I would look up to
The distant stars for perspective
But above me there are only
Grey blankets of 
Low hanging,
Moist and ready clouds.
Below me there is wet grass,
Shy white mushrooms between the blades
Aggressive sharp wildflowers 
Every place where even an inch of dirt
Can be taken
I can hear around me the rustling
Of some fellow early riser
Furtively moving in the green
To find food
Shelter
Or
I smile to myself
Maybe they 
Too look for inspiration
On this fertile earth
Or maybe they look above
At me
And wonder as at stars

In Vest Kentucky, 1974, down by “the hole” in Knob Bottom Branch under Yellow Mountain; preacher Harlow stood on a slab, knee deep on the edge where green water held still and dank against the drought of summer. The place was shaded by locust trees, poison ivy and arching kudzu. He held an infant baby in his arms and soothed its screeching yowls by shouting at the gathered crowd:

God above, bless this child that we give over to you today
May she be born again by this baptism that we perform
But hear us Lord, we are distracted by the nervous urgent talk of men
They say much loudly but mean little
Their talk is remote and confusing
Today men seek the world of the material
The world of flesh of money, of power
They deny your spirit world, oh Lord
Men rush at great speed in roaring machines
They hurl themselves up into the air into nothingness
At great expense, at great risk; and, why
Simple horse sense would tell them that there is nothing up there
No air, no water, no gravity, nothing to be found
Except maybe God, who might be saying:
“What makes you think you can reach heaven this way?”
And men might be saying: “Do not talk thus, these are modern times.”
But the sacred book has already spoken to them of
The folly of reaching ever nigher and higher for what, they do not know
The holy Bible says that it came to God’s attention
The people of Babel were building a tower to reach the Kingdom
In order to enjoy the fruits of which they were not  worthy
When the children of men builded a tower to heaven
The Lord came down to see the tower and the Lord said:
“Behold, the people are all of one mind and all have one language
“It seemeth that nothing will be restrained from them
“Go to and let us approacheth them and confound their language.”
And so the Lord scattered them and their language became as babel
The brick layer called for bricks and was sent none
The crane operator called “heads up”
The workers below did not undewrstand his call and so were crushed
The confusion continued until the tower tumbled
True these are not Bible times nor Babel times, even so
Have men not builded towers of electricity and motors and steel and pride
Have they not intended that their work reach unto the heavens
Have we not heard the language of scientists
Uniform and numerical and as cold as babel
What fools we are to cry out in alarm:
“Airplanes drop to the earth and crash
“Rocket ships fly high into the sky and nothing is found”
I hear the Lord speaking: “No, do not use that machine to search for heaven
“Scatter ye scientists, cease thy language of uniformity,
“Confound you, do not look to sky for salvation
“Look to your family, your neighbors, your church
“Look to Jesus for salvation, for peace and happiness.”
Now let me ask you friends, do you want to fly through space
Do you want speed and power. You have it
God has already given you a flying machine and one lined with comfort
On God’s flying machine, no need to be strapped in
No need to have a fish bowl on your head
No need to pump in water and gravity
On God’s flying machine you bask in the sun, you walk in the woods
You eat a chicken dinner after church on Sunday
And, thank God, there are no system checks
On the modern plane, there are hundreds of checks before takeoff
Is that gauge right, is that wire tight, is the fuel topped up, seat belts?
But on God’s green flying machine, only ten items to check
So let us do God’s countdown:
Ten: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife
Nine: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house
Eight: Thou shalt not bear false witness
Seven: Thou shalt not steal
Six: Thou shalt not commit adultry
Five: Thou shalt not murder
Four: Honor thy father and mother
Three: Keep holy the Lord’s day
Two: Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain
One: Have no other gods before me
And: BLAST OFF, paradise, here we come
And: I baptize thee child as witnessed here today
He dunked her all the way in
Said: “Can’t have no Achilles’ heel.”

It seemed they were sleaved from the same cocoon,
those doormen wove from the ruins of brutalist buildings
                                               beat to a wheezing plaster.

Obie would smudge a man’s nose
          into raspberry jam and then
                       buy a lobster dinner.

He’d wince at the spalls of petrol pressed
with the scarcely intimate lace of a looming
life and ask about signs and birth stones,
sussing out fakes from ordained identities.
                                                          Just one evening,
the Bronco’s patio perched
like a train car trammeled or
stole through the loping oaks,
the macadam and swales slumped shouldering
seamless snow,
                             Obie and Fagan had
elbowed a man through the port hole,
all of the bar flies scrunched like
nymphs obscuring the skim of a kiddy pool,
cribbing the splintering stanchions, haughtily

gawking at some young stranger smudged and
stuttering, stumbling, scumbled across the snow,
a scabbing inkblot. He cried something illegible,

none of the spluttering stir or the tupleted gossip
framed the reason now three brooding boys had
urged him over the snow-swoln road tinged
buttery yellow with beaming lampposts.

