sunlight bends
as it passes through the water of the pond
and graceful and bright
are the blue and yellow flowers
that bloom above tree line
so beautiful
and i thought what a shame
no one is here to see the beauty
of the flower
but light bends as it passes through water
and sometimes something
can look one way
and can be something else

a stranger to seconds and hours and years
the simple flower,
Just Is.
(the musician's idea of love
perhaps)

and in the sky
shape shifting clouds,
teardrops making figure eights,
the hundreds of starlings
heading to crash into
the ground
pulling up at that last moment.

and a flower 
Just Is

so walk with me through splintered sunlight
on a sunday morning
my arm around you

attentive to the echoes of our hearts
and we'll be the starling
and the flower
for the briefest of moments

walk with me through splintered sunlight

"let's face it,"
the professor of filosophy
realized
during his doctorate dessertation,
"LOOK,
Thoreau
had
had enough of Waldon pond.
when asked, why did you leave Waldon Pond?
Thoreau shrugged and said,
"**** it."

what do you hear
little angel?

moans from the well of hope
scattered and beneath
the blocks of stone?

(but not for you,
sweet kitten)

so run past the iniquity of man
past the dead who dwell
in the hearts of the living
past compassion silenced

run
run
run

like the fire in your heart
past soldiers marching
run as if midnight and darkness
are your lover
run past the grinding of tank wheels
past misfortune

be not a sin offering
O, my angel

make your midnight run
and tell no one
of the sadness and sorrow
of Gaza

(shed no tears for mankind)

O, lost angel of Gaza

i sat in the rocking chair
in front of the window
expecting a long night.

"a broken nose and a broken heart,"
i whisper.

"and 2 black eyes,"
the moon tells me.

"she gives that smile,"
i tell the moon,
"i don't know
what it is
that little upturn
in the corners
of her mouth
no
maybe,
no
that isn't all of it,
a part,
maybe,
and her dark eyes
bright
like a streak of lightening
across a thunder clouded sky
beautiful and dangerous
and in a second,
gone and"

"funny,
what a man is willing
to die for, "interrupts the moon,
pauses
and then," love
is when the damsel
shoots
the werewolf
with a  silver bullet
holds his hairy paw
and looks into his
wolf eyes
and as the wolfman slowly
is turning human
the man
returns that love
you can see it in his blue eyes.
now,
that's, TRUE LOVE."

i put a cold can of beer
on a book of Neruda
love poems
a sacrilege
i know
so i kneel down
and pray
she will read this poem
i'm writing
and it will take her
to some
distant flowered field
but...

the poem never finished.
the letter never sent.
so i'm talking to the moon.

heavy rain from a darkening sky
and buildings  fall

no one knows what will be left
running down the nowhere
where dreams die
on a metal tray
at the hospital morgue

trouser leg pushed up
the search for black ink
and a child's name
begins

perhaps the arm
the hip

the back?

and the children plead,
lie to me,
tell me,
i won't die,
today

and the silent screams
are left in an eternity of why?

foul and bitter hearts
will prevail
on both sides,
this is the poetry of death

why do the most talented poets
**** themselves:
Anne Sexton,
Sylvia Plath,
Dylan Thomas

it's better
to be a sheltered poet
and follow the Robert Bly formulas
a few weeks on the New York Times
best sellers list
then the college circuit
and come up with something

controversial

like

Iron John

but not, too
controversial

there is far less peril
as a minor poet
stick with J. Lohr Los Osos Vino
and ***

make the poems personal,
ruthless honesty

a plus

occasionally

something from the heart
something like a watercolor
in the rain
beautiful for a few brief
and fleeting moments

always the wolf
no subject matter
forbidden

and if perchance
you are jailed by the pen
don't **** yourself
too soon

linger in the darkness
step inside the Bell Jar
and write

i asked her to dance.

"so,"  she smiles, "dance with me,

sometimes
I feel like
I'm almost gone

and i want you
to hold me,
she says,
hold me tighter

I want you to feel
my heart beating
and tell me
you'll never
let me go.

will you think of me?"
she asks, smiles,
always?"


rain is the night's
beating heart
icy heart,
wind and rain
and a memory
birds are winging west

tired and broken
the ribbon in her hair
footsteps echo
going down the hall

and i could tell by
her smile
she's not coming back

fumbling
shards of broken heart
fall through cupped fingers    

here comes the night.

daughter of Icarus
searching for a distant light
or maybe you've heard
the distant voice
of Harry Crosby

his Black Sun
calling you
into the Minotaur's labyrinth
on a long
lonely
night

waxen heart
wings on fire
she meets her connection
at Chik- fel- A

cross that line
past the edge

how high can you fly
and never reach the sky?

I returned
a book at the library,
"Soul on Ice"

"it smells
like beer," Emily,
the librarian said, smiled.
so I asked her for a date

St. George Orthodox Church
was having a festival.
I took Emily

must have
drank a pint
or more of ouzo

i thought it was a Greek custom
and i began
smashing plates on the floor
but the Father said
the church uses the plates
for meals

and I said,
"I guess no one
will have to wash dishes."

so we left

"your too
drunk to drive
on the street," Emily warned.
so I drove over the curb onto
my neighbor's yard
circled his house
2 times

I saw him
looking out his window
and he didn't look surprised
at all
just shook his head
turned off the light

(the sound of sirens in the distance)

so we left

I had drank a 6 pack
on the way to the library
shoved the empty cans
under the seat
I went to put on the brakes
and
a can rolled out
under the brake
and I could
not stop
Emily,  SCREAMED
I went through a red light but
we made to her house
anyway

(7 year old Igor
Emily's son
bit a chunk
out of my eyebrow,
her pit bull bit in my ***)

bought a scratch off at WaWa
won 300 dollars
we went to the horse races

i told Emily to pick a horse
any horse
and i'd put all 300 dollars on it
she picked a 40 to one shot

PERFECT INSANITY

i was feeling lucky...
and...

the rowdy, disorderly, and wicked
at the Black Heart Bar
chatting like neighbors
in the evening...


