Sunday, March 17, 2024

 Tis the heat of the summer

Frost not in mind, yet

Well past your Spring.

Place your steps well -

Death is a thing.

  The leaves in the fall


Cover courses unseen,

Don't fall down that hole -

Death is a thing.

   Soon knocking the door

Winter stops in,

Ring a Ling ding -

Death is a thing.


Friday, December 29, 2023

o59

 Stop and wonder why we are slaves

To the human condition.

Do we blame weather

For its power? Can we forbid the wolf

Its appetite? Man is a conglomerate.  A

Lumpen mess, discarded on a lonely beach, 

Turned by a careless surf. 

No longer an animal, yet also not a god.

Unless he be a kind of savage god,

Believing only in himself, while in reality:

a hive mind, making monuments

From muddy puddles.

Toxic mimeographic pathetic

Misunderstood 



Tuesday, March 24, 2020

o58


Do you think it surreptitiously sprung from the bushes
do you wonder how the most winnerful missed the clues
did it come up stealthily like a stegosaurus plodding through leafless trees
is it any wonder our future looks so dim when the red hatted only look back?

Even this can be repaired
ever changing one step forward two steps back
giant footprints millennia ancient speak the truth
the fools are like an asteroid stirring up the dust.

but hell, the fossils turn up later, someday, to lift our spirits
like pleasing ghosts
as captions in our funny pages
we laugh we cry we bleed we die.

Such is life (harooooom).

Monday, March 23, 2020

o57

Ice tea awed ham demos
Rude ado, South Africa had ear
Stone age stamp act Ethel
AOL, ELO, Comcast!

Veal hoodie, essay collection
Red Sea Cove against Dem tut-boat

Sam Adams
Santana
Mow owe!

Saudi Arabia rot Akin irony,
BLT seek(s) face :)
               

Wednesday, June 5, 2019

o56


hard pack, paver black
crunch of wheels like
the rumbling
munch in your closed mouth
of breakfast from a box

then travel back in time
under an arch of Jurassic style fern
wonky thunkin'
what!
Mother-efing monstrosaurusus!

animatronic imagination
or
large living lovely life
sucking marrow out of trees?

Monday, May 27, 2019

o55

the rain in Nebraska
falls Never in Alaska
but flows in an arc
East
o'er hill and dale.

It's hit or miss they say
which way the wind will go
we'll be jumpin' logs today
until the daisies grow

Saturday, July 29, 2017

o54

the lens sees all,
all will then refute being seen,
having been sewn
all will be garb,
garble gobble blah blah blah

Sunday, February 8, 2015

chains

Medusa in rags
her frazzled plumage a plethora of motes
dancing wildly, vividly in sunlit beams
through a curtain torn and frayed
until she is adorned with ribbons
Action Figures, by Edith Vonnegut
and glitter that sparkles like jewels.


We are elated in asphalt
rag tag curbs of millennial marble
and foot worn weathered roots
sending rot into upturned concrete.
Now the stars light the streets
popping frenetic flashbulbs
burning images into memories
on transparent freeways of the all everywhere.
Reaching into the clouds
secrets out of sight
monoliths bound by gravity fight the urge to fly.

When the children rise up
to rule the goddess of dust
as the lofty fly high scouring the clouds
trinkets less than gold wend like the serpent
swiftly on a riser, pilfer her good grace
and leave a grave countenance,
a tattoo of platitude on the lined landscape
that is her face.

submitted for Magpie Tales

Saturday, February 7, 2015

o53

traditionally, there is no bear in the street
historically, there is no bear in the parlor
practically, there is no bear on the divan
licking icing from the bowl,
pulling ribbons off of packages,
mauling the kitchen staff or chauffer

all is well in the city tonight
the lights are lit
the bears are in the woods,
picking red berries
off the green vines

but your dog just stole a cookie
bad dog

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

o52

my breath on the glass
like a private fog
sent to dull the day

I murdered once
once long ago or
maybe it just feels that way

folk invoke a sort of rage
raucous as crows living
dying, lording over white crabs
on the beach

in Oslo along the tracks
in the rain, don't ask Haigman about the hot dogs
or the hot dog buns,
he might let you know -
Haigman knows a lot of what you're asking for

