10 Poolside Haikus
Butterfly by pool
try’s not to get wings wetted
by splashing children.
Below the surface
hand and feet fish swim about
leaping and flapping.
Always turquoise hue-
pools where sapiens cool off,
edge-grasping the trough.
All sizes and shapes-
floating apes between ropes,
shallow end and nope.
Rainbow, neon-pink,
caution yellow, and blotched ink-
swimsuit colors blink.
Guardian of life,
omnipotent on your perch,
a whistle’s your might.
Running and diving
are strictly prohibited.
Glass containers too.
Hanging round pool shack
teen lifeguards, on break, crack jokes.
Laughing, they sneeze Coke.
Legs tucked- cannonball!
A bigger splash is better.
“Let’s never get out!”
Waist-deep in water,
Madonna on a shoulder,
tattooed man shivers.
You can’t wait forever
for a better date,
prevaricate bravely,
or hesitate before
the dancing monster.
You can’t do better than
the present intensity.
Time’s watering can
showers down on me
the warm affection of a late
morning in early June.
This is the awaited day-
a garden of delight
that’s equal parts shade
and light, made for taking
notice of the virgin
terrain, replete with bowing ferns
moss-draped branches
and the tinkling music
of a sun-dappled creek,
not to mention thorny plants,
biting flies and a risk
of ticks.
From the vantage of a fallen tree
footbridge I see, in the muddy
stream bank, the entrance
to a muskrat’s den. Through a thicket
and up, I stand on the overlook
as a siren wails noon
from someplace too near.
So long, brief morning. I did not
embrace your dawning. Too busy
yawning in the slow lane, too low
on the horizon, in my recline,
to behold the growing smile
of the new day. But now,
in the center of the sky
spiral I am capable
of flight.
Awosting
falls
is at full
roar
this morning
calling
its continuous
cataract
chorus from
a layered ledge
sixty-six feet
straight
down
erupting into a pool
with a sound-devouring
thunder
even the full-throated
breeze
I feel and see
swaying the ferns
festooning the forest floor
or the birds I know to be
conversing from
tree to tree
cannot be heard
here beside
the cacophonic
falls
peeling paint ain’t it fine on beat-up boards in sunshine? green leaves and glare I’m seated in the chair where future merges with past I watch it come and go through an abraded window snaking south on parallel rails September scenery beside the tidal Hudson where a whale swims bearing a city on her back Manhattan is my goal today easily achieved from a swaying seat on the express train passing tangled trees castle ruins and Sing-Sing prison terminus of bad decisions in the window my dim reflection is superimposed on playground billboard underpass parking lot cattail swamp someone with a can of colored aerosol mist scrawled on a wall a message that none can decipher but the sage of Yonkers who skulks here among weed stalks and storage lots face among defacements sometimes a change of subject is needed if you want to exit the tunnel of vision into a state of swell being I am on the lookout today for shapely shadows in shades of gray and signs un-designed by wind rain and sunshine crossing a bridge where birds perch in rows the train slows to a halt the perfect weather is no one’s fault but so much is hidden due to my clouded view arrival soon so they say to the filthy sublime time moves slowly when your stomach is empty and your bladder is full the bull has horns you must grab or be gored by so stab your ambition into the aorta of grins and accompany your shadow on an expedition to ornament the time allotted with sanguine perambulations through swaying canyons of glass reflecting the most recent past
Soundscape
Picture a horizon—water and sky,
A sea of sorts—Long Island Sound, to be precise.
Resolution—crisp.
In the distance, edging over curved earth,
The northern most tip of the island itself—Orient Point,
according to the framed map on the hall wall.
Picture trees, newly leafed out, leaning
into steady wind—a sea-breeze blowing
As if from the mouth of a sky-god on an antique map.
A fringe of phragmites sways
Before a strand of smooth rocks,
lapped by water—green with seaweed.
Picture a motorboat breaking the surface
of the sky mirror with angry throbs
and a tail of froth.
White caps, buoys and a jumble
of jutting rocks and boulders
complete the panorama.
One could paint it with watercolors—but instead
picture me leaving this chaise and heading to
the water’s edge to study the spaces between stones,
where elements meet—water, mineral, air and light.
My face, reflected, overlaps and merges
with barnacles clinging to submerged surfaces like teeth
and mussels huddling, disguised as darkness in their inky shells.
The air I breathe is an oxygenated exhalation
from beyond reasonable expectations.
Picture a white heron hunting on the rocky shoreline—
Motionless, taking aim—all patience
and reflected symmetry—invisible to the crab in the crevasse.
Bird Music
throat flute
articulated trill
ungraspable display
summer morning
capability nil
eyeballs roam
socket windows
hold still
and listen
again start
stroke flesh
fresh page
living life
caressing facts
untold truth
shaded light
woven breaths
taking flight
beating wings
once twice
and land
on branch
water laps
darkened edge
tidal ebb
ocean sky
horizon stripe
creation all
summarized by
bluejay squalks
Emperor
Across the invisible keyboard unseen fingers blur,
blending an eleven o’clock sunbeam with
Ludwig van Beatific.
Notes float out into vacant fields of vision.
Emptiness surrounds my pounding heart.
I’m playing dead,
couched on the mild earth among
the aftereffects of a wasted morning:
coffee cup and attendant crumbs,
book splayed open, to-do list not begun
The dog-sergeant snores on the floor.
Heroic hands bleed ecstatic crescendos
clinging to the furious joy of arpeggios,
fluttering over shimmering keys,
as maple leaves in a November breeze.
Raindrops of sound drench my quiet, caffeinated
madness. My cold frog breath chills
the petals of a late lily.
On my pond perch, I pound
a clenched fist against
the womb of mystery.
Someone is dreaming me into technicolor being,
as I beseech the maestro
not to annihilate my contented existence with a stroke
of his magic wand turning
music into applause.
Open
Open your fist
out flies a pigeon.
Open your ears
years fall through.
Openly exist with everything sacred
on condition of planned obsolescence.
Open the door
for a sorrowful dinosaur.
Open your mouth
and let the Higgs Boson out.
Open your heart to me
I’m the surgeon with the warmest hands.
Open a book
made of sand and wind.
Read it to the shadow
of your former self.
Open an eggshell
full of bird songs.
Open the curtain
for the actor playing you.
Openly beg for forgiveness
for not knowing what you thought you knew.
Open your body at the cellular level
to the possibility of rain in November.
Graphite and Wood
A pencil is the point of entry between the seen and the invisible.
A pencil has a nuclear core that radiates sparks of vision.
A pencil speaks in a whisper.
