Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Call of the Woodsmen

Leaf-lush
primal joy,
a magnet
drawing woodsmen
step by wide-eyed step.

Forrest bound
and snug,
wound tight
but somehow natural
in tree-cloaked garb.

and still
in the magic
of the first light
the world
as we were meant to see it:
waking,
alive
without the glare
of a cruel sun,
autumnal
and ripe for the taking. 

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Point Lobos

Like an exotic woman
Flashing plumage
For a mate she’ll never take
The coast is beauty, unforgiving.
Indifferent to the good children
Marveling at the starfish
In the bristling tidal pools,
Mocking its own beauty
Choked thick with seaweed.

Wave after wave cascade
A gorgeous wall of glassy blue
Thrashing like a fist
Heartless foam on sharp sand

Lurking undersea
The currents keep the seals away
Hills stuffed with scruff of trees
No traction sliprock hike to speak
As birds gawk from faraway stones.
Squint into the wind
At the fleeting phantom unseen otter
But can’t tell the dolphins
From the weeds. 

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Summer Party

In the hot New England woods
We come to confess
Our need.
Ourselves alone,
Workday false face
No longer
In our steed.

Among
The humble friends
Who know
Our youthful
Means
Before these our
Glorious ends.

Fortressed, trapped, well-wrapped
Among the
Bug bites
And the trees,
We make
Drink
Laugher
Music
While we conjure, sing and feed.

Rip away
The worry layers
And lay bare
The stuff of youth.
Soul fire lights
These summer nights
For warriors
To recoup.

Blighted Lights

Pattern array
For public display
Imagine my dismay
When what once was Avant guard
Is predictable for pay

Making bank on decades past
Somehow they’ve made it last
But the real poets are restless
And now the die is cast. 

Sunday, June 16, 2013

June Rain

A hint of something skittering
Some under surface simmering
A chance to meet
Escape the heat
But no.
Humidity thick
And trapped in clothes,
Fetid heat
That snags
And stings the nose.

Stepping heavy
With glistening sloth
Weighed by salty, sagging cloth
Through crowds
Drawn close and proud
Uncaring blind
In the anger and light
Day by day pacing away
Living for the chance
To go astray. 

Monday, May 20, 2013

Oratorio Bingo


The old man shuffles out
Hunched in his coat
Mumbling aloud about
Something he wrote

We crane our necks
To see around
Eyes on the stage
With its muffled sound

A Puccini mass in many parts
Too many movements
Crescendos and starts

The old man needs a break
From the pauses without applause
Reminding him of his wife’s wake
They are too much to take.

Too old for silence
Or for standing still
Hunched in his coat
The old man has his will. 

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

The D Monster


That nagging fickle fog
That plays forever on the brain,
Conjuring pain from small nothings,
Turning everything to shame,

Filling days with
Gunmouth splatter dreams,
Angry exhausted rumbling rants
And forever muffled screams.

Game of the smart mind
Most unkind
For every piece of life
Burning crazy to unwind.

A self-made horror
Going viral,
That spiral
Of wrong upon wrong
Scoring points
To make weak
Of the strong.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

At the Financial Presentation


The analyst speaks
Well and sharply
As the secret poet
Scans the room
Looking for people
Also making
Their mental escape.

We pour the coffee
Into our cups
And dream
Of climbing mountains
Hunting goats
Haunting dojos
To fight samurais

Get through our days
Stealing prices of time
In various ways

We stumble,
Poems and scribbles
Tumbling from pockets,
Betray our heretical lives

In our world I’ve bedded
A million women,
Slaughtered 
A million Philistines
At the golden door.

I am king pirate
In a desolate
Future-medieval world,
A gift to women
And a revered artist
Stuck in my petrified cocoon
Growing rusted and insane.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Flushing, Queens


Dazzle-bright signs
In alien characters
Light the way
For fleets of buses
Burping diesel
On the teeming sidewalks

Storefronts
Paved over Quaker farmland
Odd monuments linger
For a sacred past

The streets break way
For brick buildings
And green lawns,
Rows of houses
That remember simpler times

Sidle past
The looping language
Of churches
Where once were family homes

We take it all in,
Souls sizzling like all-night barbecue.