Opaque

This building deserts the throat.

Thick glass smilers prattle
"Literally she was murdered!"
"And the series went kaput?"

Totally mentally opaque.

Reading is an art
I find
so hard to do.

Streaming formation of Brownian ice
Gridding to infinity.

Who can attend, finally?

Hey Moon

Moon, where'd you go?
I was almost born!

Threw my books upon the waters
to stop the changing of the stars

But you had flown the coop

Knocked the wind clear outa me, you
flaming heaven roll.

She loves

She is swiss cheese & pretzels
Club soda and lime
No
Explanations
Just eat!

She is piano and autoharp
Recorder and guitar
but mostly harmonica
honking like mad
"John Henry" down the turnpike

She is Thunder Thighs
& Red Cheezer
& Elephant girl
but more often than not
just Honey
or Babe

The one who plugs away
who attends many meetings
who sings with heart
who loves
to get her licks in

Under the moon

Dive into the rich red milk
of the full-lipped grave

The alchemists cry
"Maranatha!"

Yellow nailed shaman signals
whale birth at the heart
of flowers

Green jewel snow cries
over arrow people hung
upon the tree

They hear night and day
the blue peak drums
sailing
under the moon

For mom

I remember mama
the old diveboma
screamin my ear

Old age

crumbly toast mumbly peg
no go to work
must tea in bed
liverpool shuffle bored
crack a tooth
wears my wig
time to winde the watch

Faintly visible

Above Grandma's eye
the Great Brown Moon
in its worrisome canals
Floats faintly
Visible
in the night
of her face

Just sitting

Just sitting
zazen
sitting
still
just
sitting

Roaring room behind
Beeping women
their hands going
Dark woman studies
her head submitting
to learning

Pizza fog in me
Napkin friend nearby
sits for me
takes my pen
reflects me

Can it be
love?

zazen

Time Struck

Bomb
Time struck
with neighbor vandals help
who kick
don't care
and send a monument
to pieces

In pieces
we found
greatgrandpop's stone
the wreckage
of his headstone

Ground into broken bottles
beer cans
hubcaps & weeds

Speaking breathlessly

To create is to change
To be creative is to be changeful
full of change
is to be changeable
able to change

The Creator expects change
courts change

Creators open up
become soft
permeable
their boundaries loosen

Creators seek the Unknown
the Ambiguous
the Clash of conflicting waves
& keep an open mind
without closing doors
too soon

Creators play around
like kids
juggling elements
stewing ideas
cooking up the Impossible
then having a taste

& Creators get lucky
sometimes
& give birth
naturally

Then down from the hilltop they come
Speaking
breathlessly

Font of marvel

Quick & bearded at the sea
a near-confirmed poet
in residence
Windblown hillward for Merlin
or rather
for no reason clear at all
or four surprise pure
In steep ruined cairns
of his still cathedral wrack
strewn
deep in heavy wet grass & lichen
and found
The revellers cumulating
Softly rumbling in rich oak pews neath sky blue
Murmuring near
& Sun spoke fast

Swam clear fresh turtle lagoon
Replete with gems, ancient weapons
studded in barnacles, vases
Objects of value, lutes
with broken strands
Chandeliers in the sand
All
a pelucid font of marvel
I spoke with turtles and wanted
Never to leave

Danced in the same air
Of miraculous bright clarity
Not wanting
from me
Not giving
outright
The homey shaman
his big low bed
ample with old gilded books
His table stocked well
with maps & riddles
threw out
some possibilities
Laughing about
Charts, Spirits & Fiery Demons

Thoughts on Reading

Common hand may slow
Yet deep text
is potent
hermetic
until opened.
I open myself my poem.

There's something in this
Wordless latency
Some thing visual
a shape
I sense yet
cannot see
Like the mussels
nearly motionless
that canal
Deep in the stillness below
Sun on the moving water
clear.

The text is unwritten
The unwritten me
alive
ephemeral
full of gods
and sleepy garden fragrance
and sudden praise
of tumbled sparks
that ripple at play like children.

Sometimes it seems we've lost
The way to dwell
simply
in the text
where skin meets sun and water
Restful
adrift As above
leaping in the cresting wave
her breasts appear
like two sculpted gift shells
Presented to me for love.

Though the commitment chafes
And reading is not easy
Paradoxically, at ease
One reads
well.