Hogg Rock Vista, 2010

A notice of runes carved by worms under the bark

of a stripped and fallen trunk is the first sneaky clue

along the mild ridge-line that a forest has hidden marks

that are easily missed in late autumn's leaf filtered dew.

Distracted at first by the scenic view of fog ruled tides

made by white mist in the rippled murky vales below,

it's hard to tell the blue sky from blue ground, besides

patches of bright hiker nylon then rise and voices echo

not as humbly silent as the voiceless creatures underleaf.

Working sideways sans the fussy serifs of civilized noise

but slowly across the rotted and wooden hole-filled sheaf,

the runes are a sonnet where no clock wound and poised

is ready to rudely tick and tock the climb to something new:

atop the crags of Hogg Rock, under heaven, with nothing to do.

Snavely Ford Trail, Antietam Creek, 2010

There is a place so oddly named though bloody stained

it does not roll easily from unschooled in local history lips

as other embattled places that have been less sadly drained

by a curving creek that perfectly mimics an unplanned trip.

What rolls behind is green, brown, and pastorally sound

and the trail from the bloody bridge to the bubbling ford

is quiet and sun-dappled from the banks to a rising ground-

silver pools leave half-leaved trunks through mirrors pored.

Walking noiseless as possible despite the autumn crisps reborn,

still no way not to flush the rutting stag to quickly sprint uphill

or cause the sleek grey owl to spring and sweep across the corn

as the nascent oxbow turns against the muddy banks and spills.

Around the yellow bend other magic may suddenly appear

but, ahead and alone in hazy fall, it's wonderfully quiet in here.

Wolf Rock, 2010

From the clouding gray of leafless endless branches

it bursts into view along the timber sprawled borders

of a hushed path where a rock wolf on granite haunches

was what was most guessed to prize the image hoarders,

a suddenly there dramatic cliff that yawns with height,

an immediate rise of quartzite from soft brown sponge

and green moss, the scattered snowlike sense of white

that catches the eye's corner and, almost deja vu, plunges

into self a sense of something to be scaled and divined.

There is no sense of the wolf in likeness to apprehend,

only the makeshift joy of hewn thrones under scrubby pines

and a crevice table spread with apples, cheese, and pita bread.

The faint sliver of a crescent moon over gray veins diurnal

is the howl of a wolf that stays a howl though mutely internal.

Harper's Ferry, 2010

There is a door just up river painted green

where two white torrents clash with spray,

inside where wispy rope fray curls unseen

that bound the wool wrapped corpse that lays

just down river in the bent autumn reeds

with black boots and face turned downward

looped with sisal and gauntly hidden needs.

Who would dare to turn that grey face skyward?

Behind the quiet door that is painted sickly green

the deed completed as the candle's scarlet dripped,

the pierced body wrapped and silence dragged unseen

to the rushing river with rough wool shroud unripped,

hidden until rosy springtime when the flood

will rinse the clues without a trace of blood.

[Note: I really don't care much for explanatory notes re: poetry since

I believe the poem is just the poem but, in this case, I will allow for an

exception. At Harper's Ferry, while strolling along the river, just at the

point where the Potomac and the Shenandoah rivers meet, there is a

corpse shrouded in a woolen blanket wrapped in sisal rope. I suspect

it's part of the exhibit, but it was shocking to see and there is still a

nagging doubt in my mind.]

The Brunswick Line, 2010

Squeaky ache of squat wheels on cold steel track

departing near dawn with breath amber haloed

by vapor light from green poles of an earlier time,

a journey begins on rails ended by bolted plates:

there is only one direction in which to travel now,

south to the city of mausoleums and white stone.

The posted grid announces a three departure limit,

there are no good clocks for leaving smoky warmth-

all three hands are dark antique before the sun,

blue vinyl seats split in spots to soiled foam,

frosted cornfields grazed by shadowy deer

near grey tracks bent by the crescent moon.

Assateague, 2010

See now the yellow finch of bullet sleek and

flitting over a steep place of rocks and scrub

where against steady white crashes so tightly cling

tufts of aqua sea grass washed velvet by rhythmic tides

in a place where blond ponies strut and breed

among dunes with crusted sap loblolly pines

bent by constant wind across the salty marsh

where the storm has cut an inlet to be sure.

thirty-five measures, one wrong cut

There are certain sighs for which no gestures yet exist

signed the hushed lady in red and blue, hedged near

the small plump aubergine pokeberries about to burst

from dark and stormy silence into the rain drenched

psychedlic bursts of oily autumn pavement swirled

again sweet thrusts of summer to cloud sniffed dry,

a crisp paisley of turquoise, canary, and rust whirled

arrows and pesky sprays measured in neon blue pulses

highlighting how quickly the most effective incision

will enjoy the muffled comedy while it lasts as

an unholy trinity flickering with black flecks and

fiddling about with things quite gloriously taboo

through furtive curtains passed the frost glaze then

it was the morning of the rosy cirrus dawn,

an epic in which the bald Titan weeds his garden

whistling an etude while reseeding the bare spots

notes morphing from chance brown to fortune green

in the summer turf that was parched unseemly when

I distracted you from seeing the dead cardinal

knowing it would upset you so only in the mind

and I was teased by every red car that was not yours

but prompted me to think of your flourishing utopias:

athena on the half shell with flamingo escort

a pink pulsing speck in the periwinkle mandala.

We left in October with the calculus of tresspass made

before the down tumbling leaves came drinking then

an elixir made from pokeberries burst with scarlet

which might repress the breath's reject of healing air.

That this perfect slice of reality cannot not be the one

that we really deserve:

Those are just lines from an old grimoire.