Stoplight
Carving Zen moments
from mundane idle…
Motor skips…Exhaust…Roll up the window…
Butter sun touches skin
like the fingertips of love…
Honk…Boom boom…Boom boom
One breath in, one breath out,
slow and easy…
Ha ha…Hey!…Rrrrrrrumble…
Into a wormhole,
I let my mind careen,
finding possible worlds
in the glint of a bead…
Turn signal on…Hands 10 and 2…Stiff and alert…
Oh radiant seconds of pause
IN MY HEAD!!
Itch…Yawn…Light…
Accelerator…
GO!! GO!! GO!!
The House
My head is an attic,
grey matter the trunks.
Above stand beams of decades,
studs under to keep them stout.
The world is a breath,
each room is a lung.
Bones grow like a staircase,
halls painted by blood.
Windows are cameras,
the kitchen is the heart.
Lift off the foundation
when the walls fall apart.
Which Way Do I Grow?
The fact: there are
no straight lines.
DNA calls the tune, but
sun, soil, water, wind
don’t listen in the mix.
Chance rules each day, each
moment hungry for lawless spread.
It’s about the push: stalk
from stalk, a spearhead driving
into the green and golden future.
This is the true way: there is
no way, word, method, reason
to choose. Just radiation,
air lifting the hair, mud
anchoring feet, the drink
that must be.
The fact: there is
no direction
but out.
The Mighty Earth
Laced above by cotton contrails,
I sing the civilization. Great
is the footprint, far is the spread:
the human banner unfurls.
Gravity sets the boundary
but within is power indeed. Strong
is the raft and thick is the growth:
we thrive on the crust of survival.
Guided by word, data secured,
emotion is stayed by physics.
Dispel the unreal ghosts of guessing
to turn chaos
into the mighty.
Makes Me Want To
A flamenco moon insists:
jump, dance, clap,
clack the heels
that trample problems.
It’s all about attitude,
rectitude, beatitude:
freedom
at this latitude.
Spirit Like a Comfortable Chair
No longer calm from the cushion,
decisive word or sparkling eye.
No longer times live again
while old arteries harden,
outside trees are swaying.
Still, her chuckle remains.
Walking, the ghost wears a nightgown
and I dream her voice
cradles the night
to whisper it is alright…
Witness tumbleleaves
Their late fall crackle
crouches outside the door.
They know when wind favors.
They blast, they roll with
the insistence of water.
If they must wait, they wait
until you make a mistake.
My Tie
Down, down in the bottom
of the bottom drawer
lives a black, fabric lizard
that sleeps for years at a time.
Hand dives in with dusty rustle
and up, up it comes,
its length shorter,
color faded. Still,
it curls through my collar,
lays on my stomach.
Then it twists its tail
into tight discomfort:
a fashion noose, out of style
but out of the drawer.
Invitation to Rain
Come inside and give blood,
not at all for immortal wish
but for your clarity,
momentarily
nourishing mass that moves.
Your kiss is welcome,
insistent strength ceded.
Make rivers on floors,
twist down walls.
Yes, take my neck,
inject and infect with
the blessing of moist reprieve.
Ride the back of a swallowtail
Yellow and black fans away
air that cups the glide.
Lean into radiance,
pass between branch and leaf,
find where ooze can nourish.
There is no plan, just colors,
space after space and
the joyous disregard of place.
T-r-U-t-h
Truth is wind, hills, scrub brush,
rain and comets strange.
Unknowns best the knowns, so
take heed on the spinning planet:
take care for where you dig.
Chained together…
Bombers over Iran strike.
I strike the bug who crawls
across the white page.
What decides fate? Everything.
Skrik (2026)
After Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”
Melted on the bridge,
laid on canvas framed,
this anxious moment
is lost not
in painted smear.
Not a scream but a warning
when the rippling sky lays bare the nerve.
Air bleeds, clouds rupture, soil
becomes a river making no sense.
