late June fireflies
many a fox is hunting
midnight shrieks and moans

Sherpa

Your totem
your talisman.
Around your neck a pendant
an assistant
to your ascent.
I felt your chest heave
your breath come short
your heart race
your mouth go dry
as you summited
as you reached the rarefied air
of your accomplishment
your stimulus
your actualization image
your climax
your Sherpa
left now
on the ledge.

This "stop you in your tracks" quote was nested in a comment on the Old Mossy Moon blog, written by a fellow Detroiter.

"There has to be someone left to reflect that childhood is still owed dreams born on the breath of angels."

From The Walking Man

As the dust is dampened
captured by the dew.
As the birch and sweet grass burns
along with you-
I will spit into the flame.
I'll never be the same.
And I will not leave the fire
until its through.



"With memory set smarting like a reopened wound, a man's past is not simply a dead history, an outworn preparation of the present: it is not a repented error shaken loose from the life: it is a still quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavors and the tinglings of a merited shame."
George Eliot
Middlemarch

stump smoldering still
long after the forest fire
anniversary

it is only our vanity bleeding

"Happiness comes more from loving than being loved; and often when our affection seems wounded it is only our vanity bleeding. To love, and to be hurt often, and to love again--this is the brave and happy life."

~ J. E. Buckrose [Annie Edith Jameson] (1868-1931),writer

Manse

Born in a house of glass
I.C.U. for an entire childhood
as ushers and vestrymen
monitored
the babies.

Cool walls, first props for first steps
smudged with the grease of growth-
later, tapped upon curiously
then pounded upon furiously
as adolescence settled in.
Looking out.
Seeing in.

They would not be satisfied.
The monitors.
We would not be Gods
or God’s children
or even angels.
But neither would we hang
from someone else's cross
for someone else’s guilt.

And we left the glass manse
by the back door.
Escapees.
Defectors.
Exiles.
Refugees.
But I still have the key
to remind me
of failing to be
PK
or PC.

what might have been lost
oh, that which is lost
what it all might have cost
what it's already cost
is nothing
was nothing
is every thing
every
no
thing.

She-pirates?

I was amused to see these and many other paintings of she-pirates on display at Surrey's in New Orleans, on Magazine St.

Fly High Jolly Roger!

Voyageur

To set forth in the mist
on glass reflections
of a world that never was
shimmering, beckoning
a siren call.

To paddle out further
then the old man says is safe
and tempt her
Gitchee Gumee
with the bait of another wraith.

A daredevil, red and white
a treble hook in the depths
wedged into igneous
a rusted reminder
of trolling with impunity.

My paddle dipping deeper
in starlit Superior
j-stroke swirling eddy
truth and truest north
the last voyageur.

Jolly Roger

Ride
high
Jolly Roger.
Let us fly to the ends once again.
Our parchment was forged-
let us loosen the scourge
and hurl the full force of our men.

Fly
fly
Jolly Roger.
The treasure is lost in the deep.
With swords, a rout-
we’ll hang, no doubt
with none but our whores to weep.

Fie
fie
Jolly Roger!
Why smile in the face of death?
We chose this road
put our marks on the code
to make mayhem until our last breath.


This
is goodbye
Jolly Roger.
A time we all knew would come.
Our powder is wet.
They’re flying fleurettes.
Outnumbered outlaws, outgunned.

Die
die
Jolly Roger
We’ll see you in depths of glory.
No yield or surrender
this fight they’ll remember
and this fire is all that is holy.

Did you love me?
Do you love me?
Will you love me?
The questions of the ever-child.

Did you want me?
Do you want me?
Will you want me?
Eros, in retort, reconciled.

If you could-
If there was no should-
Does that mean you would?
…To be existentially beguiled.

A masquerade
Scheherazade
willingly flayed
standing mute at this our trial.

Oxbow

An absence of temperate
seasonality
back and forth between guilt
and liberty
want and should
gin and tonic
in monsoon country.

The river ran red
brown
full
fast
furious
and we didn’t want it…

Now it is dry
mud caked and cracked
stagnant in emptiness
and depletion
and the children stand
with their toes in the mud
in the middle of a channel-
an oxbow stranded
by dwindling currents
holding only fevers.

sleek silken tethers
anticipating berries
vineyards are furrowed

Burst (Spring et al)

emancipation
your liquid prosperity
intoxication

Love Songs

blackened the swan
I blackened the swan
I blackened the swan
my swan
is gone.

murdered the fawn
I murdered the fawn
I murdered the fawn
'twas wrong
so wrong.

a queen with a pawn
a king eats the spawn
a knight dies at dawn
love songs
love songs.

windmill tethered
brooding as the south wind howls
abandoned farm

barn roof weathered
concessions to driving rain
spoiled hay and straw

pigeon feathers
outpost's final occupants
winter a month too long