Stll life-Bean and Egg

Darkest Night of the Year

darkness is not fear
the absence of light is near
closer than you think

Riles Rum

No rile, no roil
five strings not strung
neck’s warped and the chores
undone, undone
all that which lay
before us, become
the chemistry, the physics
the knowledge, the sum,
of the victory won
before the report of the gun
the farthest, the furthest
the fastest, the fun
the fans we’d have
the wounds we’d heal
the glory we’d halve
the truce we’d seal
the songs, the songs,
the sonnets all gone
let slide to nuptials
and sunk to nativity
lost in the triune
and the fear of a prophesy
and the fear of proclivity
for strife, for wife
for riff or for rife
and for the beat
of a distant drum...
and the rum.

Crucify

Christmas Scarecrow

Vow...
just say the rope

is ours.
Tell me now
that the bend

these bends

this bend

is only ours
that those innocent

tics

tocs

hours
at the water’s edge
belong to you
and to me
and to the white

geese
and whatever they see
saw...
you liked the straw
the rustic

rebel

roustabout
of it all
while I trudged

through mounting irony

self-conscious
like now
a scarecrow
naked
in the snow.

Piano Forte

Stilted same few chords
hymnal hypocrisy
Fur Elise in five keys
but the hammer hits futile
and the strings all flaccid
lacking tenacity or tensile strength
or thought
in the sameness of this
a perpetual coda
treble clef
trouble cleft
and the audience seems all
to have gone in
but alas, play on
in cavalier cut-time now
monkey-grinder monotonous
for free.