Clap hands around the skull ignoring
a future that eats itself, projecting
when ignorance breeds
the last throes of dominance.
The eyes, the wordless
howl and cave of fright
desperately plead redux.
When
not again
an unearned reprieve? Now.
Sadvice
Do not let the window see you,
or answer with your name.
Blow whistles, bang pans
but be a ghost without fame,
faceless in righteous divide.
When ready shackles author fear,
protect by boney cage the heart.
Fractured arms cannot sling
rock that splits the day. Hide
not to whimper but to stay.
Circle
Within the circle drawn by wish
an eye is shared by two. Fused
face and legs replace the I:
surrender shared complete.
With co-op force not mistaken
as risk to hungry ego taken,
the circle reforms, informs,
transforms to suffer time.
Accept the loss of a single berth.
Live instead with allied worth.
The Mallards
After the drake, a hen trails.
Down the middle of wakes
plowing into the future: calm.
Looking left, maybe right,
feral pride proceeds.
No agreement or duty,
just gliding, eyeing for
the right place to dunk.
Other green heads circle alone.
Not this one, feathers tight.
Summer Creature
Forced air scatters the evening
while radiant streaks blast
through cracks in leaves.
Confident shadows may stand
welcoming the dark, but
the breeze is what matters,
lifting the many hands of trees,
depositing dusk; here then
gone, the creature
elusive.
Windows
There are windows on
either side of the nose.
Keep them clean, give
them air. Let them
let in light and
night, beauty
and the bestial.
Precious are those
that clearly witness
moment to moment,
wind to rain,
memory to brain.
Soften Something Up
Heat does it, a tumble in a tub.
Do what? asks the lump.
Change through common alchemy,
jumbled wet to dry.
People in My Pocket
Sailing the rough past Nova Scotia shores,
picking the green from an Illinois garden,
dreaming of being the patrol boat captain-
there’s a hero who got sick,
a woman who read Psalms, a blind grandmother
writing warnings on a grocery list:
they are all welcome inside.
Spinning “Pistol Packing Mama,”
serving prunes, pancakes and lettuce with sugar,
brandishing high the battered hockey sticks-
stories gush while arteries are hardened,
fishing tackle stowed and the stoned fireplace lit.
A jazz man plays loud his bowtie trumpet:
they have made themselves at home.
…and the pocket’s pretty wide
Trolling the boardwalk breezed by ocean salt,
stepping lightly from the Southern pine barrens,
pointing the camera with a smile long-lasting-
painters play chess with mathematicians,
postmasters log receipts, singers contact God.
Chairs get drawn into a circle for meeting:
they are all friends now.
The buzz in the pocket ignores outside flow.
Theirs is a planet of biography, waves
of ancestors peeking into the future.
But mostly they lie in warm, grey fabric,
happy that memory has legs.
But when those buckle, they will rise up:
they invite me to join them.
Charged Grey Matter
Each line waves away
inevitable repose. Words
keep afloat the boat
destined for dark ether.
Letters smack together,
collect power, join
a tribe of meaning.
But books are graves
the future visits.
Ink and paper only hint
at the scramble of survival.
Nothing usurps the taper
of thought- burning, dissolving,
brilliance awakened then lost.
The living of savage beauty
is definition defied.
Seeing Paintings
The eye picks up brush,
dashes lined trees,
sponges clouds grey,
blue, purple.
This is full-stop thought-art.
Then, dream up.
A crown of branches
is laced against
an arrow of geese.
Then, across pond ice:
cattails at rigid attention,
poking snow
with Rembrandt brown.
No gallery awaits,
frames refused by
mindful strokes.
If I Must Be Dust
Do not cut from stem the beauty,
nor raise a wail above music.
Shut not curtain or door, let
ground lead to sky,
then to sunlight.
I drank my fill, left
flower on the vine,
humming in the air.
I may now be desert
but you are
a moist, plump tomato.