Deerwoods

Silent inviting

a place of bounty

fleeting, springing

with creatures alighting

puzzles of trees

branches and streams

woods of Indian walking dreams

pace in the cold

upwind and still;

waiting for prey

ignoring the chill

there to take

with a hunter’s violence,

a thirst to slake

with hours of silence

Meteors

The brilliant ghost

of space poets

sparks of the poets’ gods

demanding tribute

to the great blue night

pleas for greatness

whispered in flash paper,

grapeshot launched

against nonbelievers of art

a screed of proofs

of the glory of the universe

treasure trove of trusted light

flint to fire a billion tender minds

—to send them careening

to the glory and madness of poetry

timed celestial beams

spelling our great secret lives

against the stars’ tapestry

in mysterious Mayan math

all of space and time

and its infinite secrets

forked out in white-hot code

for a poet to decipher accidentally

in a thousand years

Happy Envy

I raise a toast to success

and clink Champaign

with a hate-frozen gaze

blue eyes green inside,

burning a shameful burn

that I pray won’t bleed through my smile

I must eclipse you,

beat you

into my shadow,

feed you

the leftover bits of fame

or hitch myself

to an earthbound comet,

streaking angry stardust lightening

across the blue-black sky

before burning away

New York Blues Poem #89

the city twinkles

massive and silent

with glowing steel mountains

unblink the poet’s seeing eyeball

filtering life through

the gorgeous abomination

of greasy paving stones

and rat scurvy Hudson piers

while the hushed swooshing of traffic

becomes a banshee siren song

isolated footsteps

echo

on the Brooklyn promenade

as

each lonely dweller

gets radiant voodoo magic

from the electric New York night.