A pencil waits with infinite patience for a hand to unlock its gray matter.
A pencil makes footprints across a snowy, white field.
A pencil is a finger to scratch the itch in my cerebellum
A pencil is a weapon for battling ennui
A pencil is a rocket ship to the center of now.
A pencil is a condensed ocean.
A pencil is a dripping icicle of feeling.
A pencil is a hiding place for denunciations and vows.
A pencil connects the dots that form the curve of your spine.
A pencil is a seismograph for a thumping heart.
A pencil hums inside the closed drawer of my chest.
A pencil has all the answers.
Nice Weather
Let’s take a drive to the void ocean sky- incandescent blue as a droplet
of joy. Let’s dive into the deep end and fly like penguins. Let's save the day
and spend the night. Let’s drink the scent of a bee’s honeyed breath,
have a wrestling match with life, and embrace dear death dressed for eternity.
Let’s ride the elevator to the top floor of a weeping giraffe and leave
the calendar date behind. Let’s enter the fray a year from Monday
when it rains in the bible belt and drowns out the laughter of armadillos. Let’s,
like we always do, run for the sheer amusement of seeing the dark side of paradise
reflected in the mirror on a wall of noise. Let’s do yesterday tomorrow
and skip the foreseeable future in favor of uncharted wastelands of green.
Let’s jump off the page of a book of photographic memories and land
at the foot of a mountain of sighing overcoats. Let’s take a leaking boat down the Ganges,
mother of corpses, and up the Nile, red with iron, fighting white caps on the black sea,
our shanties overheard by mermaids. Let’s sleep under a blanket of stars
and lie awake dreaming about how sad it all would be without each other's hands
to warm our icicle feet when the sun sets in Cincinnati. Let’s welcome
the inevitability of pain because only then can we endure the ecstasy
of swimming in the lake of burning love.
Personal Enterprise
what else could I
mere mortal be
but a minute portal
pinprick hole
through which to see
the universal whole
for a holy Nano second
while balancing
at the end
of an endless
sentence
navigating U-turns
around gluons
translating meat
into eat
an evolutionary byproduct
heating the earth
with rubber feet
while losing the race
to be the new and improved but
proud of my status as
a fountain of dust
survivor of the tectonic crust
sporadically dispatching dissolute
utterances to the wind
a temperamental scruffian
in heaps of sheets
listening anew to
Bitches Brew
Lullaby for an Insomniac
waiting with a pencil in my hand
an hourglass of sand
head buried in a cloud of hours
waiting for rain to fall from my brain
strange precipitation on a clear night
the clock perched on the shelf
time itself a thing
like an oak tree’s annual ring,
a mound of acorns,
a rusted swing, dust in corners accumulating,
dark hair gradually turning gray-
fragments of photographs torn from the day
waiting to be mended by the smiling moon
waiting for my bones to melt
for my vision to meld with the weight of
an evening breeze
waiting for answers to float up from the lake
and take a gulp of air
a breath exhaled from my snail lungs
words on my tongue
tasteless and pale as light shining from
the eyes of candles hung
in the ceiling of sky
waiting for someone to sing me a lullaby
It is always like this-
One slippery day merges with another. Thursday is Wednesday in tone and proportion, yet in fine detail their filigree is individual perfection. Duration too is altered incrementally,
day by day, minutes shaved or added depending which half of the orbit we are on.
It is always like this-
In-between, about to begin, almost over, usually all at once. The moment has no identity, no self, no flag to mark a spot.
Get ready, plan, assemble, clean-up, stand, sit, steer, listen, feel the road, feed the need, dance the laundry clean, kneel before the oven, evade disaster.
It is always like this-
Chair leg shadows on the linoleum floor form an exact demarcation of the sun’s angle and the earth’s movement, appearing still, but they too pulse and vanish into completeness.
No one foresees these patterns of sunlight, or the suddenness of voices, or the appearance of age in the mirror.
It is always like this-
Searching for a lost dream, a memory or an idea. Hesitating to speak, waiting for the light to change. Holding back a lung-full of breath then
dispensing its fate-altering trajectory into the weak current of air. Shuddering in a cold draft. Identifying a noise in the bowels of the house. Listening to the whisper of want.
Worrying over the evaporating bank account.
It is always like this-
A piece of paper flutters and floats off the table. A roaring motorcycle, drives in and out of existence in mere seconds. A herd of elk welcomes another hoary dawn
under the dome of the aurora borealis. An iceberg unseen. An ocean liner en route to port. Chance circumstances that alter not what is, but what was presumed,
anticipated and scheduled, or seem not to matter at all.
It is always like this-
I hear what I don’t want to hear. I see what I choose to see. I don’t know what I don’t know. It would be wonderful to die, to step across the threshold and stand on the other side,
then turn around towards the light, shove the boulder aside and step back into life for another try. But that’s not how it is.
It is always like this-
Rubbing My Eyes
rain-soaked night streetlight puddle bright spectral reflections splash in all five neon colors pizza laundromat convenience/gas walk don’t walk glowing omens seen from a wind-chiming porch here I am no traces of the day no sign of Sam disquiet abounds hard rain pounds dousing the town town with too much nothing to be done too many ways not to have fun no need to lock the door and go no destination to lead me astray no vibration in my jacket pocket where cold keeps company with my fists there’s no way to hold a bouquet of yesterdays no noel not like every other ghost of x-mas past no reason not to fear orcs Voldemort Bin laden Bush and ecological genocide believe it you cannot hide from what’s inside closing the door on night I give thanks for the haiku immediately washed away by the rain beyond my calm exterior I see clearly into the negative depths of December’s so-called miracles
Take a picture of sound
In the sky overhead, fast planes soar past. Clang-clong-cling goes the manhole cover- tire upon tire, insulting eardrums with every round. A great diesel engine greets a green light with a loud dinosaur roar, eternity bound. A breath of wind chimes in. The bell in the steeple, poised on high, holds back for a sigh. The extended arm of eternity nearly touching noon. An empty hum. A somewhat somnolence-inducing pregnant pause. Then the inevitable...
ding-dong ding-dong
dong-ding ding-dong
bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong.
The music oscillates in holy C. A hollow ring over everything. On the street, a man scuffs his boots in gravel and detritus. Fading, an ambulance siren dies, revealing an adamant hammer pounding a noise niche- crack-whack-thwack, into the urban vibration-scape wrapped in echoes. Abrupt eruptions of cacophonous noise, then, in no particular order, sudden quiet, din, clatter, wail, thrum, rustle, rasp, screech, babble, gable, hum, patter, sneeze, yelp. A wholly, profane, mundane, midday hullabaloo parade. And how are you today?