Sunday, September 22, 2013

o51


My fingers cross, make the sign of X
And in the quadrants
Which hover like a blank stare
I see nothing resembling the past
Only questions behind a torrent of answers
That fall in a jumble
Like game pieces on an unkempt rug

 
In the chaos is relief
And not knowing
Is like never being too close to the truth
And there is safety there
In innocence and in doubt

Sunday, April 28, 2013

round and round


 
 
Here abouts there’s a questionable phrase
and the tooth speaks as well
In its meandering fashion…
Rabbit rabbit rabbit

Be it friend or foe
It’s hairy enough
Out there in the wild confines
Of a spacious adventure land

There will never be an end to the game
Or of friends to be met
Rabbit rabbit rabbit
Antisocial bitches

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

o50


The dinner moon swayed in the branches
It gave us no option
But to take the hint
To bend in the warming spring breeze
And float away
Sleepy
Content

Saturday, March 30, 2013

o49














life takes itself so seriously
even when the big blue marble wobbles
wobbles in orbit about a wobbling star
that wobbles en route to a date
with infamy

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

now showing


For awhile they sat alone in a dark theater, with many others, watching cars on a busy street filmed in black and white, and listening to the sounds of traffic and honking horns. There were many noises. The cars went from here to there traveling by a marina where boat whistles played a melancholy song, and through the trees past an endless parade of birds and furry woodland animals, all tweeting or munching on solitary nuts. The two, a man and a woman, sat shoulder to shoulder. Their arms touched on the rest, neither noticed, and they grew restless in the stiff seats. The faces in the cars, sometimes they stared out in muted hues of yellow or pink, seemed uninterested in their travels. They were like passengers on a train, even the drivers, fidgeting in the confines of a boundless commute. The man turned his head and looked at the woman's face. He didn't know her. He stood up and excused himself to the row of people whose feet he avoided stepping on and made his way from the maze of the darkened theater.

Through the doors into the light of the hallway he stumbled wearily, in a slow motion fog, until his head cleared and the noises ceased echoing in his brain. Below his feet the thick carpet grabbed at the soles of his shoes, catching him like a fly in syrup, but the man moved forward with an outreached hand to the glass exit door. A bright glare called him forth, until a black figure stepped in his path and looked down its nose sourly. It took his arm and led him around to a door and pushed him through.

Another dark aisle lit theater, and the man looked out over the balcony. The immense screen was white with projection from behind, and the heads below were many, all facing the screen, and shiny. They sat rapt, anxious, and the man wound his way down, down to the seats and found one empty. He excused himself and sat down between a stout man and a lithe woman who had laid her hands upon her cheeks. Her mouth was in the shape of an O. The man once seated looked to the screen and found it white, just white, and then looked at the woman. She was engrossed in the blank white image of nothing. He could hear the clicking of the projector. The non image flickered around the edges and an occasional black spot marred the pristine absence of anything. They sat alone in the dark theater with hundreds. They sat mesmerized, waiting to be amazed, listening to a soundtrack that hummed, building to a crescendo of oppression. She noticed him then, and laid her arm down on his, until their fingers touched and made themselves a flesh pretzel. In the silence of a dry crackle, with a sun white blank looking on, they sat etched upon a bright rectangle, folded into an audience of many alone, together.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

o48


we snapped with the weather
increments gave way to extremes
much like portentous fungi
that continually grow -
malfeasant mushrooms on the march -
until the sublime presented befundery
and mythical turned a corner
into prodigious, commonplace, eh

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

o47


i recall Hoboland and yearn
for those notes
the river that swept my thoughts
a torrent of glib
nit-knocking-narfs
but now the gravel dries
and I can pick through the pebbles.
One will spark that fire again
a sculpted flint
smooth grained glass
boney shard of possum tooth
all tell some tale
of hope or despair.
Speak:

