Through the Melodeon Window

Hey you, Cherry-Coke!
Yes, you
you Amish blacked
horse whip
cracking down the street.
Compel me,
opera mouthed
and gutsy.
Yeah you
you thick treaded
heel artist...
hi-jack me.
Grind it down,
mouthing the edict
to lay down my nets
and follow your fetish
through your plum cherry arbor.

Innocence

It was
and is
and ever will be
in the bottom drawer.

Paralysis strikes
watching the life run all out
the first and last hunt

indian summer
seven times faster than we
our friends come and go

The sleek lucky toe
broken not once but in two
sordid episodes.

Sugarplum on the 4th

Sparklers drip and pinwheels spin
mind aboard the carousel again
where choke cherry lips
and cotton candy grins
all yawn until the spinning
top
stops
stalls
and lights go out
mommies hushing
and school girls shout
"I can't see you, but I know you're here."
as borders blur
and smiles smear
like fudgy finger-painting
in electric dyes
or neon ink across the velvet
skies
skewed
the symbolic blots
kaliedoscopic crayons connect the dots
that bend the line
and slow the ride
that raced the heart
and pried the eyes
wide
open
ecstasy.

(re-inspired and re-discovered thanks to "Almost Literary.")

Sharks

She so vulnerable
Can’t swim
Panic on her face
In her eyes
Survival only.

Omitted

The manual does not describe, in its entirety, the way things work, in their entirety.

Fish

Do this...

Cypher Dissident

props to Che

feline

Hold on or let go
a cat on a dying limb -
rage against the choice

Morning-
hour mourning-
gone the moon
and night's repose.

Waking-
sour waiting-
sun's bright sting
cruel intruding dawn.

Lying-
flower-eyed lies-
and dream stained sheets
bemoan the day-lies.

Leering-
through the pane-
glass bends sun sting
and bends today...gone.

Brother 1

The Debtor

The chase
eleven years and running
an enigma...
Good! Hard-bitten kill.

The toll
not silver pieces
nor two widow’s mites.
Good! That kinder bill.

Elope
or evade
the severe chimera
that bold, tailored knight.

Drink deeply
from this circle
from this cipher
bardlike, old tonight.

We’ll sip
you’ll sup
sucking the marrow
from blind hot godlike art.

Until the ecstasy
until the alchemy
of the journey
to the ill-boding dark.

Founders Field

Peace in the valley
amazing grace
bass water
fishing upstream
Isaac's blessing
Grandfather
songfeast
bewildered
Worthy Blood
Red Gods
a taste for game
actual field conditions
deep enough for Ivory Bills.

First appeared in the "HazMat Review," Vol. 4, Issue 1, Fall/Winter 1999.

False Casting

Fishes Eddie
mile marker 89
one white birch
and a two day old blood stain
beneath the soft shoulder sign.

The smell of the Beaverkill-
or was it the Delaware?
...competing for the spotlight
candidly groping
the cannonball in tight jeans
stepping off of the progressive
charter bus.

My mouth wide like a Kentucky strip mine
I false cast once
False cast twice.
Not even my best Royal Coachman
would entice that one.

Mid-step

notice the gait change
the moon is full but I 'm not
greetings middle age

Morning Sickness

Industry

Remote

The virtual freeway is empty
of all but venal vagrants
loitering about
like beggars on my corner,
schlepping sacks of unknown contents,
from somewhere
to somewhere.
Sacks of violent adhesives
coagulating incessantly.
Products of post-mortem
over-achievers
and squatters
and mercenaries,
all of whom are traded
spent
and reeking of the journey
like an old dollar bill.
The future looks bright
for pacifist vigilantes
and for transactions
without currency.