Out with, in with

It's all cold again down a blown northwest line,
and dark comes feeling again so darkly new.
New ice in the window is white spidery fine,
a low yellow sun again raises a false pale blue.

Need to shiver, need to deeply red combine
hot blood that in last hot summer green grew
in a thrusting fuse that could in blossom define
a warmth so petaled that a crow cawed true

into the frost that thin fingers etched sublime
with a silvery ghost script writ in frozen ecru
by gnarled knuckles forgotten in graying time
when the scythe scratches an icy bill come due.

But a baby crawls pink from under the blanket now
holding sprigs of chartreuse from a golden bough.

A spurt of wine

A spurt of wine when the ripe cork is popped
leaves bubbles of taut blood on soft skin ridges
moistly duck webbed between a gaunt thumb
and a forefinger clawed pale for joy uncorked.

To lick the red is an ancient terracotta art thus
now splayed and missed most royally by minds
darkly trained to draw in lines concisely black
when the twisting silver helix turns to extract:

some joys beyond the known taxonomies live.

what if the lotus

what if the lotus is just the lotus, only
opening because it owns sweet pink
yellow petals perched on blue water?

what if the lotus is just the lotus only?

what if the pineapple is not so secret,
sweetening its ripe juice under prick?

what if the pineapple is just because?

That age of jet comes again and again

That rush beyond the pale and pastel piping
brought a flush promise of cocoa in a stream.

We never thought a wing could be so whoosh,
parched up from a drought when dusty wells
were teased to draw water with rusted hands
used to blank cluck if a game bird was flushed.

Hunks of flesh on greasy black grill bars seared
were suddenly passe and a chardonnay victory
caught us scrambled to master an accent grave.

Pink graces brief moments when paired with blue,
sky driven dreams grown wilder by see thru too.

High on the jet stream an icy face of mirrors shows
those cirrus blown black eyes frozen late with kohl.

I brought the wine but the lodge was creepy

Slid under the green and red and blue dull sparkle
of asphalt shingles thrown down in a damp pile,
a silent darkness is just near the dugout now hidden.

The mound is carefully raked in spring but under grey
winter when it's twilight and thick sliced potatoes fry
in kitchen windows yellow curtain lit at greasy dusk,

Minnesota has been moved to just north of Oklahoma,
the pine trees scrawled on the map are mere cartoons.

The Classical Veins of Marble Mystify

The evergreen bristles next to the whorls of a finger
on a glossy magazine came to terror when the fever
came raging in a sickness driven by weather change.

A small pine tree dreamed by a boy under heavy quilts
grows so heavy that the black sweats become a river,
marbled aqua tiles lifted from a stickyness of wet glue.

I remembered what I was going to say

There was a moment that dripped like a faucet
held back from the torrent by a hack of black tape
but the black tape could not hold the wet syllables
at bay within this white chipped porcelain heaven.

Then I remembered the cause of the chipping now-
a mad little drummer with aluminum practice sticks
driving a whiskey fueled paradiddle into the night
until the sleek white porcelain could take no more.

And the chipping became a shattering crescendo
where I found my god as we wrestled to the floor.

Looking for Leonids

In a dark chill as Sunday ends one Saturday evening
again, still black eyes turn domeward, hope and wait
for that brief grace streak of frozen ice crossing night.

In a short dream galaxy swirled in gold expositions ah,
bright red and pale green fireworks in clear cool focus
as a tight sit on a park bench saw new stars being born.

Laughing unraveled, not even a single streak was found.

A Poem is Never Done

A poem is never done nor is it created
because every poem is an imperfect copy
of the one poem that only always echoes
just beyond the reach of your shadow.

Silly, isn't it?

Everything is a poem and the poem is always nothing.

Vowels carry melody, consonants are drums
and rhythm and melody can fascinate indeed.

But if you really need a pentameter, listen to your heart.

Copper Burns Green

Copper burns green in the east sometimes at sundown
when even clouds are gray and the west glows faintly
from a biting October orange of harsh northern wind.

Walks built of tall boards by whiskey grayed whiskers,
mean tossed by sandy salt into matchstick grizzly piles,
are now cross crushed by hand me down habits of dune.

What went out gloaming at low tide on a glowing strand
could never discern ripples on sky from ripples on sand.

a house made of matchsticks

From the tick bluck mudden
I, an off-key creaking, grokked 
of oak staves swilled to burst
and was thirsty to be Gehäuse.

As the creaking strained or dripped
and the cooper droned or tripped,
I parched me tithe naked and alone.

Mitt mein sliding in dein Wald
me sotted softly down erect,
moistly tannin on your dregs-

can the harvest even matter
when one true thing is known?