Monday, January 7, 2013

o46


dropped from a cloud
a precipitous jewel
in this season of change
makes no cents
and gives no thought
to a box of mice,
drifts instead
then grows and grows again
making mole hills into mountains
until rivers will swell
and sail their box of gems
to the sea

Sunday, December 16, 2012

o45


On a corner lot a post jutted from the ground, grown there over an age or maybe pinned instead, by a giant with big thumbs. In the air above a storm rose, as if from the detritus of the earth, a swirling vortex of dust and spent life. Into and out of the wind in a cacophony of peals and bangs, the hammers of lesser gods plied their trade and constructed a machine. A rolling quake evolved and spread out wide changing the periphery from gray to purple and red, and a resounding boom fell out, falling falling, and met the earth, which gave and cradled its gift from the lesser gods. Then, with a purr the construct pooted and caught on a gear, settled into its rut, and sighed. The clouds in a fit of entropy flung out tendrils of inept wrenches, then dissipated into a calm vapor; and faded to impotent memory.

Friday, November 23, 2012

o44




Once, in the meadow, we spied the elusive Mandarin Buttercloaked Surge. First, just the rustle of dry grass, tall as a child, gave me pause and I looked up to the sky. The clouds were still, white and fluffy as in a perfect dream. You lifted your face, wishing perchance to catch a breeze, a scent carried over the fields, but there was naught. Nothing but the baked wisp of grain on the stalk. We had made a flat spot in the wilderness and laid down a spread of cloth and wine. Your shoulder was bare and wet with kisses, but the nonexistent wind broke, and a stillness imbued our calm. We waited on the storm, but it never came, only the wry brow of a Surge who was surprised as we. He went back the way he came and we fell into a bliss.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

o43


I've heard of it,
the Gossamer Wing
a think of the past
knowing, yet unaware
forgetful to the gracious bestowing
as a snowflake breaking on the dawn
a dusting of radiant glory
faceted manna from eleven
- the count of brevity -
an odd benevolence of starstuff
Godstuff
ineffable randomness
with an uneasy aggregate
being
the sum of its parts
equaling life thereabouts
or something akin
to it...
the sheen from a motion
of silence and the lightness
of a Gossamer Wing

Sunday, August 19, 2012

o42


by the power of nature's recompense
a beetle of the sphere, rocking, scoring the pretense
doth rise dutifully to the firmament,
the empyrean dream, to balance the woe -
flitting thus and whatnot into the random world circulant
punching through the curvature amid the bowl
it plucks at the sequence, toggles rampant no-see-ums
into a merciful, fruitful, diversion
impelling a sweltering division
of rectification...
Waning now in a detached stupor
a beetle of the sphere, lazing, imbibing ad hominem
hardens in its rusty carapace
caramelizing in retrospect to dust
fruiting the superficial residue
to corral the ingenuity of nature's whim
and to shake it loose,
unleashing a waft of forgiveness
to an otherwise groping what will be
will be...

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

o41

he paints on a mobile canvas
tossing chaff to the wind
stirs it with a whisper
and laughs
as the colors pop
like gum on pursed lips

Sunday, May 27, 2012

o40

full on white on - taking flight on the cusp of a dream, it's a half twist flying blue bottle rocket the snapdragon pop – clematis in your headlights, hot beam, cool breeze with a splash of mint and a hint of paul gauguin. Languid, painful heartfelt deflection of a long lived introspection: falling backwards, trailing monochromatic, lurching in your field of vision-your new digs astound, hug a tree plant a rock touch your toes and take heart when a nose in the wind sniffs the cumulus hanging low ready to drop on the beat of a flea or the breakneck croak of dawn

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

o39




an alien bloom
harbinger of doom
unfurls its banner,
speaking in manner,
of hearts all a' thrall
and the coming of fall
for winter has gone
and spring's grown a shlong !
So gather your dear
from about and those near
for some hot cup tea
and a sprig of parsley!