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.