Red red Industrial pink dawn Saffron halo of sun Stars sink into cyan blue Half a world in darkness Half rolling into sun with you dreaming. The smell and heat of hair on skin, the sound Of your breathing lulled me like rainfall on a lake – I greet the day recalling you said, “If […]
Left, right, left, center, the political stammer But we talk on and on and past one another Real discourse too hard in the Trump nation. Junkyard Alt-Right Dogs bark racist slogans We breathe deep, ignore the jerk at work, we Do our best to couple, dismiss the nightmare For the dream of a big house, […]
for D. A. Rural folk seldom have neighbors pop by. I’m lucky one lives next to me. A great Dane lives with her A cat with me— We stay a crow’s call apart, safe inside. She tends the chickens daily at five. I feed the calico at that time. I greet her tossing feed “Hey, […]
If I taxed my heart long enough to reach ninety-one I’d run short of beats, I know, dumb idea, no matter. I don’t need to map life that far to be happy– Still it’s good to know what’s out there before setting a course for the Isle of Calamity—waves rise and fall no gull flies […]
I have an underlying health condition cause unknown, like addiction to Aunt Nora or Widow Jane, a thing always out of reach, yeah seeking either as I’m a dealer, is insane. but when deprived I feel something, something’s seriously wrong with this ragtag raging world we made. Oh sympathy, I have that too, for all […]
There must be meaning behind a will, there must be healing. Night deepens but I cannot sleep, a lily pond glows drowsy koi floating by a moonlit walk in the park. Is there a reason to feel the loss of so many I never knew, did I help herd them to slaughter my twisted heart pounding […]
In Jacksonville, North Carolina, my brother was eight years old, In a department store, on tip toes, he was trying to get a drink. “Boy! Don’t drink from that! That’s the colored folk’s fountain! Can’t you read? It’s plain to see. Use the white people’s fountain.” Bewildered, he looked around for Mom who fearlessly stepped up: […]
A recollection of rain in green fingertipstulip bulbs testing the airnudging tiny conical hills in flowerbeds,the swollen creek surgesinto the last steelhead runthe rising Umpqua remembering spring. I cannot attest the season as anamnesis,that begs an old questiondoes the earth have a soul?Let’s say, for our sake, it does,What other life but its own can it […]
The cat chases its tail, the dog whimpers in sleep the heart skips a beat… It’s not a nightmare, not a movie, a TV show. Wake when you will but where will you be, in bed alone, In the den, your unknowing hand holding a gun, at your desk starting at nothing? It doesn’t matter—Looking […]
Buddha before enlightenment starved bony looking into the moment for a way out the joy and pain the universal law at the center of the chaos in and around him knowing we all wait under a spreading tree the return of turtles setting eggs in sand salmon roiling upriver to spawn sea lions […]
You’re better to believe what we tell the children, God loves us
Satan’s to blame for all the evil in the world, the horrors of war.
Oh Lotto Ticket! You make phone sex obsolete, your tongue moves over the gutters of my body like a street cleaning truck. Your love is like a red, red Tube of toothpaste You are better for my mouth than Scope You are better than bubble gum blown during an action packed movie You’re more exiting […]
In silence older than the sun the desert holds me like a lover needing little, offering nothing but peace– A voice in the wilderness, “There is no lasting happiness Samsara, Samsara.” Darkness older than silence, older than the coyote howl hunting song of the owl bat wing flick, mule deer kick To move and breathe […]
I wanted to be a serious poet, but heard they are prone to heart attacks so I lightened up and became a playwright, rented a little studio where I could audition the truth, ran an ad in the paper, “Desperately seeking reality.” And some very interesting characters came to read. There was a sage addicted […]
April wilderness stone cold rushing waterfall. Wearing my nakedness as a bear his fur I’m not skinny but I am dipping in sun-sprayed watery-light, look! There! […]
“Mind your p’s & q’s”, she said you’ll fall down walkin’ home or crash your car, end up dead not a good way to go, geek– and if you’re writin’ me a poem dot your i’s and cross your t’s. fourth stanza, line six, last word I’ve had an eye on you a while– […]
What the old know the young don’t believe the wiles of youth are not lost on the wise: as a busy farmer sees a fox does not call his dog or get a gun the old allow freedom, turn a blind eye The young wonder is life always like this, the elders say, not […]
In a breakneck chase the moose calf goes down, a grizzly devours. wolves stalk for hours the bison get away. the pack sustain on voles and mice mostly go hungry a crow eats the nestlings in a robin’s nest still robins abound. green turtles on a beach lay eggs swim off in the deep. all […]
Phil Hayes was murdered in a public park His killer unknown, the imperfect stranger. The police said it was gang related, All his family knows is –He’s gone He sacrificed his life for a friend, That was like him, facing danger Stopping a fight, making peace He didn’t play a hero, he was one, A […]
Light in a sapphire over exquisite wine campfire-light and shadows on a redwood grove, Daughter of Ceto naked in the ferns waterfall pouring behind you guarding the portals of Salmon Creek sun of all worlds our fiery heart Diablo winds coming in news of a fire somewhere, Big Sur summer. […]
Like the silence of those who deny the truth, the silence in Death Valley Nearly denies my being– It is a dreadful void, the white silence of my sister, the moon She is alien, empty, my sorrow, the hurt The Chaste Huntress bound and tied, her mouth taped shut While her own dogs tear and […]
