Works

Down on your luck
or, as they say, "financially embarrassed" ...
with little in the way of hope,
less palaver -
drifting in & out of theme parks not unlike
El Paso, Prairie Junction...

Some dead undid undid their bushy jaws,
and bags of blood let out their flies.. .
? Dylan Thomas

The land is barren
wears straw wisps
as an unkempt man
might razor stubble.
...

For one, street argot became tougher.
You had to distinguish between what you meant by calling someone a mother.
The Black Panther influence, no doubt, but a rejuvenation of the...

Ants colonized it
- huge abodes littered with the dead
(leaves, sticks, the occasional granulated insect
piled high, totemic-fashion)
reaping a fortune in scenery,...

Blue walls were grottoes,
subterranean panels
for covert messages, the
occasional mot juste
squirrelled up thru paint & memory.

Something like guitar strings dangling
only you employed...

I

Watermelon,
ears of skeleton
wet nose with marshmallow
I saw the Bear leaning on
Santa for a favor.

II
Here's Bear, week's growth of beard,
long bushy eyebrows...

The night is folly without the moon,
trees blank space against a frontal sky
where lattice work from a bled fish reveals
skeletal markings will not administer
the red jack of hearts to a mistress sea.
...

The night cold as nuggets, dark as acorn,
against your chest; snow falling
like abandoned echoes releasing energy
into the spyglass, umbrella moon.

A solitary figure trapping hapless sparrows...

Old Sawbones, pale as a sheet,
white sand, whispering edge of the sea.

II
The mind tarries not one place long,
(longitudinal wanderings off a map).
Is shiftless, both a shirker (and army deserter)...

Greet the days -
greet the moon,
gather the stars.. .
Man is not at one with himself -
collars the infidel ways of his
race under pressure domes of widening silence.
...

I should be busy with words
but light distracts me
makes for me, in the sowing of its waves,
neutral observances, a chilled awareness
that the sublime is contained herein
the wonders of the commonplace.

These shell-queens, too,
are blithely catpaws,
shorn & musky acorns with
indexed fingers erect
at manicured attention.

II
... Showboats with green faces far as swallows fly,...

As if every living thing lived, breathed
its existence
explained why water took the shape
of a container,
studied sharpened awareness of cold,
broke night spots onto a peculiar morning.

1

The night before ...
sultry Martinique, a
tortoise shell cat
climbed, lap to pipe,
amid curbs of orange smoke.

2
Mount Pel'e, a
smoking hard hat...

With the smile of morning
in her purse,
the dark laughter of her
cat napping
in the crevice, half-alert,
Martinique (angelique)
on padded paws
climbs from night.
...

Staying home,
I caught naughty elves
watering my piano,
growling inside my head.

Faucet drops
beating out in harmony a drum tatoo
to the tune of a plugged drain,...

Fall was a tubercular cousin
residing in the country
sparse hair,
rasping cough.

2
Night air was damaging
stringing pumpkins
around orange chains, the
milkweed pod shivering...

Perhaps the sky once was shadows,
the moon lisped 'mongst April's song.
Now, those warm lips ease
departing sorrow
like pressed flowers
emptied from hallowed ground.

Scouting the sun
thin clouds threadbare vests
barely to cover the horizon.
the heat or the day, canine,
a hot tongue's intensily
splashing yr face.

The docks are quiet,...

The day I went to LaFayette's grave, the
concierge became
our tour guide amid an old
ruin of tombstones including bedraggled
de Tocqueville's crypt (and he, heir
apparant of America, too).
...