April 2012



Forty Years On
Riders on the Storm
Masticating the Light
Instantaneous
Don't You Remember

astral sins
Toasting the Magic
One Patagonia Dawn
Prairie-Fire
Life is Love is Life

Forty Years On

yes
I’ll sit with you
I’ll let your eyes shine
reliving again
the nights, the sounds,
the walks,
the hot july mornings
where we talked for hours, steamed
…and then some.

yes I’ll hold those dreams
and watch the horizon with you.
but in the meantime - stop
listen
shusssh!
do you hear the refrain?
it’s always on the ivories
and this song is just for you.

Riders on the Storm

We are not what we were
in that waining forty-first year
virile and firm
pliant and lithe
chiseled in a that blurry sort of way
our hourglass with straighter lines

Sigh…
it takes us all… a pleading
heels digging in
churning up the dirt
solitary screams
uttered from the furnace of some nights

Inside we are limber
princes, nymphs
sprites
still flirting
moving as a lioness
light on our feet
prowling
purring
challenging contesting each kill

Inside we are steel
invincible
to the rust of ticks and the tocks
to withering dreams
of abandon

I love what we are
cellular pillows
hanging from these rings
of sensuous cloud
willing to perform the mandatory moves
even if it means the iron cross
ever riders on the storm

Masticating the Light

These canyons chew the light
geologic gingivitis.
Bryce’s thousands of teeth
bleeding sandstone incisors
an orthodontic dream

the sun is seraphic
when it falls on these canyons.
loving of the contrasts
the shadows and pastel hues.

they are membranous,
a fleshy pink, pulling to yellow
like aged bicuspids
sunk into sanguine bone and flesh

ancient shoreline reminders
eons mutely speaking
of unimaginable days
masticating the light
lost in the jaws of time.

 

Instantaneous

Loss

had you worn your wet flannel dress
already sated
with this rain of Mumbai blue tears
I’d have taken you in from the wind
from the pitiless blaze of the sun’s desiccation
but you swaggered
arrogant - talons ripping at my heart
the stink of you remaining
wormwood

Love

had you arrived in the proper clothes
I’d have taken them off
as a peel from an apple
preserving you
as a scent seeps into pine,
smokey like mesquite,
delicate as sandalwood,
sweet and salacious
a wild dark cherry, spring’s syrup
running through the fingers of my ravenous mind.

Life

had you held my soul in your radiant hands
I’d have stood in abeyance
a solution awaiting your seed
a fertile field of acceptance
impatient for the process of bloom
I watch you rise in the back of my eyes
a pigment of my expressions,
a lens through which you have taught me to see
a color others honor and notice in my smile.

Don't You Remember


There was such joy in our knees
an ache in our cords
begging to scream,
there was a wild wide cry inside us then
don’t you remember?

There was WOW on the radio
there was innocence, blushing
words like bashful and wholesome
there was a shiny new world waiting then
don’t you remember?

There was faith in our leaders
we were full of invention and spirit
there was proof sitting on the moon
robotics, and flying cars were coming
don’t you remember?

astral sins

let me watch your angles
the hips of you
falling into the blameless sheets
let me watch your curves
the fullnesses of you
cradled in my palms
so innocent
of my violations

let me watch the smile
fall away from your face
as you drift to dream
in where ’ere you travel
a lass well pleased
peace upon our fever’s sin.

Toasting the Magic

as a ground fog rises,
last light drops away
through an amber and burgundy mist
the sea breeze has sidled off
lulling the breakers
to a soothing sonorous snore

a brandy sounds so fine
on this cool spring evening
I wish you were here at my side
we could walk by this moon for hours
from Siesta Key to Timbuktu

we could prattle and ponder
yak and cajole
catch up our hearts
on the life we have missed
lamenting the lost
and toasting the magic
held so tightly in our hearts.