every day a full return to velvet

i. an ode for the shy leaf that forms a festive star on maple

a buttery chorus amid the pulsing maize of swirling penitents
has formed a circle of rocking barks with white and luminous sails
in the wine darkness of a foamy sea where flapping canvas flatters:

this is where the tides confuse.

they openly chant, for our sea-washed sins and khaki thighs,
salty ditties that have onerously ceased to comfort
in the lucent parlors where colorful board games rust:

this is where primary plastic goes to die
in yellows, greens, and blues.

when is it time to ask, hello again-
are Tuesday's game nights really dead?

ii. in a little alley, the den of thieves roll nice

there was a drawn tinsel palimpsest of a pointed beard
on sale in the palest corner of a silvered dollar market-

the flickering fiction of the black lit anti-Christ
slips into paisley posters of pink-edged parchment

more often than not, they offer a hand of peace.

iii. if there is a river please inform as quickly as possible

when you need to find your Great God Pan in ringing words
listen for a language that babbles with the cadence of brooks
and massage your heathen head into the green baptism of moss-

look! there's your horned savior fluting where the mottled rocks
have been moistened with the minor spit of pagan embouchures:

pale lichens are always in season in the easy key of C.

iv. something about the late taking of a ridiculous stand

then dreamy slip into the sneaky rhythm of marching bands
with their fabulous epaulets of fringed gold and royal blue-

when the brassy tubas thumped and the tom-toms thundered
they celebrated the miraculous elevation into a pantheon of thieves.

there was a ill-shaved man as gray and gristly
as a rabid scholar of marsupials gone extinct;
he tottered on a white mountain with plastic cliffs
that spilled into the tight beige of his Scotch moist lips-

he almost reeked of Calvin on the frozen rocks,
destroying even the modest thrill of breathing.

v. a crust of day old bread will surely float upon the water

it's just a downward dance of the inner joyous dog:
at once a silver entrainment with the apple moon
and the silky enchantment of an azure dew at dawn.

this was after a fumbled cast of the spell of snarling teeth.

a bird in shadow with his yellow beak in the morning sun
can only suggest the simplest of purple questions
and properly disregards a respectful seed for pecking.

maybe there's only one wily poem that lives within the peat moss,
that rotates solely through the steady mind of white mechanics
and each righteous, sweaty, compulsive, silly, pointless re-write
is the only wordy sport that coughs the pitch towards heaven:

failing is not so bad in the company of strangers.

to celebrate this time we've had together

i. resistance is futile in the face of crushing surf

when the timely spray leers a proper twelve o'clock
my etched face always bends towards the salty ocean
with the upright satisfaction of a quiet sandy satyr:

greens smashed by the green smashed in another giddy decade,
rise now smoothly as the sandy glass of tide-ripped bottles.

when the sun gives rise to the alto sand of sea-grass spring,
we can only sniff for the pounding waves that make us gyrate so.

eyes uncontrollably rivet the shine of a clinging maillot,
the pulsing jade of amulet that is our cherished sea-glass.

was it the teal that made it so?

ii. when you bought a black return, the station master giggled

the end of blank expression is pregnant with the eternal possibility
of small font timetables blurred in the black wash of anxious tears:

all aboard! all aboard! were we going somewhere? oh yes. we were.

then you bring in the comfy chair to stroke the sweet coffined coif-
salty hams on flocked upholstery only enhance the coughing fetish:

suppressing laughter is always laughing most dryly choked
when narrowing and distracted eyelids are least able to wetly thrill.

we wandered the twisty dead-end hallways
until the musty death of twisty wanderings,
announced the twisty death of musty wanderings:

our hotel proudly served the scarlet pepper goulash
in cobalt china bowls that skittered from the sideboard
like mutant mice desperately trying to please the dead.

this was before your lungs gasped the closing air
that was rancid in the claustrophobia of the alcove,
before we grasped the smoky closing of a velvet door:

I did not know the dead could have such hair.

iii. insipid murmurs about the cycle of life

each atom of the acidic raindrop that plagues you now
was a salty teardrop crusting on Cleopatra's cheek
when she stared into the desert and wondered why she cared,
when she stared into the swirling dust with bitter eyes of kohl
waiting for the brute that never comes:

so much for the stamped and signed postcards from the forum.

enjoy, if you can, a prophetic mixture of soot and salt,
arriving in your waiting box with so much postage due.

iv. after the storm we noticed broccoli treetops

pearls that hang from evergreens:

if only the afternoon would glimmer
like it did that day in shimmering August
when the rooftops angled against the sparrows
and the fear of flight became a silver possibility
that commoditized a pitiless sun
with terracotta arcs of blissful sienna
near a violet gate open and cascading
with a formal flood of planned wisteria.