I seek it along the shore.
It jingles brightly in my pocket.
I store it in a jar on the shelf
where it glows
like a light from under a door.
I taste it on my morning toast,
glimpse its flicker past the window pane,
listen to its laughter in the rain,
drink its naked musk
through the open doorway at nightfall.
When I brush my teeth with it
you complain that my smile
keeps you awake.
So I stow it in a chest full of stones,
bones, leaves, sleeves, arachnid webs,
threads of decay, day-old bread
and sunlight ebbing away.
Cupped in my empty palm it shimmers
like a psalm of affinity.
On this Day in History
park maintenance guy
rodeo rides mower
sowing dust clouds
a weed or two survive to touch
another aquiline bay-side
park bench
jet-skiing cop
giddy-up morning
two toothy selfie-girls grin
in sun-slathered
multi-hued tank tops
blonde coaches’ brunette's expression
clouds accumulate
in the middle blue forever
a fishing friendly climate
dotted with bleached white
boat hulls
and white house’s sinking
into late season green
on the reflecting edge
of the flawless bay body
blue and red
a buoy bobs in the wake
of Zephyr
a sound-bound fishing craft
decked out with sea casting regalia
beach roses pink
and yellow black-eyed Susan's
flutter in the rebuff
of the speeding Amtrak train
late again
en-route to ancient history
the yesterday of tomorrow
riding the expanding universe
which is time itself
expressing impatience
with a gull's yell
a fishing line fizzing
off a boat's bow
hurled in blue-fish hopes
in the white triangle sail
halfway across Niantic bay
in the hum and rumble
of draw-bridge traffic
in the rippling light projected
on the concrete undersides and columns
of the overpass
reflections from the tidal basin
where a cormorant's snake neck
sneaks’ periscope-like
above the surface shaking
wet wings
then again dives unseen
boats pass
passengers gaily wave as if to say
glad to see you
way over there
they wear sunglasses and grin
in appreciation
of the luck that is theirs
while disappearing from view
leaving behind wasted
motion and the exhausted
grumble of an outboard engine
fading slowly like an ache
therefore clouds speed heavens whirl oceans yield occasional pearls and cyclones mountains heave and melt hail pelts an iguana slowly rotates her eyelid dome infinite kernels grow on countless ears a rainbow flag sags slack at sundown striped light dapples a tiger’s frown naked truth hides in plain sight my silhouetted ancestor stands in an archway with my hands ears and grin a flock of egrets cross the misty moon crescent in a lake of stars and satellites spinning away beyond the white noise of frothing falls smooth river tree mirror brown delta seen from an orbiting eye as an oxpecker bird rides a rhino’s head through tall grass in rain crack of thunder no tree harvest gravity assisted pink-faced desolation hacked nature reflects back houses hatch on hillsides crowds step in and out of stores wide asleep walking inside a cage of many a dragon tattoo or two to be seen while wading through a throng waiting for the light to change day into night I could go on
A winter’s day
in a sleepy January subplot. I am
alone,
regarding infinity, falling in every direction-
snowy whiteness receding into indigo.
I have no time for slippery hopes.
I’m climbing the leeward slope of a dormant volcano,
bound by rising tides, on an island
in the Azorean archipelago.
I’ve worn a shell.
An excellent exoskeleton-
four walls of books by gods and mortals.
Portals to other lives, of sea breezes and verandas.
Infinite walls expanding, shadowed by trees
and hunters of memories, like these.
Your laugh— our shortcut to early embraces.
So we wade ashore, through jade water onto an island,
in the Azorean archipelago.
Don’t talk of feelings to a man of sublime concealment.
I’ve heard the wordless morning penetrate my waking dreams.
Gazing at a gazelle, on the snowy incline of a warming volcano,
encroached by swells and mobs of gulls.
I am Satyr, weeping in an arbor, crying for you,
but to consciousness I retun
alone,
on an island, surrounded by schools of Portuguese man-o-war,
pods of orcas and riptides galore,
on an uncharted, far-flung rock, somewhere, out there
in the Azorean archipelago.
An island feels the cold.
A volcano steals the sun.
Alone in a mirror, space-time April, afloat in an ocean of gray, washed up on the shore of today, me and my blankets lay sleep-twisted and upbraided, dreaming slender revelations as consciousness threatens like rain. Outside my waking life waits patiently on the gentle hand of morning. I hear a thrumming hum through Wednesday windows. Eyes blurred-open read the daybook of cumulous pages turning their usual 8 0’clock blue. Lord have mercy and infinite wisdom for the milling mid-day mundane into which I must vertically pitch my repose. Reclining on an indoor plane I ponder my mixed-up-in every direction view- poised and ready in the west, mild resistance in the east, up north dishevelment, down south wakeful uncertainty. Curled as a nautilus here on the outermost rim of a light-swallowing hole I glow like a white dwarf on a shady side street.
A Permanent Ship
A permanent ship, such as the Mayflower, anchored at its perpetual port, can no longer set sail, but instead will be restored until not a nail or board remaining is the same as the rot that was once the wood that comprised the identical original vessel.
Like the cells that fashion the mass that is me, dying and replacing themselves such that eventually a completely new being supplants the old one with one that is older still.
But, unlike the permanent ship we will not forever be restored by a conservator no matter what we believe, or how fervent our plea to eternity. Like those pious pilgrims of old, some moonlit midnight, or a daybreak with swooping birds and tree buds bursting, we too will set sail on the ocean without a shore, knowing nothing of our final destination, or even if it is final.
For some it well may be to a hell of their own devising. For others the kingdom of disappearance will receive the pleasure and pain of existing in time’s refrain, in which every beginning is also an ending and every atom now me ultimately belongs to the heartbeat of the expanding unity.
Welcome to the Waverly :)
Is it brain or brains whose assistance I enlist
when choosing eggs from an epic menu?
All the way from yesterday. Sipping from the Mississippi.
Once again, I’ve crossed the lot, lost the plot
fostered an attitude past eight o’clock.
I've gone away, gone to hay,
a stray cat out of lady luck.
Waiting for a waitress.
Over easy always pleases.
Dear, I wear cashmere when you’re near.
I am waiting for fulfillment.
I am waiting for: _______________________
fill in the blank.
I am waiting for a common-sense cure for out-of-body occurrences.
I am waiting for a coal train to bring Suzy back to Swaziland.
I am waiting for caramelized pecans on a bun.
She she she= cosmic constant.
Is no idea a good idea?
How about some rainbow trout?
To be loved is a survival skill.
In the beginning the number.