In the trembling light of afternoon

In the trembling light of afternoon a blue sky intrudes
and calls the burgundy haze into brief white question

but it's all just more reason to shrink into the beige jute
and pretend the yammering means more than it does.

Moments of low drama belittled by white clouds snapped
from a light sleep that considered the wisps more relevant.

That was the time

That was the time I almost drownded,
nose full of green weeds in mud water
and bull rushes hiding my bald head.

That was the time when a crazed black jeep
curved the concrete apron and jumped
bloody glass over a white line wobble .

That was the time when a blue vein
hay-wired and the big bubble burst
and left me wordlesss in blank sleep.

That was the time in a dim alley
when a blind grey hood rushed dark
with a silver flash that cut for gold.

That was the time I misjudged wrath
and in the cute glow of a night light
that little ball peen sealed my doom.

That was the time when the rowboat
cycled and kicked up phosphorous
and laughed we over wales to black.

That was the time when I knotted hemp
in a basement casement with a knotted beam
and did the kick and jerk under lathed pine.

That was the time when my blade was hard
but the bolt from the phalanx surprised
and the sting and the red snort was good.

That was the time when my grey whiskers
stiffened and I laughed off the damasked chair,
collapsing into a peaceful wisp of dream.

That was.

Yes it is

Yes, there was a bonk against a wall torn down browning
and it cascaded into an eruption of flowers taking accents,

it's the run and staying awake makes points but points
are as much mirrors as the dream that makes the mirror:

so, a cool autumn breeze tickles the hairs on your calves
and you forget what paradise feels like elsewhere.

Something Revealed on the Street

The only problem with your picture of Armageddon
is the shopping cart not returned to the stall.

The lack of perfect chrome inventory will panic Danny.

Today the pattern was maniacs in courtesy cars
barking an advert in pristine white changing lanes.

Tomorrow it will be another.

Put a number on a humid day and it's still only now.

It will always be now.

Watch the passive grey ghost with the plaid hat
sitting on the ledge of Episcopalian trophy steps,
blind to the godly rhythm of dancing children.

She is somewhere else.

Do the rockabilly swim in Hawaiian shirts
and purple painted accouterments beside
a cream and washed out brick Delta 88
with a cool breeze option that's inscrutable.

The only sorrow?

Being unable to justify saying:

And I helped.

Empire of Dirt

The snail moves so quickly through the sky
that the fallen crumbs seem almost brown
but look again and it's only six point flakes
that do not softly drop but waft in icy silence.

once there was a trial

If you had turned behind me Issac,
I would have forgotten you there,

would have ignored the purple nettles
while I sweated stung through sand,

would have cried a little less over cold steel
and the lamb blood stain on a black stool,

would have dreamed of holy times at fleshy places
with a silver needle stuck in a smoke orange dawn,

would have meteor screamed voiceless
into wondrous galaxies beyond our pale.

All only to cry into granite always an altar in the end.

Postmark of the Bamboo Cutter

I am going to mail this letter from the Mount Fuji post office
using a watermark made from the mist of pale silver clouds
and orange ink from a worthy sunrise waiting in white cold:
the watermark will hide its secrets from Aokigahara's demons.


I scratched the stations patiently in burning calligraphic strokes
taking the better part of night and the better part of icy breath 
to hang before the fading torch so that my ink is mostly hidden:
to climb the volcano once is sublime, to climb twice is foolish.


Or so my letter says.

If there is dew on the fleece only

Floating on Pinot Noir over a chrome hotel atrium
when a squawk below from clipped aqua feathers
in a black iron cage with the tall door left unchained
hints at a bobbed parrot escape with esoteric glee.

Into the sawdust smell released from a siliconed slide
of nightstand drawer, to get the grip on mitered myth,
bound black in pebbled leather with faux maple veneer
in a checkered mirthful mix of the sacred and profane.

Someone wished to fly and lost the grasp.

Someone sawed the tongue and groove in godly sweat
and it was good, someone left the book and it was good.

Someone slid the door for a blushing voyeur.

There was lavender cleaner and a tiled floral floor of dust
and someone thought that that was real real gone.

It all happens so fast

It bursts green out of the bloody red spring
of young radish sprouts in giddy new mayhem

and ends, in an immeasurably ironic reversal,
with damp raptures in a crowded wet summer-

the orange giggle of pin-oak suddenly pokes
into the quick shimmer green of north white light

and speeds up waving crisp blue curtain beams
through the too early close of a frost black snow.

Watching birth from the dirt

Every green bit grin rising from flat brown
follows the same joyful split seed eruption-
be it sullen dill or dry basil or wry cilantro,
each patience tests eager hovering potters.

A green man similar shares peculiarities burst
upward although seed is coveted mostly when
a strict hat denies erect red and blue venalities
from a joyful thrust into spread white clouds.