yes, yes, you were there and jangled too.

v. in that day we welcomed boredom

a painted tunnel devoid of butterflies
can only give a sprayed and painful birth
to the luscious graffiti of orange and pearl:

come, she said, come play with me.

an insanity triaged grows puposely weak

i. when the crafty herd comes home, cowering is neglected

the glorious reversal of a bovine nightmare
often causes the maple cupboard to squarely revert
into the green reality of a weedy lot of chewy cud
and the proper disdain of black maple furniture:

wood chips! wood chips! wood chips for all!

this was meant as a numinous carving misunderstood by others-
a constructive lesson of the woody longing formed by antique hands
that is always wasted on the long-eared snouts with milky tears:

such spilling and spurting on the sleek commodity of future bellies
is ill-regarded in the close quarters of the straw strewn barn.

the genius of the dovetail was lost somewhere in the mooing meadows,
but even lost is relative when the orbiting milk cans seductively spill.

ii. here comes the lonely trumpet now to celebrate our failure

the blue quadrangle that laughs at your excuses
bestows from the right and bastes the bend sinister
with the fecund gravy of a leaf filled gutter:

gifts wrapped in the wonder of rain are gifts just the same.

you can ignore the water filled basement, for now,
because the common way of not letting go
involves a plush blanket and a cardboard box
that discourages talking to the constant rain:

this is worrisome, but not devoid of fetal comfort.

but pity the secret wolf that stays:
wet hair will mostly stink in time-

can someone open the door, please.

iii. we evolve our own book of sorrows.

what was the glory of the four of leaves
and the shaved glee of the pluck of three
becomes a bitter leaven that still dances
in the orange oven of a rotating turn.

the elderly grimace of crinkly garlic bulbs
sometimes looks like babies laughing:

thank the gods for inner voices.

the rapture never comes too late

the seductive regret of scarlet lipstick late applied
is easily erased by the chartreuse ferns of a feathery dawn
and a woody prayer of silver moss that is perfect in its worship:

when your flowered skirt is breathlessly lifted
over the variegated heaven of your musky thighs,
ah! there the firm blossom issues, and causes us to climb-

baptized so surely with a rainy spring of hidden desire,
this precious bulb so long buried, in a fashionable arcade,
by the distracting drifts of bleak chatter and snowy bores
has burst through the dam that was always too weak to hold it.

so ecstatic to take the waters, in the roaring way of alpine cures,
from the holy torrents, once reserved, for stark liturgical glaciers:

in the graying cloud of snow melt, an edelweiss has blossomed,
delicious, at the summit, in its white and dusky innocence.

no clear place to start

i. moss still comes back to haunt me

though the eternal afternoon of infernal rain
is harmonically crafted by a sliver of humid truth,

if you froze into a promising pause and, wetly, stood
you might recall the silky ash of a remembered smoke-
it brushed, conspiratorially, quick and crying patterns
into the quietly expert polish of chipped and weeping alleys:

there, in the corner, stood our beloved and believing statue,
thick marbled with almost veins of deep pink and shallow blue.

this was, of course, flicked with the disinterested aplomb
of a monument engineered by the classical greed of yellow print-

you might remember the phantom headline
that broke your heart
back when paper mattered:

an ancient time of fluttered muttering that, barely, lubricates the now.

ii. turning is a constant metaphor for something

it was a childish ceramic effort far short
of a sloppy turn on the spinning wheel
and the ample joy of centrifugal burn.

keep the rhythm smooth, she cried,
in a proof that birth was imminent:

this was our season of clay triumph
and the bas-reliefs that made us glow-

what could have been a slim sculpture of common birds
became the hulking tomb of mordant blue and perky gray

and pesky cracks that once defied
the calm mending of chalky hands:

if you hold your quiet breath and wait,
in a moment of clarity sometimes falls the rain.

iii. healing is only possible when you suspend disbelief

the slow migration of lazy blood
from the wound into the surface
confuses the fast mind mind of now.

here comes the orange harbinger
that cannot help but bark and chime
into the yellow dusk of tomorrow.

we could have wrapped the calf
in a blanket of stretchy coldness
or lost the tricky clasps
in the impossibility of transit:

both paths are silently plausible.

iv. redemption crawls in like a snake with purpose

arrives the barrista of glee
with the washed-out fantasy
of well-groomed beards.

the suppositions of a lacy mind
can, sometimes, damp the grief of memory.