Time to go.
What the heck is an atom of marmalade made of?
electronneutronprotonneutrinoquark
Star craving mad in a neutron suit.
Atom time.
Particle physique.
Drinking salt from
a cup of hours.
√ please.
Monday in The Park
It’s a kind of glory, this sought weight of sun found in spangles
at the palace of noon trees, where Chinese music
blossoms bright as poppies. Scarlet crescendos
from a one string fiddle fill a large sphere of hearing.
The musician's glance seeks open ears and pockets
in a landscape of birds and contentment.
Wave on wave passersby smile. Invisible as a gray cat
in a patch of shade, I contemplate eternity and lunch.
I might have died and here been sent to bear immortality among strangers
wandering scenic paths from bolder to bench ever in range of a single string
instrument. But without you it would be an obsolete heaven.
Without you I might end up like that overcoat guy
darkly hunched, chafed by the sexy sun,
agreeing with no one, cursed by April, no.
I have sent myself here in an envelope of hours to loaf and lean
and glance admiringly; a man woven into the fabric of changing light.
The scene on Cedar Hill is a fancy bauble. If you hold it up to the light you might
see me encased in its amber, inwardly grinning.
after hours
ours
the sound
rain on leaves
not loud
between
gray and green
among boulders
ice age soldiers
embedded in a hill
where
fallen limbs sprawl
in fading dim
autumnal brilliance
distilled
drizzle glossed weed throng
along the meadow creek
capillary trickle
runoff from the capitol
of never again
neither day nor evening
this whispered vesper
en route to the cellar of night
forest of wet smells
day like any
strange as no other
Mill river
keeper of quiet
carries corpses of trees
and lost memories
tidings
from around the bend
look again
a hidden path
calls forth a spirit
only the dog can hear it
we all pass through the same door on our way to the black oasis getting feet wet in the waterfall of spent breath where I stop to snack on a cubist apple and catch perhaps an octopus or swordfish from the teeming stream of echoes and vibrations my tired dog rests his head on the stock of my rifle lying on the ground where vines rapidly trap the gun’s barrel Marcel Duchamp from atop a picnic table lectures on greyhound racing but none of the proximal life forms take notice to extract my weapon I blow-torch the speedy weed growth by filling my mouth with kerosene and purging it in a flammable mist over a lit match the dog raises his head and says you can do this difficult occult adult give me the fish before it slithers up your sleeve and disappears into the depths of your armpit I know what’s under your mask I reply a nymph named Echo who stumbled into me when I was hawking rocks in the diamond district to this the dog sits up and says maybe you’re correct or maybe you’re mistaken but on this we should all agree a bottle of wine is better than a battle of kindness tell that to Captain Nemo I reply but the Captain’s head is stuck inside a jar he refuses to remove it for fear of losing its contents the Captain’s wife Calypso disapproves of his attitude so she sips milk from a sacred cow and begins an affair with a moose disguised as Zeus nobody’s head is right around here Calypso’s is a fragrant rose blossom Duchamp’s resembles a raw oyster on the half-shell what about me? I consider my face in a polished pyramid of ice a shiny otter stares back only the leech reclining on a divan has a face a mother would kiss but the leech’s mother is too busy for kisses she’s putting on a human costume to attend the wedding of a witch to an executioner
Ballyhoo
On my way
the nose follows
we sway to an irregular rhythm
slowly strolling in and out of shade
and light sniffing bright
hues of odor
the residue
of yesterday's dog dreams
deposited for the astute reader
of smells who’s nostrils hover
an inch or so above the ground
What’s left of a cold day
walks half a block ahead
he lists and displays a slight
hobble but we can't keep up
me and my fur lined shadow
abandon the chase
as the day evaporates
leaving no trace
or aftertaste
Our six-legged gait
is a halting incongruity
on a thoroughfare
polished by avarice and taste
through pools of streetlights
I lose thoughts and find
it hard to decide
left or right
continue or cross
we hesitate by the highway
we spark no interest
we have no agenda but to obey
the demands of splendor
we are lashed by leash
to a lonely acre of night
dense with the scent
of circumstantial evidence
week of waves dog days biting flies horseshoe crabs mussels at low tide cherrystone clams sawgrass hot sand mudflats and this bliss the surf is my lullaby a perfect 3 o’clock sunbeam erases post-ocean shivers over under inside through frothy-white seawater molten silver I glisten dripping brine distance unfolds before me layer upon layer toward the uncertain edge of the curved horizon the infinite contour of the continent is polished by the rhythmic tide I stand at the center of all and enter the instant a backlit bather among calligraphic characters all inked onto a sandy page of Aquinnah
to shinny a silver birch
reach up and grasp the trunk with both hands
spring-load your stance and jump
wrapping knees and ankles around the narrow
diameter of the tree shaft biceps bulging
hoist your body off the forest floor
use the combined strength of arms back feet and knees
to send your palms scuttling up the limbless gray pole
hoist yourself again and again aided by powerful thrusts
from muscles and bones of shoulders and thighs
repeat this motion as you climb toward the canopy
once you arrive at the point where slender branches
splay out at angles from the trunk you may notice
a swaying sensation as the birch upon which
you are perched reacts to your movements
if you thrust your head into the green
crown of leaves a beam of sunlight
from the noontime sky might poke you in the eye
if you drop your gaze for an instant
inclining slightly to one side gaging the gap
between the ground below and you
the tree too will lean use your body-mass
to bend the trunk like a bow and hang
sagging toward the ground touching lightly down
before catapulting yourself upward again
if you continue doing so the silver birch
will soon tire of hoisting you and remain permanently disinclined
avoid telling your dad about the sad result of your
joyful crime or you might face grim disapproval but
should the opportunity arise to shinny
and ride a silver birch do it
but without reprise
Acceptance
Five am, awake again.
One day more equals one day less.
An infinitesimally insignificant pinprick
in the expanding universe is where I reside,
with a little canary flapping and chirping in my chest.
What makes this day different from the rest?
I wonder as I lie on my back
gaining consciousness by degrees,
chilled by the desolation of the bedside light
as fragments of my to-do list float to the top of the dark pond
where my face has just broken the surface.
The canary hops from rib to rib.
I burrow my feet into chilly sheets
and remember that being nipped by arctic breath
is sweet because it quickens my core.
I embrace it with a shiver and a yawn,
and dress for the weather in cotton, wool and leather.
“How do you like my naked disguise?” to the mirror I enquire
and receive a grimace in reply.
Eat a slice of well-being, buttered well.
Sip a bit of bitter brew.
In this instant everything is as old
as it is new.
