Rodentia Mortis ( ©December 2011)
Trail dead center stopped.
By what fateful act
Of god or foe
no tongue can tell.
Perhaps simply the unraveling
of life’s weave.
Fragile crush of body
like some @ mark cold-cocked
for being bastard child to true grammar,
Coarse hair scorch-black-orange
of crème-brulee
driven by hot blood’s pulse
after scent and flicker
of this living
here~
end of the line.
We too arrived here pause
To wonder at your freeze frame
Punctuation against hard-pack
California earth.
And in case essence
That should not linger does
We press lightly against
Shut eyes
coins of our words
to speed your way:
“You, my friend, were an excellent digger”
These few tokens offered,
indulgence bought against dying alone,
secret hope in heart’s deep chambers
of similar benediction, usher
to our passing
when that day comes.
We turn, thus, and lift eyes
To broad western pine
Standing its vigil the next ridge,
To brooding face of December sky
Familiar and inscrutable,
To all possible destinations
before us still.
Goat Rock-a-by-Baby ( November 2011)
Sonoma deep wild swells
kiss a cold stone lover
neither budges
rapt by this lullaby
out of time.
To Vanishing Point I Watch Thee Softly (Feb. 2011)
I hereby fore swear and surrender allegiance to/and use of/the following:
coffee/processed foods of any stripe/my favorite TV show that tracks/the moral struggles/of a sensitive, soft-spoken serial killer/And, oh yeah, did I say coffee?/
I surrender self-defamation as a past time.
My three boyhood droogs, Shame/Rage and Despair I relinquish./When i left home at 22/I thought I had seen the last of them./It seems they found me/on FaceBook./I un-friend them now. They'll never miss me.
Excuses carefully dressed/in the righteous garb of considered/choices/I grant extended holiday.
I redirect the mental currents/that like a fisherman's net/cast their stifling web of words/across native promise and goodness,/just long enough to see/point of origin/long enough to touch stillness/beneath the tumult.
A last farewell/to the closet laden/with grey, ill-fitting suits~/these I offer in exchange/for one custom honey-bee body/and wings, of course./So clad/I set about pollinating the broad earth.
The Exiled (May 2010)
A tattered veil is all that keeps/The exile of the heart.
Why not tear that thin curtain/And rush to freedom?/Yet the jailer and the jailed are kin, of one blood./ This jailer, Judgement by name, /Is he that you know best./He is like a brother now./ Once he asked always to come along,/As brothers do./And you indulged him./Later his shirts hung on your/Side of the closet. You did not object./And now he is always with you/Pouring poisons into your waiting uncertainty./His suspicious face in the mirror/You believe to be your own,/No longer can you tell/Your hand from the forger's!/
But there is time yet.../He is most obvious in the mornings, /And the cock has crowed/But once,/And the sun, bringer of second chances/Crests the ridge as you stand/On the edge of that tin dream/You pray will/Once and for all/save you.