from scree to southern moss

quirky platforms from the summit tumble,
arriving at a quiet pool
where granite wedges bubbles.

gyration on the lodgepole pine
mocks cracked rock anomaly,
the hidden mirth of dapple.

in the dancing plot of staring ferns
scoped to light above the giggles,
this tarn a want of dusky spores,
their eyes follow the fevered ball:

we need to lap despite the eyes
where lapping can be fertile.

small grains favor coolness
at the bottom of a fault,
sliding into blindness.

cool knobs of verdant oaths
allow tubers to let us promise
a shadowed rise of evergreen:

we know these streams and cones and moss.

hush, little piskies
twittering in the rush-
it's only humans rooting:

there are spores and needles galore-

carve a forest for gnarled runes
near the promise of a stream.

scalp problems

the muse in candied underwear
flew up my nose, right out my hair-

she give my lice new eyes to see
Beauty, Truth, Eternity:

each flaky sheet a work complete,
my dandruff falls in volumes.

socialization errata

duck woman with your webby lips
how deck these cards of random?

better plush a seemly life
at the risk of dance abandon.

tracing a pencil over nylon

a long-distance lecherous peep at noon,
red pumps tracked through venetian blinds,
elusively optical over white-lined stalls
with the shimmer of hose a sweet mirage
that seams upon the tightened urge
and the rhythms that would follow
stiletto footprints on the black macadam,
receding and clicking in the wavering mist,
a mirage to slake this thirst for leather.

right before act one

what a pot of lucky stew we bubble now-
the goat, the dwarf, the bitch, the shrew.

they crow across the barnyard's raucous stubble,
where hay is frost and chortles dew:

a mission of confidence clanged in cast iron,
the lid will silence the chosen few.

a frothing banquet of angled limbs
for this a solstice is simmering too.

why the charlatan prospers

what's a heaven really for,
a short straw for sale to grasping.

(you can have your cake
in the prosperity of the Lord-

grind hard, dismiss the other,
be blind to the gaunt walker

on a salt water sea

that is glassy yet not reflective:

to be happy is transgression,
joy another a fetish
demanding the singe of burning stone-

ray, as always, a drop of golden sun:

the golden calf grows chatty
on a couch with skyward hooves,

a secret feast of lucious denial-

projection only belabors the point,
transference more the pity,

the id:

oh nevermind!)

it's just a purchase of wait
for a world beyond one's reach:

sinners keep their digits on the pouch,
perdition's better than insult.

mistakes were made

endure it worth the struggle now,
having once or twice failed in the bouncy frolics
for reasons mute and awkward-
the flesh was willing but the spirit balked:

given a lack of advance for base gestures,
we sometimes stall in winter,
despite the promise of daffodils
piercing the rain drenched earth.

recovering, we measure a diamond cut
or offer a weedy bloom that is plucked
from plots expecting slicing harrows,

(the weakness of the planting
does not diminish love,
it only asks for letters-
but these cannot explain
an unplumbable set of facets)

which part of the hidden lips
should a winter kiss caress?