Apprehend, Suspect
1.
Slipping in, in spring,
a tunnel to the far end of a gray day
(rain & wind).
A stranger's sneeze could be the breeze
that triggers our species' demise but,
we’re almost certain it ain't so,
so together, underground,
on steel wheels, on steel rails
gravity assisted,
nearly exceeding maximum speed
we go,
encroached and encroaching each other's
cellular spells, our glowing faces
lit by bytes. Fixed in flux,
having foreshortened conversations
with the odds.
2.
DO NOT LEAN ON DOORS or
we cannot ensure you will endure
the duration of your journey
in the final car of the One train.
The swiftest trip I have found for
getting downtown is this subterranean ride
in a capsule of waiting,
hurling through a tube of time.
3.
BECAUSE OF CONSTRUCTION
your progress is being delayed
BECAUSE OF CONSTRUCTION
you will be late for your obsession
BECAUSE OF CONSTRUCTION
you might miss the resurrection
of your reputation
BECAUSE OF CONSTRUCTION
there must be some destruction
BECAUSE OF CONSTRUCTION
rain will shine my crown
and gloss the ground
in the puddles plashing afternoon
BECAUSE OF the weather the
CONSTRUCTION is delayed
my location in space and time
is being undermined
BECAUSE OF CONSTRUCTION
4.
DON'T WALK
Stride
a woven path through the delirious
hubbub rubbing up,
whose glances are protected from retinal
apprehension by shrouds of suspicion
and sun glasses. Strangers
whose existence is happenstance in the field
of unfathomable dangers
and impossible pleasures
along the avenue of plentitude.
On my way, arriving and departing at the same time.
Who among this self-replenishing throng
might snag me with an unanswerable query?
“Can one be right, but also wrong?”
5.
Sorry no-
I don't know how to exit this aquarium,
or when a rainbow will bend again,
or how to un-hum the drum with nothing but religion.
No, unfortunately I cannot offer advice
on how to send a postcard of a palm tree
telepathically to a penguin,
or how to spruce up one's fading youth
without losing touch with the truth.
There are no more gas stations in NYC
the banks have moved offshore.
Dogs and rats have equalized in size with cats.
The man slumped on that doorstep is a ghost
of his former self. But, deep-down he knows
that once, long ago, he ran the show.
NO- I cannot direct you to the Museum of The Day Before Yesterday
or to the Extraterrestrial Zoo. Nor do I know where you can find
John the Devine without consulting the uber-mind.
I’m no climatologist endowed with weather foreknowledge.
I know only that this gray April drizzle, this windy
slap in the face will eventually end, But I know not when,
or what becomes of a child’s pink grin, or how to pick the winner,
or why brave a chilly drizzle with penguin determination
in pursuit of a well-shaped moment of cognition?
I settle for a glimpse of a man’s self-importance
in the passing window of a black limo.
6.
A PARKING space is a thing that is nothing.
A nothing that exists for no longer than a nano second
in Manhattan, on a saturnine afternoon. A catastrophe
of nano importance in the cosmic scheme,
(except if it is you who’s stranded in forward motion).
7.
Blur of words.
Mood of solitude.
Alone in an ocean of restless shoes stepping
over curb puddles into waves of wet traffic.
On Broadway a hyena laugh peels from the dark interior
of a woman’s mouth and fills my ears with the pitch
of a dull existence hurled asunder
for an instant.
On 7th Avenue taxi tires squeal,
heeled girls reel feelings from hand-held
rectangles glowing like life itself.
Hunched number crunchers on lunchbreaks munch fast food.
Junkies wait in line for latte's. Finger drummers hum along
to mental metal. Bargain hunters stalk steals. Short builders
build tall structures behind plywood partitions pasted with notices:
POST NO BILLS
Loaves of money rise skyward.
Rain clouds shroud the shunning sun.
Forgettable advertisements, admonished by neglect
yield to the ravages of disinterest.
Tumult of delusions and decay. Same story as yesterday.
8.
NO- I can’t help you
find to FedEx in Spuyten Duyvil,
or hide a brain-storm in a basement,
nor do I know when the Buddha
will cause my niggling apprehensions
to evaporate like a lifetime of todays.
Sequestered in Manhattan with rain
forecast for the rest of eternity. Wet cardboard,
flooded gutters, passing vehicles splashing
slippery sidewalks and sodden boots.
The tired, huddled, colorless mass that is me
contentedly awaits the underground comet’s
cosmologically calculated return journey.
Undertow
It takes all the power that I can will to hold my eyelids open, to keep my mouth from shaping itself into a gaping yawn, to remain like Homo Erectus surrounded by gravitational forces great enough to hold an ocean on the floor.
I struggle like an action hero under a sleep-inducing narcotic; a mickey slipped into my black coffee by a villain called Undertow, who seems determined to undermine my will, to cause the demise of my ability to absorb the words spoken by the blue suit, the boss, whose bald pate glints in the distance like a buoy bobbing on restless waves.
A mid-morning sunbeam delights a trapezium of gray carpet so near I can almost touch it with the tip of my shoe. I might just have to slide off this molded plastic chair like a silk scarf and wind myself into a neat pile of sleep right in that patch of glowing heat.
Eyes held open with fraying threads of consciousness, heavy head wobbling on a slim stem of spine. I am the unsuspecting victim of a force that I must resist while remaining upright and bold.
But sleep I love more than gold.
Q
In the list of letters known as
the alphabet
between P and R one
finds a curious fellow with a tail
called Q.
Q is used in words
spoken infrequently
like queer, quill or queasy.
It is also true
Q doesn't easily leak
from the tip of a pen.
Just as often as not Q
is irritatingly imitated by
that lesser letter, that
chameleon C,
in words like cute
cuneiform or cupid
words that belong in Q's
lonely domain,
but were instead
captured by
that open-mouthed letter,
that incomplete circle
which often has
the audacity to disguise
itself as S.
One wonders when pondering
the plight of Q
why must it always be
propped by the letter U?
Why can't Q stand alone
supported by its own appendage?
But no word has yet been
discovered in the Oxford or Larousse
that allows poor Q to stand aloof
without its ever present
chaperone U.
At a Dog Park in Manhattan
New green laces the limbs of upper east side trees along the sparkling river. Here, within this fenced enclosure of dirt, size-segregated dogs (med. to 3XL) run and circle in a bunch. Dog owners, on benches, bask and sip caffeinated beverages under a perfect beam of heaven. All objects in its glow cast illuminated shadows in the dusty enclosure. Our dog, the four-legged prince, welcomes any and all forms of attention, from head pats to neck nips. Nary an encounter can he resist. He follows the pack at a trot. He asserts his intention and triggers a bark. He rolls on his back. He wedges his head between a stranger’s knees and is rewarded with a forehead wrinkle massage. Dogs en masse peel through pebbles towards the newest fellow to arrive.