A girl wept over a crowded corner, everyone’s
make-up slurred to a kind of Frankenthaler
none of them cared to talk about,
     all of them knew it already, and
nothing among the mincing meat
                             of mice and men might
                                      argue it otherwise—

there stood a man decried, and Obie’d
         the heaviest arm of the surly pride. The blood

lapped over and under,
the snow-swathed thumps no
more than a paint brush maybe
a manic Kline once
scraped across
floundering cotton. They left him

curled in the street like abandoned boots,
like licorice sickening Jim McKay, and Koope,
with whom I was just discussing a
ball of light he recalled having sat
on his headboard, keeping him company,
slipped through the stanchions,
meat that floss loosed unto a cankerous gum,
and decided he might try kick the can and
cracked his gum-swoln sole across
                                                                 Hey, Koope!
Stop. They’re calling the cops.

They’d called the cops, perhaps a Samaritan gesture.

Koope sweat through his sweater, left galvanized,
chipping quaint dirks of pine from the stanchions,
probing them into the idling elbows of muttering barflies. 

Obie conceived of a cut of meat.
Some patrons drank. Some patrons watched.
And me, left scrubbing a cigarette over the jawless limestone,

gawked, left swallowing bubbles of rank and sickly shock
and trying to summon the blood above cheek bones,
reeling, pale as the blood-swoln snow—

It was then I remembered that I was a universal donor
             who, ruefully, shamefully, never gave blood. No,
                       never gave blood, no,

hardly a paper cut,
hardly a scab picked.

Back then, we were free
range kids, our lives
unfettered by adult 
supervision. 

At only 6, we walked
in pairs to the town pool,
a quarter mile through fairy
tale woods,

rode bikes to the little
league field. The only
grownups there were coaches.
We climbed old apple trees

up to the slenderest creaky
limbs, watched the game
from our high perch. No one
told us to come down.

someday soon, “doctors”
will point a laser at your head,
tuned to pass through bone,
to burn a tiny fold, deep
within the gray matter
of your brain

the “doctor” will press a button, and
all your cares will disappear

worry becomes
indifference

conviction becomes
submission

faith becomes
apathy

love becomes
obedience

all that,
and then
his finger slips

       Stars at the Straz
Penelope takes
me to the Opera
of Odysseus, we try
but are in it
then out of it
nodding on & off
like Trojan horses

sleep runs deep,
the symphony is naked
conductor without baton
someone hands him
a yardstick, centi-
meter by centimeter
we slither through
Monteverdi,
inchworms on our
way out of Troy

“They arrested Gus, but turned Harry loose,
though he was the mastermind.”  

My senior partner laughs.
And you wonder why?

“They charged Gus with emotional terrorism.
Is that even a crime?”  

It’s strategy. When you’re an old lawyer,
you’ll understand.  

No I won’t, I’ll stay a boy
unsettled by the shadows of deception.

you discovered the watercolor
on “In Through the Out Door”

Built a camouflaged fort
in the woods behind the houses

Crossed town firmly cool
on a Schwinn banana seat

Buddies looking out
stole baseball card packs

The crew spilling over
the fence onto the playground

Tuning in these moments
so the judgement
can be tuned out when
school started in the fall.

we stop the car
startled by a turkey buzzard
tearing at a scavenged squirrel
a second bird hops off the road
a third roosts on a roof

An old Pawpaw tree stands below the slope
overlooking Owsley resivor.  

Here it waits for morning sun to glisten
over eastern cedar roof shingles in cotton candy streams.

Watching for the kayakers to grace distant narrow knobs
with their zippered jackets, capped locks, and cushioned arches.

It’s golden leaves dancing to the waltz of steady marching feet,
elongated paddles, and accompanying life vests

unaware of those who were here before
but for the inscriptions carved along its gray trunk. 

Here the tree stands solitary and firm
the grief and delightful journey of many show
on its uncommonly protruding tap roots

The scars of life; the hopeful dreams of years forgotten
All who pass the tree, even the lonely blue crane,
are subject to seasons arbitration

health may wain, but story linger here firm
embossed in the dark wrinkles of the tree’s ripened custard fruit 

Unfolded blade declared young love a year before the road was paved
A name added to the long accounting written in awkward script  
leaves twirl and welcome new declarations for all eternity to see

Maroon blossoms long to collect bits of wisdom
and burst open as moments are recorded
from those who can’t resist

None of us has resided here long enough to know of the tree’s origins Racoons, opossums, gray squirrels, and birds have all forgotten

its sleepy, drooping, pyramid shape hobbled to phase and season quietly balance our erratic joys, struggles, regrets, and sorrows 

Alone at the edge of the sparcely graveled walkway it waits for companionship-
the wound of life, the portal of spirit, the awakening of moment

like me, it waits for when this time slows, no longer needing the steady achievement and accounting

for when wonder returns, the sun heats our chest, and thoughts shift once again towards ponder

here it waits for evening sun to shadow our insanity and all our restlessness
-for azure canvas to again be painted auburn and red and fall behind the western pinnacle.

God’s old Pawpaw tree stands below the slope overlooking Owsley resirvor where it waits for tomorrow.