the sky cries Mary
boiling on the horizon
like clouds by Stieglitz


Stieglitz on clouds

Barbless Hooks

dusty old textbooks
tired faded photography
hunting for hunting

feral cats chase wrens
best laid plans for naught
the myth of conservation

steel leaders and treble hooks
snagging a trophy
resigned butchery

catch and release
fantasy declawed blood sport
anachronistic creel

light tippets and barbless hooks
one missed opportunity
spawning another

Posy

A posy and the world is hers
adored and awash in adulation
she loves me
she loves me not
pressing blanches vibrancy
and constancy
and consolation.

To pick a flower
to take a trophy
to posses,
to have and to hold
to a dry a flower
to keep a petal
come masochism
myopia
or mold.

The mystery
in a magnolia
is perhaps within a line
linearity
listen to me
the distance from A to B
when Georgia’s
on my mind.

Behind Bars

encrusted in ice
yearning and hysteresis
Spring’s glacial approach

Slow Burn

Criticality

Complexity
in a sheer, shimmering
shift
in the adaptive cycle
forewarns the chimera
the chaos,
the stochastic event.
When looking backwards
is falling
forward momentum-
inertia
driving
to a pause
between axis
in the curves
behind thresholds
of attraction.

The marble rolls
on a ridge
precariously
in a state of criticality
awaiting forces
to influence
gravitational pull
to a basin of attraction
a well
a deep well
fallen in
fallen through
once before

expand and contract
the dialectic at work
vernal lovemaking

more rain

a smell
a taste
a slaking of thirst
a song, a melody
a sensation
an inundation
relief
from a long summer
long drought
long winter
falling
misty
pounding
hard
soft
desire
dread
a dance
of distance
but immediate
urgent
passing
coming

Tone Deaf

On a vacant street
in an unfamiliar town
in the dawning
but dreary
afterglow

of long standing rites
and rituals

the windows all stare
at the intruder
the interlocutor
a codfish aristocrat
still stumbling for
the Moulin Rouge

permissions are needed
warnings heeded
“Boy, you had better head home...
Boy, it ain’t all bad to be alone.”

Whether the tavern
or the chapel
conviction
is an unmistakable
tone.