Is it wrong to fuck the sky?

Have you been seeled?

Have you been seeled again with angel thread
closed against your dreaming brown feathers?

Pity, the needle must have hurt,
but at least your eyes are shut.

Now you have to sense the blue prey hunkered
in murky reeds whispered out of sightless mud.

Mud is cool sometimes, at times merely wet ground.

Out of the egg the azure climb and soar predicted
could never really or could have really happened
but the white dog is always walked in a beige coat
over high water teal pants flooded in black shoes.

It's all just the same and

it's only bad if your bells are bad or your fetters bad,
but if your bells aren't bad then fetters make you free.

Never sure if climb is the word

Your fear is justified at the top of the stairs
when you slowly open the weathered door
and find a yellow chick and purple boa froth
of frightened feathers that make no sense.

The red book promise partly lured you up
treads and risers you crept and crept by one
until your wet palm grazing the bronze knob
released leathery rain on a gold sweat day.

A vocal chorus cried as the roast browned,
forgetting the rich dance of sauce and slurry
celebrating a pale union of broth and white
that twists unto silver tongues a plated joy.

Into this sweet miracle your children are born.

What the kaleidoscope said

All of glass shards in a rainbow spun to one
turned weepy chartreuse in burgundy spring
launched a desire for twisty cardboard flings
on bald white checkmate fields of winter sun

with celebrants in an orangery of yellow pollen
back bringing bliss, lifting the leafy skirt of then
into autumns when the sweaty milk pods fallen
call out pale memories of what might have been.

To fly and trail your legs the great blue heron way,
avoiding the twirly winds that rotate in silver haze,
follow the straight cord into the green leafy play
or never understood deep blue orbits out of phase.

This is only the life of seasons spinning tubular fast
in now a kaleidoscopic flash. Death? Oh yeah, that.

Blame it on the inkling

When I threw myself from the balconey
it was not overtly in jest
but I laughed about it later
over foie gras with my neighbor.

Just outside the door

An echo of loud blossoms blasts white insistent chimes
and lost Westminster resounds in a pink memory of time
ticked down grey granite walks where clocks neatly wound
call back rainy centered smells of a paradise moistly found.

Tented under the peppermint boil one can easily fear the cure
that some say scalds but those voices raised in steam cry rain
and the time I almost found you missing came but near assured
over a mist of Avalon condensed that neatly kissed the drain.

Not so many gods

The rocky shore of blue cloud sunrise
lifts salty breath to other orange shores
where purple breaks stroke faces wet
and the gull's white cry whirls pure.

I found things he used in a weathered shed
and rusted used in cold rain hard beside
the wet earth and sweat and handle's bled
that married slick life to a harrowed bride.

Inland brown and headland teal and green
might not be as orthogonal as they seem
unless a scripture writ on the color of birds
is comically altered in a headstrong world.

Six ways to cop a feeling

i. Never let go regardless of time


The clasp is fast, the clasp is slow
the clasp is colored mostly bone.


ii. I saw an opening that lasted for a second


Happy, happy before the clock strikes 
and the minute ebb recedes your joy.


iii. Place and time can fool you with uncanny vibrations


The spidery marble table top restricts position
and distracts with veins of black and orange.


iv. Sorry for the pie face, I thought you'd be amused


How gauche to speak of motors when your swept hair
is streaked with omelets voiced in silver and black.


v. Then I looked in the mirror and saw the code


Two dashes disturbed a periwinkle flitter
that almost rose in a memory of dots.


vi. I hear every word you say


I watched your wet lips speak a subtle truth
and, despite the chimes, had to pay attention.

please don't burn the roux

A light roux for dark meats
is part of my vade mecum,
it's so useless to argue
in a world of stainless leaps.

I can see the far cupola
with its blue dome
and white lattices
harboring pigeons in the freeze.

I am not expecting to be saved.

So back to the whisk with vigor,
for when the roux is burned
all hope is truly lost.

a thing the water rat knew

The river is bigger than you are,
not over to godly brown when
running in reeds blanched fully
white by spring's swollen burst,

but god-like in late autumn, yes,
with fluvial red in found gold,
and thin skimmers lasting grins
perched over setting shimmers,

the iridescent reeds still green.

hey now, in memorium

There was a dream that crashed a purple pellicle
so obvious noticed first in post-periwinkle doubts,
the clouds as divine as wake up calls and bent bells
awkward ringing on a white table with black chords,
harmony balanced on mahogany legs sweet fine long
and sandaled in teal ink from a fountain pen drained
on script soap soft carved in scars deep and refined.

I could have punched myself for open stupidity
but even that would have made me stupider still.