avoiding harm

I pray this wind will never end
It’s chilly breath became my friend
A love- ally on our little farm
We, hibernating bears avoiding harm

Navajo Blankets

Navajo Blankets

They have been thoughtfully designed
with the shapes of animals
to tell us tales of ancestral venerations ,
bison and eagles,
howling wolves and spiked antelope,
like the shadows of spirits in memory,
hand-sewn with sinew blended with gut
many bloody moons ago
by the flickering firelight of ancient night,
nimble fingers dancing through time,
honoring the sacred.

The Deer on My Lawn

The Deer on My Lawn

An orphan fawn
Meanders tearfully at night
An orphan fawn
Half -dead rests on my front lawn
Eyes glowing in manger light
The plastic Jesus a welcome sight
To an orphan fawn, this christmas night