Posts for 2025 (page 18)

Glass of glowing fig
shaped splendor… purples
yellows, blues and blended
greens stretching oblong
& vasing gallons of air:
A Tiffany style trap of
Art against Nature.

Beyond, the Belle Epoque begins,
covered in paper flowers
and cigarette girls sprung
from the corpses of forgotten
Franco-Prussians:
A rebirth, a renaissance,
A respite before Les Fleurs
Du Mal from unmarked
graves and grass trampled
by infantry squares.

Lessons learned from war
dispersed by good food & drink
destined for repetition.

or  We Have No Knowledge of Such a World

A Winter Wren sustained on last summer’s snowmelt
lends his voice to our fence to measure days’ ends
and starts. In order still bound to sunlight’s lost edge,
he calls, cries, takes his post, cries out again, descends;
and how are both still here–the wren who felt
wind’s last breath spin through man’s junkyard,
saw before his very eyes, and mine, assemblage
of all our scattering parts into that damn jet engine,

fusualage, wings, emergency exit, tray table?
No room for envy in birdsong. His psalm able,
beak sharp (one clean pull ‘cross one mountaintop),
beckons godspeed, and echoing sentient crystals, says:
A thousand years to complete one good thought?
no big deal given these endless dies days.

I cannot erase the image from my mind
of farmworkers running through the
strawberry fields trying to get away from ICE agents.
Strawberry fields is more than a Beatles’ song.

Men and women working long hours,
doing their job picking strawberries in the
California sun, lucious fruit for our just desserts.
Strawberry fields is more than a Beatles’ song.

They woke up early that morning to get to the
fields and meet their quota so that the rest of us
would be able to savor this delectable fruit.
Strawberry fields is more than a Beatles’ song.

Little did they know the day would end with a
run for their lives through the fields of their labor
as the juices ran like blood across the soles of shoes.
Strawberry fields is more than a Beatles’ song.

They were ready to show me the entire state and special places of their fading childhood adolescent memories. They settled on taking me to one of their favorite smoke spots. A place nicknamed Barnhole. There was no barn, but there was a shallow cave, a glitter of water between jagged hills. They rolled two quick ones and we were off. Back into the jeep and back onto the winding roads. The lights of small town America flickering past dirty windshield, we were still getting over what was fed to us when we were snakes in mother’s bed, tossing sand out open window. Riders on a storm not yet confronted, a masked man, a black circle above halos. Heaven like doldrums over summer peaking through tree tops onto dirt room, naked feet in creek, water cool. We were brothers of love and chaos, no anger, no white lighters allowed in a white Kia or red Jimmy. A band of uncertainty, comedians without an audience or microphone stand. We were high on high bridge howling out laughable nonsense, we lied, bragged, flexed conversations, please be impressed. Every cough bringing us closer to God, who smirked knowing it would come to an end, over, and you would be gone, body dismantled, swollen cheekbones, broken soul, a yellow hat falling to the ground. Learning to fly before you’re an angel will leave you dragged out and buried. You took summer with you the day you tried falling with style, bringing fist to the pavement, coffin into dirt, and guilt to the monster I would become. High bridge became a monument to death and I would sit feet dangling over river top, shoe laces dangling from the same spot your eyes rolled back and arms let go of. I sat there sore with the night sky wondering asking why why why every youthful summer and every good or bad life will end, but the bridge would only groan and say nothing more

                                                   nothing
   makes
              me             still
   refreshes
                                 the      path
      i
                        walk

I       fear
                      th  e
     rod
             for
                             my enemies
              overflow
                        my
                                 house
Erasure of Psalm 23

What’s this about?

Where abouts?

About what?

About time!

Bring her about!

How do you face Muhammad Ali?

In a bout!

   You can drown in an inch of water if
You are face down and can’t get up
She thinks
Staring at the spreading puddle  

Life is like that
One moment a puddle, the next
Boiling like a lobster in a stock pot  
Tail thrashing, cortisol leaking
From dying flesh  

She slips the towel from the rack, bends
Wipes the puddle, watching the wetness transfer
Floor to towel to soul and she wonders
Is this enlightenment

For Pam Campbell

The morning’s ritual in darkness: Can the trudge to the bathroom wait?
Bliss before the sentinel screeches from bedside; breeze brings morning’s kiss.
Dream: a plane lands on a Denver thoroughfare, stops at all bus kiosks.
Wynken, Blynken, Nod agree to sail in new verse as Lex, Po and Mo.
Birth dirge, emerge! Sickness, sorrow and despair/ and the Leader’s orange hair.
Recission: Legal becomes an evil knife, trimming Big Bird’s feathers.
Coffee, toast and sunrise await the train and I hear its whistling now.