Elephant Butte Lake, New Mexico, 2011

The creosote is dry and black
and the mesquite is dry and gray
and the parched yew is dry too,
a dessicated yellow stalk scrawling
its bleached and barren pod into
a high calligraphy of white cirrus.

There are spikes and thorns
with bleached green razor edges,
but the cactus has ceased to care.

If a rainbow can be found
under the pale, pitiless sun
it rises from dust and rocks,
for the eye willing to wait,
and the rocks are drier still:

pink and sienna and gunmetal blue
for when the sand in the washed arroyo
desires the festive cracks of others.

The lake in the distance does not exist
as anything but a glittering that mocks
if it takes an act of faith to exist at all.

It is too early for the spring blush
and too late for the slivered moon.

There is only time
to wait for the time
like the other time,
that long ago time,

when water poured from the sky.

Port Isabel Lighthouse, 2011

Thrusting up seventy-five black iron steps
on chipped paint with edges decayed by salt
I twisted up round and around white bricks
caressed the exposed mortar with wet fingers
tracing for a groove under the beveled lens.

A voice floated up through the spiral,
a folk song sung from a face far below.

Between vertigo and spin I was lost in wonder.

A seagull spasmed against the glass
and shocked me to my senses.

There are things under the feathers, things
hidden from the dust that clenches the throat
with the dry fingers of remembrance.

That time on the last night when the sky exploded.

the lithography of nocturnes is not bitter

In a licking split lashes of laughter,
the tortoise shell brushed accident,
a blush once imagined in a minor sandstorm
of tornadic blue powder, dusted corners
at the rusty table in a dressing alcove
hidden from light by nocturnal browns

a once-famous name, red scraped amber light
behind the face, long ticked, when drawn lines
drew hot presses and the splattered greens
were draped upon a scene of woven linen.

Now the bounce is just a boing,
a bubble issuing from the dream of Krishna,

a rough of bristle dabbed in black
upon the arches archly formed of bore,

a carve upon the greasy stone
that is only borne by heavy pressing
from a gearbox beyond the grave,

a copy of the controlled accident
on tee-shirts for a dime.

Galveston Island (2011)

Motel shroud sheet thrown
down cheap on shore sleep,
the grave sea grass now weeps
a shrift white on shorn gown.

Wait a minute.

And in a minute rise to wait
the footboard is overgrown
to an iridescent blue marsh,

a tricolored heron posed so
blue becomes transparent,
is rapt through lifted sheet
because there's no one there
to cough the fluff cotton down
or downy shades poised now.

Perhaps inside a halo will burst-
no it's kept elsewhere where.

And there's none but a dream of
hurricane rustpaneled amphitheater
importing beauty to salty marshes.

One man lives in a bowl.
others on shorebird stilts.

Pastels for the common folk,
stone for the stone bishop lift,
a dumb wait for a stony heart.

Romance on the third floor
but you're not lead to see
the green patina or scarlet glass,
just a boulevard of sparkplug stores
and a statue for tall revolting heros:

the seawall has never loft enough
to stem the brown surge will.

Mississippi Sandhill Crane Refuge (2011)

Where the grass trail runs savanna gold in winter's mood

the trunks quiver as silver ghosts on trees at solid rest,

so tranquil above the blue water veins of Castille Bayou

and the only sound if you stand stone still is quiet breath

measured in time by the distant shrieks of hiding kestrels.

Here the plants are yellowgold pitchers of deadly nectar

that the summer flies are not scaled to fathom but willed

to a slow leeched death as salts dissolve in season's fare.

Here cypress roots wrap to jealousy around liveoak

and never never let go were tight love to drop its leaves

without the thrust of a season to guide the acorn's arc

in a close embrace that will sometimes clush the skies.

Left on the table cut glass is an emerald found apart,

scattered to crown the picnic leaf in aptly lying art.

in memorium for a rainbow

Saw a half massed spirit of passed friend
though hard salties on the iron rack alcove,
the board with its steamy legs and blown
fibers scary nowhere as a prism's ghost
after a purple day's pursuit, clockmaking's
timely arc icy tucked in a terracotta tomb:

it's just a reflection from the womb, you said.

And damp over the koi pond a brick bridge arched
leads to Otto's ruin amid a dispenser of fiskefoder-
for a quarter you can recover the past in a mossy pond-
one route with many names covers enough tears for now.

A white hearse with a horseshoe turned on the rear
dirty lid in need of washing of course a christening
in a motel that was void of expected chrism dipping
the washer dryer combo dripping under awning rain.

So we move on damned,
faces covered in red wax asking for remembrance.

Maybe it was not a

spot requiring ask at first,

prior the cowled grins fell limp
into coal carved melanin ash,
scorched brick orange grime
they came back one, creak footfalls
slipping past cabled green walks
where a coral snake slithers, asks
of palm filtered light oh! holy day
to please wind the ring's handless clock
in black some fire dappled timeless way.

Or so it occurred to me.

They scattered to nim an emerald eye
in a red clutch of mangrove shadow
knotty near the block house umbra
Spanish moss moist with hidden life.

This should never have been touched
or used for the crispy sacred kindling.

The flight of a sole mosquito
sang the constellations cold
enough for klaxons to be sound
lights clicked on again anguish.

The moonrise was so much later than I guessed.

Equinox, the strong north west wind,
holds no regard for latitude,

or these funny little haps of solstice.