the boasting king of the laurel sapling
fails to filter the fashions of spring.

funny lines forgotten now
bubble like gravy in the mist.

the publicans call for a carved vomitorium
but the chiselers arc a ribald streak-
so the streets are washed with marble dust:

this was so predictable.

an afternoon obviation, avec crossaint

i. it began and ended with a floured swerve

the cleansing curvature of the bleeding brink,
while, tasteful in its necessary spring of pink,
delivered, still, a heave to knead our breathy loaf:

it was the beginning, and the end, of the white bell curve.

ii. sometimes the snowy drifts require packaged yeast

after the bursting cloud of moths had fluttered clear
and since nothing sings like the diaphanous warm of near
we murmured into the rhapsodic blurs of a sapphire sleep:

unpredictable pudding, so clever, makes a scarlet feast.

iii. in the end, it's all about the slice that's prized

the learned courtesy of beige paranoia left no lasting score,
but, happily, swelled the dusted board with a crimson floor
and a draped sunset of nascent pearls that, rising, pleased:

a bread delayed is a bread denied.

there was a sign ascendant, I do not know its name

i. the walking way of suburban demise is saved by memory

the beige rhythm of a bonnet dirge
celebrates, in geriatric cadence,
the unseemly end of a graying sun:

the incandescent price of a velvet gouge
elbowed through the misty ropes
was the in we wanted long ago.

now a circular trek no longer seems to matter,
but buoys the stylish blossom of a flowered hat
and the rainbow scratching of a groove worn flat:

if only it were so fetching as it premiered in silver
when the mirror preened its dominance.

it starts now and ends now
at the wonderfully static doorstep
and the knitted cat that stops the draft.

there was nothing about a rock, but

ah! the fragrance of meaning is honeysuckle joy,
and this is how a love continues.

it is so good to own a visor.

ii. weather can be so fickle in the spring of memory

something on the humid wind
that hints of salty pleasures,
something from the musky south-

a breezy treat that might arouse
the trade winds long kept hidden:

what can you do in a day?

a lifting of the lace that shows
that lips are made for kissing-

the rhythm of a mossy gait
is a calling card for frisson.

iii. dark myths shackle the dining public

cue the caterwaul into the valley of chrome,
set the salt and pepper to stunning gleam-
here comes the curvy creamer, at last,
with her lascivious dance of awkward patterns
and the calico china of cryptic grief:

a checkered board in nine dimensions
where the purple valley is forever lost
and the shallow knife is far too keen
for the cut you need to make.

we only wanted to feed the hungry
and, see, what a mess we've made:

in the hidden canyon of jailed desire,
the magician always removes the cloth
in one efficient seamy wink,
inserts a joke about congealed dessert-
the barmy always mention pudding.

is it just a bored quip of the coverlet
or the Pan that comes from wanting?

the raincoats of a lesser god
sell moonbeams from a jar.

it's not that hard to fall in morning

i. why that spilled epistle stayed unposted

the awkward reflection of a winter sun
on a ginger jar of bitter breakfast tea
still pokes the roving eye from a misplaced leer
to the mostly false purport of balky leaves:

there was, in a kind hysteria, no future in it.

conspicuous cups veil the blue of porcelain veins
that creep in time on the cupboard shores of sandy hinges.

a slim ouch of white in the creaky elbows
that reach for the learned cozy of woven cozzies.

there is a crazy danger in the modesty of weaves
and the oblique loops that define the trajectories
of lemon orbits that, falsely, denigrate the spin.

this we learned in youth.

ii. a lonely spin into the perversity of now

into the stiff rattle of drama that only wanted crease,
instead is delivered the suspect shroud of shriveled peace-
someone had remarked upon the beauty of the vulture
in a slippery dream that mattered much on waking:

makin' it easy for the clean-up crew
in the horrific now of meat space,
or so the vanilla argument went-

harrumph, harrumph, harrumph.

our lack of wings is comically entrancing.

iii. burning wood sometimes requires a kit

a cloned kitten with sixteen cloven toes
leaps forty feet through the tropical fog
to the crusty summit of a leafless tree-

while this amazing feat is a form of temptation,
the three ring circus of rapture always seems to bore,

completely.

it's so hard to imagine a Satan outside the door.

it is so hard to presage the anti-feline forces
that force with force to force the clipping-

indeed.

why would you question the self that licks,
that contraindicates a rebirth in water so much better
than the brackish pools of brimstone's grim delight?

the stropped tools of an idle recreation
are shelved with the bracing smells of burnt sap
where, in this bitter sawdust winter,
the wood has barely blistered.

better to craft your own damnation.