I Come to Dream

I come to dream when the hyacinths sing,
when the violets stir,
when the sun gets sassy
on a plate of waiting greens.

I come to dream when the skies have anger,
glamorous threats
to my bone white thighs,
a wind with agenda
to send my skirts high.

I come to dream when he is nigh,
a ruthless warrior
a tender poet in his soul.
I come to dream
when the cattails rise
when the sun turns brassy,
as the willows sip.
I come to dream.

 

Transparent
      - the invisble

Save the world down under
that invisible poverty line.
Hold the Ozark clans
the backwater Bayous,
the Miss-sippi lost,

Save America down under
the Appalachian mothers
where the coal has shut off.
Save the pill-mill cadets in New York
searching for heroin
when the Oxy runs out.

Save the state of the union
the fucked up states of America,
the land of the privileged,
the home of the spaced eyed poor.

They have no opera nor symphony,
no Broadway plays
no Kennedy Center,
no SAG, no golden guys or swag.

They have no Maestro
no muse, no $5,000 plate elite.
They have their lot,
behind the rhetoric
and the churn of the hedge fund machine.

Scratching the Sky

Sore to the marrow
on this grey flannel Saturday.
A damaged tomorrow
swimming with the jam
for my bagel and tea.

Insipid as the pipes round back,
empty of your light,
your words,
the sun of your attention.

The sky seems scratched,
steel wool across
concrete, the subway glass,
blues an afterthought upon the sea.

Age is just an equation,
religion just a Zero divided by one.
Love is what you hold
in the basement of your heart.

It glows when the windows are dirty.
It soars no matter the wind.
It lives no matter how it is fed,
love thrives despite how we have sinned.

Passing the Baton

The foundations have cracked,
first halls of fame collapsing.
Bowie, Kantner, Frey, Cocker.

It is not just this crop,
not just this generation.
This was Woodstock,
this was that century’s rock.

There is a legion waiting,
clinging to the wall.
McCartneys and Jaggers
Mitchell’s and Dylans.

B.B. King, Lemmy, and Squire.
The era has begun.
The 70’s boys are 70ish.
Come the Joels, the Simons, and Johns.
The boys of summer are passing the baton.

 

A Trick of the Tale

We passed the music in glances,
hieroglyphics of smoke
of eye smiles
each electric passage of drums
each delicious sonic bridge
caught in the squeeze of fingers
our bodies conveying
what our breath held
what the half uttered sounds
choked back could not.

Genesis was like that…
Yes was like that…
our bodies pushed and prodded
by asymmetric surprises,
punched by crescendos
steps up and layers of the unexpected
contrapuntal harmonies,
rills of raw frenetic dance.

We passed the experience
in like a joint
without the need for words.
We skydove in sound,
senses shared in a temporal sin.

Like the bliss of sex it fades…
to an Afterglow,
Close to the Edge of nostalgia.
Too Fragile for a proper comparison,
our bliss through each moment
but a Trick of the Tale.

The Nexus


The sea is always angry here,
steel wool neath tangled skeins of cottony spit.
It heaves with the gorge of the planet
as if nettled with old wounds.

Storms can snap a freighter here.
No trawler dares a catch,
no salty soul ventures out.

You would shake your head
that I’ve come here.
Me, the purveyor of sunsets and light.

I would agree
though it seems this communion
answers the screams from my heart.
The nexus of this place
deafens,
rages,
slams against the loss of you.

Standing Too Far Out

I’ve stood in this yard
vested, buttoned down
as a neighbor
a dog guy
watering his spaniel,
road weary before the engine fired to life.

I stood in this yard
dress casual dreck,
corporate polos and khakis,
weary of petabytes, IPSEC, and WEP,
the geek in the hood,
before your hotspots and WiFi,
when servers cost two Yugos and change.

I’ve stood in this yard
staggering drunk
with a Marlboro lit,
daring myself to inhale.
I’ve stood here, 40 pack years in,
daring my loser to exhale.

I stand in this yard
my orange tree lost,
my lungs now twelve years free.
my cancer met and behind me,
an addict to words with wine,
standing tall,
still standing,
standing too far out.

 

In a life...

In a life
words fall like rain.
In a drivel and patters of droning dreck.

Words hold those pithy sayings,
simple parables,
words of to the wise,
the truths
of life and love’s cliches.

In a few hundred years
they weigh the planet down.
Penny saved…
Get what you pay…
Ain’t no free…
Stupid is as…

In a life we file them,
let them echo in our zeitgeist schemes.
We let them settle on our tombs
like told-you-so soliloquies.

In a life
we hear the wisdoms
the way of the world,
the would be
could be
should bes’.

In a life we live
we…
inhale
we hurt
we bond
we love
we spurt
we exhale
we inhale
we smile
rinse - repeat.

In a life
we live in this moment.
We revel, spit, paint, write, sing,
laugh, shout, riot, fuck
up something,
EVERYTHING.

In a life we die just after that.

Choteau Prairie

The fist of this land rises to meet you,
spirit walks your skin.
High sky shrinks back in blue respect,
every sound a sonic canvas,
old tribal prayers
loons to a mist shrouded moon
hawks rising - their cries
a harbinger,
the sirens of first light.

These high plains are a haven
rich with paws the size of your head,
a peace from man’s machine
of babble and politic,
of power and daily dread.
You can taste the light
and know that these waters
are the tongue of the wind,
ancient starlight and snow.