Life in this Day

A soft measure met the morning,
with refrains of gray.
The green lay in, sleeping
or pretending,
glistening blankets kept
to a clandestine dark.

A stout chin met us at noon.
a highway tough,
a lad hard about his business.

By evening the tarts were about
flirting red garters on chocolate silk,
bitching,
western walls throbbing
portending the sky’s coming rain.

Amidst the kettle drums,
the cymbal crescendoes,
the strings fraying in their drama’s violence
the respite grabs us as we heave
alive in the other’s arms
as no day could imagine,
as no hips but ours might endure.

 

Let it Bleed

miles from traffic,
from any soul sleeping,
no sound,
no restless birds - no fox
no cricket - no owl.

The faint passing of my breath
like factory steam
the cured lumber of by heart
felt rather than heard.

No sirens in the Belgian night,
No tears smothered in Paris goose down.
No phobic rhetoric of hate.
No talking heads retelling every speculation,
adjusting every minutia of pseudo-fact.

No planes passing
from somewhere to anywhere.
Just a cradle moon holding a star,
and a cloud in conference with Venus
a cypress swaying to it’s chlorophyl beat.

No roar of stadium crowds,
No knives slitting throats in Raqqa,
No call to morning prayer.
No pandering for ratings
or soundbites for the rabid GOP Base.

No sound
No phone
No WiFi or INSAT feed.
I know the world is howling.
but I can’t hear it bleed.

Winter's Twilight

Topaz on violets,
through the thickets of oak
their fingers upraised in feigned surrender
a blister of light
glares
then slips with a whimper
neath a quilt of tangerine.

The forest clatters
with last lake winds,
settling
to a scolding of stars.

As a slipper moon rises
feathers chatter,
the birch stand silent
as the big oaks creak
flexing their roots,
defiant.

Paris Cried Tonight

Paris cried tonight
Tres colours.
liberté, égalité, fraternité

Rouge
her liberty weeping
Blanc
her equality stained
Bleu
her fraternity fractured.

Paris cried tonight
her loins violated.
Freedom on the stand,
trust questioned,
faith never compromised.

Paris cried tonight
as resolve
rose high on her back.
Paris cried tonight
and the world was one at her side.

 

Measured Meals

In the between of our measures
I breathe the key,
the meter, each rest,
the distant pulse of thee.
We sustain on music,
each meal a entre',
a garden, a pastorale of sonic dessert.

Handel’s Messiah
is a feast we agree upon.
Off menu specials and other digital snacks,
we’ll agree to disagree.

We live by divergent syncopation,
each fed by differing streams.
We agree on Abbey Road,
We struggle on the Floyd.
I’m a sucker for a marmalade melody,
or a saturnine sonata.
you prefer your haggis cold
with a extra dollop of drama.

Where I Fell

On the ride
where the music ran
threads through our days
dripping from our daydreams,
sweet refrains
caught in the corners
staunch resistors of the drain.

On the ride
when the words ran
from Stanyan Street,
from Cranial Martinis
and naughty altars.

Word whore deliveries.
Linguistic etymologies
Encephalographic typologies
delivered from my heart
to your hungry lingual door.

On the ride
where I fell.

Filled with Honey

The sky fell to amaranth,
dissolving in a beautiful death,
macabre and dark
let as a wound,
an old memory’s blood.

I was filled with honey
and the saffron of faith,
a sea of freckles.
I had wings amongst those impossible songs.

You left me in a solace of invincibility.
When the rain fell
it had a purpose.
When beauty touched my day
you saw, knew it too.

I was filled with honey
and the high of faith,
a sea of freckles and smiles,
and the wings of those impossible songs.

 

 

Knights of the Brass

We slid from trombones
into the bellies of saxophones.
Al Grey to Coltrane,
deep into the mired heart
of Sonny Stitt.

Don loved his Sanborn,
I preferred my Breckenstein.
We touched souls one night
in with the dreams of Kenny Gorlick.

We were knights of the brass
in that swallow of days.
Don kissed my head with reggae
on cold night in Chicago.
I haunted him with Joni
when Pastorious held his fretless sway,
when Hejira took us down
with her Refuge of the Road.

We were knights of the brass
bright with our bourbon
eyes fired with music,
with seeds for the scores
still unwritten in halls of song.

Take Them Home

Taps played when Thoma came home.
A riddled dead lieutenant
loved by Tracy,
sons Ian and Paul,
shattered Meghan
and Molly, only three.
A body no one should see.

They buried Thoma in Arlington,
where the markers run to the horizon,
Pez dispensed stone pills,
cold somber rows
so precise - so exact..

I stood among the tens of thousands,
imagining their sacrifice,
knowing that we have no idea
if they suffered - how they died.

I stood with just her regimen,
and I wondered at the Rumsfelds,
the Ws,
all the war-hawks pulling political triggers.
I stood with Thoma
and I cried for them all.

Thoma has no Capital T, no neon,
no special wreath to single her out.
She has only this sea of granite stones.
Only our eyes
and our hearts to take her home.