Over at the basketball court a man in a Yankees hat drives to the hoop and makes the shot. The playground sounds of children is like bird tweets and dog barks mixed in a blender. A girl, waving both arms from atop a half-buried truck tire, rivals a howler monkey for tone and amplitude. Her brother, dressed in green and blue, is getting tossed into the sky by his padre. He is light as a balloon. He wants the tossing not to stop. A smiling couple walking by, pause outside the fence to watch canine shenanigans in the sun-dappled oval of a urine-dusty dog park in Manhattan.
Alps
In the afternoon, or is it early morning here,
rising above the clouds,
or is it the sea I see, white and frothy,
from my window seat, Philadelphia bound?
A glimpse afforded, a glancing look
toward the upward surge
of cloud-peeking peak
upon zigzagging, alpine peak,
bright with summer snow, sunlit
below our outstretched wings.
We follow an invisible line on a virtual map,
as you nap in the seat next to mine.
Hours pass slowly in thin air,
high above gray-green waves,
through the underbelly of the stratosphere,
above Atlantic-crossing freighters
full of tangerines from Turkey
and plums from France.
Not a soul aboard the cruise ship,
a mile or so below, gives a second thought
to the distant roar of our jet engines,
as we fly by, a speck in the blue
and you snooze in the seat next to mine.
We shoot through headwinds
propelled by gale-defying forces,
flouting gravity like gods with wings on our sandals,
over the hidden ocean of currents, turbulence,
and giant cephalopods in canyons
of darkness, fathoms deep.
Far from home, far from lost, we trust our pilot
to chart the course and skirt disaster.
In my asile seat I’m determining the calculus of soon.
You sleep in the blinding light of heaven at high noon.
March
To put one foot in front of the other and move forward towards an uncertain destination because you are so ordered. To walk in a steady rhythm, as to the beat of a snare drum. To do so despite privations like thirst, hunger or weariness, or dangers from Molotov cocktails, stray bullets, jeering mobs, land mines or IEDs. To march is to become one with others marching like a many-legged organism. This, of course, is march in the literal sense.
In the metaphorical sense we all are on a life-long march, beginning at birth and ending when we fall into a rectangular hole in the ground surrounded by sad faces looking down. My own metaphorical march began in the month of March. A month of seasonal transition from harsh to humid, bitter to better, frozen hard to infused with glorious chlorophyll.
In other words it is not a time in which to pause, ponder and take impressionistic delight in the fecund glow of everything. March is downtrodden and blanched, with a sky the gray of an overworked palette. March is a mud puddle to be stepped over, a month in which to awaken from the dread of cold and get older once again. March is where the parade of colors assembles.
Underground
Harmonica player on subway platform performs
for dollars, nickels, quarters,
ob-la-de-ob-la-da,
hokey blues and Christmas tunes for us-
the others and me.
I lean here against a safety yellow pillar
in the filthy MTA labyrinth, still filling,
nearly full of bundled beings
someplace beneath 77th & Lexington.
Wearing my street face, under-dressed
among men in cold proof coats,
fuzzy helmets, mittens and mufflers,
carrying cases for auxiliary brains
and women with backpacks, cell phones,
toddlers, French novels in Polish,
shopping bags and sideways glances.
We’re all too familiar with the melody that
surrounds us, as we wait
in self-imposed silence, or as we tell and retell
events from futures foretold and pasts embellished.
Words passed back and forth over and above
the wailing harmonica, bits of each other’s lives
that crowd among us too,
as we absently-mindedly sway.
The music offered, or offensive depending
upon how long it goes on
before the downtown 6 rumbles into view.
Oil Paintings by Tom
1. A white and red lighthouse perched on a grassy rise, overlooking the curved, blue horizon.
2. Two squat towers, united by an arch, on the edge of a mild green sea, under a sky, ever so slightly pink,
as though embarrassed by bad architecture.
3. A cozy cottage, lit by chrome yellow, on an inlet, inhabited by herons, swans and hermit crabs.
4. A permanent jumble of pink boulders, fringed with kelp and mussels, lapped by glinting waves.
5. A nameless stretch of grass-tufted shore, like a hairy arm holding back the dusky twilight, as evening’s dark wing brings
fresh footprints in wet sand, made, perhaps, by drowned sailors on shore leave.
Five seaside reveries painted by a wizened orangutan, named Tom O’Callaghan, and hung here in this hippie café
for a caffeinated man to consider, on his off day.
.
There’s a place where combustion lurks in the outskirts- a spark away from raging flames.
There’s a place where iron trees grow rust leaves and the hills look like piles of filings.
There’s a place where water spills from the fingertips of laughing sycamores.
There’s a place where wind carries away everything, from last night’s dream, to tomorrow’s calendar date.
There’s a place where dust rises from corners and takes on the shapes of sleep.
There’s a place where coal is sacred and gold is left in slag heaps.
There’s a place where ice struggles to freeze even though the sun is a distant star.
There’s a place where islands walk on the shoulders of darkness.
There’s a place where shoes wait to be spoken to before speaking.
There’s a place where dragons gnaw on eternity with broken teeth.
There’s a place where bees go to avoid the gaze of flowers.
There’s a place where books absorb the dark memories of captive primates.
There’s a place where light bulbs hum the melodies of unwritten hymns.
There’s a place where windows look in on the architecture of clouds.
There’s a place where rain never quite reaches the thirsty ground.
Theorems
Possibility of rain. Chance of snow. Daylight remains until it goes
To a more deserving longitude on the reflecting globe.
The blue sea is green. Passing through the in-between,
A vertical apparition looking up from my three-dimensional hole
in space time, I find visions hidden in plain view--
A steeple back-lit by sea shine is a rocket ship to God.
The cross on the steeple tip is latched to this dimension like a kestrel's claw
clutching its own motion. The kestrel and I are interchangeable integers.
I glide in a downward spiral over marshy patches at high tide peering through
tracts of leafless woods for signs of life on a day with a tiptoe in spring.
Angled at a fierce tilt the sun turns the train tracks into parallel bolts of high voltage glare.
The kestrel catches an updraft of sound; the train in which I travel is New York bound.
I ride beside the approaching nearness of one with whom I happily reside
In a shadowy upper east side cave on certain astrologically lucky days,
Like this seven-dimensional fractal known as Friday. Who can tell where
One sense ends and another begins, when you are tangled up in string theory?
Who can perceive the scent of the wind stirred by a bird’s wing when we are all
just the skin cells of a white leviathan tattooed black with theorems?
A yellow crane in a pit of its own making stands in high relief on a map of neutral hues
in a landscape crushed, blanched, damp and chilled by winter’s worst abuse,
Which I, frizzled, also survived by virtue of some kind of daft determination.
I am first in the queue because I am last, on the circle that connects future to past.
Ink
bleeds black blood
on sheets of blank
white paper
it seeps toward the margin
washes into shadows
that grow and roam
dark halls of trees
shadows full of memories
torn to bits
layered like decayed leaves
that scuttle down
the lamp-lit street
by force of a cold November breeze
memories made from the music
of fading afternoons
recollections swept into the dustbin
of oblivion
ink sleeps in the shape
of a black cat
at the bottom of a well
ding-dong-dell
a well full of unspent apologies
second thoughts
and discarded wishes
where crows go
to dip their wings
before flying over
Saturday’s children darkening
their green laughter
with the shade of forgotten dreams.
none can contain ink
not pen brush bottle or sheet
even when imprinted in skin
ink’s blackness is final
and complete
Blast of Heat
102 degrees on the highway at 3:47
me a/c and The Hare with Amber Eyes
surely a sun flare is whipping us
but the chateau on the grove
was cool-ish upon entering
now under the ceiling fan I'm waiting
for the world to be too
out the backdoor birds in treetops
discuss bird-wise the extreme temperature
and where to locate dinner
and steer clear of my nest dammit!
last night I discovered
embedded in my upper latissimus dorsi
a tick
I was appalled by this bold attack
on my flesh just beyond reach
I countered with tweezers
and a mirror and was the ultimate victor
hurrah for the human
these words are avoidance behavior
I should be finding ways to make my dough grow
or to be braver in my pursuit of the goal
or riding my mighty fine bicycle
or scheming schemes for enlightenment
or writing my fractal will
I opt for the speed of my Cannondale
petals pressed to the hilt in pursuit of hills
on a fine hot Friday late afternoon
tomorrow it will be June
the sun creeps up for a moment’s glow then turns skyward by way of Atlas’ forearm down here backlit trees are cracks in the blue dome we wrestle in flowers on the hillside observed by cloud faces mountains are sleeping bison blued by humidity and distance high meadow goats nibble thistle and clover a man in a nearby bus shelter strums a tennis racket beside him on the bench a woman hums along the song in her head is stuck like a dolphin in a pond a cool nod lands on her glance by way of a virile truck driver who wears a dirt crown the classic nudes are enraptured their lips turn vivid red suddenly someone’s shot dead but oops go back to bed it’s only a hunting accident a salty scene we turn green and pray for deliverance from the stain on our brains we wrap ourselves in steam from dreaming grates and make our way upstream near the hidden entrance to Hades’ Den we see Jesus smiling with his friends perched on poles holding hands we sidestep holes dug by giant children this is a real flower you say as you steal a cattail from a molehill I reply let’s stop here for fruit in a glass bowl a vessel of spheres you correct a curious pear sneaks around the corner on a frayed patch of shade a gray cat grins from the Ottoman and strokes her white moustache a man of god approaches with pictures of his wife and child he offers wafers and water or martyrdom instead we board a boat the moon’s full countenance beams yellow on our facial highlights on the shore as we pass a gloomy saint suffers in deep shadow mentally viewing naked Eve as she procures apples for Adam who accepts each with a bowed head
Portal
On a foolish Friday in April, a thin, fleeting slice of heavenly marble has been sculpted into warbles, trills, twitters, tweets, caws, quacks, and the full-throated chants of frogs, freshly-limbed, basking along the wet edge between brown water and cattails. Glory hallelujah! they intone. The pond winks a sun-eye as heavy clouds shuffle by, bumping and pushing their increasingly gray masses. Incandescent sunbeams are spotlights on the stage of this sparsely attended pageant.
Incessant is the impulse to somehow submit and become one with this moment of cacophonic harmony. But for now, I must play a separate part in order to understand the sighs of pines, grasp the universe in the decomposing harvest of acorns, interpret the yelps and cackles of iridescent grackles as they impatiently peruse the compressed field for seeds and worms. Vapor trails crisscross the luminous dome of sky, continually changing, mirroring my own atmospheric emotions.
I won’t enter the waking woods that lie pulsing on arboreal sub-straits just beyond the screen of vision, where invisible forces act on loam, clay, sod and soil, where voids and hollows are filled with remnant chill. Today is a tale of winter un-writing itself. I imagine gathering it up into my being to carry with me as I trek the trodden, sodden trail to the parking lot. So, my solitary hour in the park trickles merrily away, making a pleasant gurgling sound as it goes.
Palimpsest
Erase these words. Cross them out with emphatic strokes. Eradicate and obliterate this meager chicken scratch with a small cube of rubber. On the page crowded with letters shaped by hand, abolish and un-intend. Leave only dim projections, ghosts of graphite, echoes fading in the hush of elapsed seconds. Don’t study the remaining palimpsest of smudges and indents. You won’t find damning evidence or clues to be decoded. Only missteps and false starts, an awkward word transgression heading down a cul-de-sac lacking a suitable adverb. Fill your bronchial cavities with a volume of clear afternoon breeze, and blow away this dusty bone-yard of spent vocabulary. If necessary use the edge of your hand to brush the empty page, making sure that not a comma or period is left behind.
Write new words on top of this freshly tilled field of absence. Words to build a stairway leading out of your chair and over to the window, maybe even up on the rooftop for an unimpeded view. Words that reveal a mirror day in which the pencil point meets itself while making its slow descent down the page. Words that form a dome of blue over this snow-covered pasture of the future. Words extracted from the thin air of Everest and transported by Sherpa, mule, bus, taxi, train, plane and finally by the hand that places them on the sand at the beach where you write with a stick beside the in-coming tide. Words like promenade, modicum, calisthenics, or spumoni. Words that you can ride on like a toboggan on a steep run, or a hot air balloon floating over the island of Manhattan.
Words for Vic Chesnutt
Always one more,
always one less.
Expectations seldom being met.
Let me assure you
the day, despite its valleys,
still has peaks and perks.
Columbian coffee on the side
porch in September when
others are at work.
Here I am, come find me,
a breeze-sniffing dog
and a passing deer or three.
Yesterday we spotted
a fat groundhog attempting
to climb up the pear tree.
The dog directed his vocal objection
to this bold attempt at thievery
but gravity intervened
and furry chuck
soon retreated into weeds.
Today is an ice cream cone
with a scoop of time
and a scoop of sunlight.
The cone is made of cicadas
sawing into the silence
with a seventeen year
vengeance.
Time and sunlight
leak from everything
into steamy heat,
like vapor from the blackness
cupped in my hands,
like the beat of Vic Chesnutt’s
angel wings as he sings
the soundtrack to this fleeting scene.
Great Recession
White dog sits on gray carpet watching stock market experts expound. The TV’s sound is turned down. An oldies station on the loudspeakers fills the chapel of capitol with pure affability. It says mutual agreement. It yearns to transmit trust and trust, as we all know, equals cash.
It is Tuesday hum at the car dealership de-dum. In the waiting area, I am parked in an upholstered chair in the company of a white-bearded tribal elder who wears clean, white sneakers. To no one in particular he says, “I have all the time in the world”.
Twelve brown armchairs face opposite TV screens. One over-stuffed seat is occupied by a human vehicle of dreams. Eyes closed, head, propped on a meaty fist lists slightly then rights itself automatically. Large salesmen, sipping styrofoam cups, meander hungrily through glassed-in rooms pitching desperate glances at our idle gloom.
Shiny cars on the showroom floor go entirely unnoticed. In this strip mall limbo, everyone sighs and no one buys. Along with these neighbors and a table full of distressed magazine daydreams, I’m stranded here at the whim of Mr. Toyota, waiting to pay through the nose for a hose.
Flight Attendant
the smile dawning on her face is like the glint on the glass of pure water she pours for me joyful bubbles brighten the blight of bland cabin scenery six hours of headrests and scalp-scapes it’s what she’s paid to do fill our cupped palms with sips of renewal and hope we are thus kept and cared for while airborne but this sweet sip of melted sorrow only leads to more metaphysical quivering I cannot sing or speak or swivel my hips or cry out-loud I have become bloodless bodiless a heap of matted matter poised at the tip of an extended pause winging through the lung of night the instant undreamed in real time even the taste of my own tongue left behind the backs of stranger’s heads fill my navel-gazing view along with endless rows of blue seat-backs in the upright locked position we are fastened to a bullet in a ballet of speed stillness heaved across datelines time zones and dark oceans in a weighty vessel defying death survivors of an un-lived interval gradually sucked toward a pre-determined place palace of arrival where we cross the gate entering a new state shifting back into our familiar shapes exit signs glow landing gear lowers slows our descent on a cushion of breath soon to be exhaled
Alone
alone on the beach
alone in a crowded museum
alone with a mouse
alone with a terrible television
alone in the shower
alone on the phone
alone in my boudoir trying on cologne
alone with my schemes
alone with parts and parcels
of homes I lived in before I was alone
no one home but me
before I fell out of my chair into
nothing but sky
before I ate my dinner alone
before I sang this lullaby
to no one
before I waited to die
for someone lovely
to dream of when I’m alone with my hands
alone with my eyes
searching space for signs of life
alone with my gray area rug
alone with my delusions of grandeur
alone with my head in my arms
alone beside a windy windowsill
alone on the spine of a mountain clinging
to the wind chill factor
alone with my subliminal perspective
alone with my take on the truth
alone with a heart ache-the size of a rhinoceros
alone as a bear in a forest den
alone among six billion women and men
Empty Words
I want to empty my pockets
of coins and keys,
empty my shoes of feet,
empty my body of what I don't need,
empty my clothes of me,
empty my eyes of fractured sight,
empty the lamp of lemon light,
empty my lungs of sighs,
empty my muscles of residual gravity,
empty my nerves of static,
empty my heart of music and ravens,
empty my mind into Montana,
empty my palms of belief,
empty my emptiness into the thin,
black current of night and catch
the private whisperings of moths
on the invisible web
of my empty words.
Vending Machine
Call it vague hunger, distant desire, gnawing need,
fuel light on empty.
Call it a dearth of combustible energy.
What would satisfy, what would please?
What would nudge me from inevitable entropy?
What would buoy me?
What would hold me over
for another hour’s worth of meanwhiles?
My bones rattle with every bump.
My heart is a thudding muscle.
My feet fester in the darkness of tired shoes.
My eyes pulse. My hair aches.
My face is a wasteland of stubble.
My smile is an abstraction.
My wallet is a gluteus tumor growing incrementally thinner.
My phone is on its last lap.
My radio is between stations.
My audio book is beyond my range of insight.
My memories are forgettable.
My thoughts… unrepeatable.
Call it one point perspective on I-95
What cell of my soul would I exchange
for a change of venue?
What would fill an emptiness that I’m too numb to feel?
I know I won’t find it at the mall,
packaged on a shelf or poised on a rack,
or in the dull glow of a highway billboard
bored with itself,
or even at the public library
full of closed books and stolen looks at clocks.
Where can it be? Where is it waiting
just for me, that transcendent
candy bar
in a lost highway vending machine?
don’t forget to nurse me back to health to breathe life into my lungs with your lipstick red mouth to shoot me in the forest your camera focused on my clouded gaze don’t forget to use my shining scalp as a mirror for your grimace as you grow your nose and dance around the rose bush with your octopus lover holding a bat to battle bats with in the attic of your bateau don’t forget not to regret your decision to dangle with me from a tree two fruits talking like monkeys with arrows in our throats nothing to say anyway while climbing a velvet rope don’t forget to spray acorns into the crowd of crows they may laugh at your curling horns when you dress up as a lion and sing to me from the bottom of a hole where a diamond might be buried below the garden of swords and smoke as you bleed at the edges of your seahorse mask when flying to Alaska on a basilisk’s back don’t forget to raise me from the sick bed where you left me for dead due to my missing head don’t forget to drink the silence on the end of a spoon to kill the ghost of evil tomorrow or the next day late in the afternoon
Time is a rowboat
tied by a rope
around my neck,
like a bad luck charm,
as I swim over a body
of darkness,
preparing to dive to the bottom
where I’ll attempt to retrieve
my baby teeth
buried in a muddy bed
of lost sleep.
Time is the void that gives form
to the night that fills
the house that holds
its breath and keeps to itself
the secret of my demise.
Time cannot be saved, altered, amended,
lost or found. Time cannot be passed,
used up, wasted, grasped, or bound.
Time cannot be untold.
Time is a river, navigable
by skill and luck. A river
that cannot not be crossed.
Time is a freight train
that makes no stops
until reaching
your final destination.
Time gives weight
to the wait.
Time is a silver ladder
that can be seen only in certain lights.
All writing copyright John K. Norris 2022