"...and the toilet don't flush
and the corner boys are singing
and the window don't shut"

"so move,
do you have family?"

"no
dead
all dead
all *******
anyway. "...


...L.A. Woman
comes on the jukebox
and soon the bartender's
grandma begins
singing along

the woman across the bar
is shaking her head
and the guy in the corner

is tapping his fingers on the bar

and the barmaid is smiling

and reborn are the memories
that save us for a few hours
and for the length of a song
we are not the ghosts
we have become

we are the lotus flower
rising from dark, muddy waters

we are going to fish

we carried our backpacks
fishing equipment
into the cabin

the cabin wasn't
Thoreau's cabin at Waldon pond

then came the storm
lightening
thunder
torrential rain
and

and then
the lights went out

there we were

******

eating potato chips
and drinking beer in the dark

"quick
put all the beer in the freezer,"
my brother says

we put on our headlamps
sat in the dark
discussed
the care and handling of fish
how the hybrid strippers
don't have the beautiful stripes...
we played cards
I read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"
by candle light
til 3 a.m.

rain
thunder
and lightening
for 4 days

and living the way Man was meant to live

and so
he cracked him in the head
with the pool cue,
now,
it's your  game,
he said to the man

and walked out of the bar
song birds were singing
and  he delighted
in dark shadows overtaking empty streets
in the distance
a dog did howl,
found that fascinating
the barking of a dog distant and growling

he bought a lottery ticket
got the numbers from
the obituary page
of the asbury park press
never checked the numbers
never wanted
too

on longs peak
he made it to broadway
when the hail came down
and the ledge
was coated with ice
and the view
down to chasm lake
was obscure
it tickled a lonely spot
in his imagination
and the ledge was where
he always wanted to be
he had figured it all out
the in s and out
of never giving a ****
the cards we are dealt
at birth
are marked


one day i saw his
picture
on the obituary page


and he had the BIGGEST smile

during a quiet, warm twilight
with angels whispering
in our ears

we ran around the dogwood tree
and collected lightening bugs
in a glass jar
that lit up our dark night
our small world

that tiny flickering
mortal fire

living lamps
floating
flashing
in a glass jar

and with angels whispering in our ears
all we knew was love.

high buildings
prisons without barbed wire

down the street from the funeral home
across from the burnt down church
shadows scatter
like crazy crows
through streets that need no names

on the corner
illuminated by a streetlight
a heart is being spray painted on the wall
of an abandon building
a boy with a doubtful future
has a heart that is beating

we all start out that way
we start out innocent
we start out pure

i've had a few,
genuine and untainted

i've had a few PURE MOMENTS

when **** goes down
i imagine one of those
PURE MOMENTS

maybe you've had one?
maybe a few?

the boy is having one
and he doesn't
know it

it's only when
the **** goes down
that you need one
when **** goes down
and you are pacing around
the 4 corners
of that darkening room
you need one

i open the window

the boy turns
looks up at me
and smiles
and crystal clear like water in a brook

A PURE MOMENT

high along a ledge
out of the shadows she comes

the mournful yipping
a longing howl for another
and deep in the forest
of cliffs and need
she is listening
too
shining eyes searching
waiting for the other
to return her plea

my lady of shadows
longs to lie beside her lover

i am here,
she is saying,
i am lonely
and i need your love

a dark cloud swallows the moon

somewhere above the cliff
above her
among the grasses and willow trees
an intoning prayer
a beseeching howl

comes running through my window

sometimes,
i think i knew you
all my life

and holding the phone in my hand,
maybe, i'll call

or maybe i'll hear
your soft knock at my door
and your sweet
voice
singing along to a song

walt whitman whispers to me
from the nightstand
and i take your letter
from between
your 2 most loved poems
to unfold your words
and unfold the memories
and unfold your love;
while the cat you drew
on page 34
smiles at me

(and, i smile, too)

i knew you
before i loved you
your almond shaped eyes
and the contour of your lips
when you smile

i dreamed of you
before i loved you

and the sun comes running
through my window

and there's a black bird on a telephone wire cawing
and my cat's staring into the fire

where did we go wrong?

he wanted his  masterpieces
to hang in churches
throughout the world,
the clarity,
the emotions,
the details.
ah, Raphael

the symphonic poems of Franz List
his strophes and antistropes
linger in the ears
for centuries

the depraved bukowski
collecting numerous rejection slips
hated the rules
created his own rules

and 64,000 years ago
in caves,
the vibrant colors,
the fearsome predators,
the herds racing,
the sense of motion
that still moves us,
and deep in that cave
the stenciled human hands
a woman's hands

and i'm every dog
that ****** on every mailbox and tree
to let the other dogs know I've been here

been to Wawa
bought a drink
had to ask for a straw
the powers that be
passed a law
that requires plastic straws are
kept behind the counter

now

I m home
sitting in my easy chair
putting on my st. francis socks
shotgun across my lap

first, they took
our plastic bags
(the *******)
what's nexted?
seatbelts for pets???

the darkening  room
and  I'm staring
at the glow-in-the dark Jesus
fondling my
plastic straw

they will have to pry
this straw
From my
cold
dead hands

"live free or die"

the doomed are the blessed
free of the worry of fate
or misfortune

the doomed dance
in bars
when no music is playing

the doomed are...
never lonely
and everyone is more beautiful
the eyes smile
the legs are long
(almost always a waitress)

the doomed
know what they want
*** and love and mystery
the pleasure of the morning after kiss     

they know dying
isn't any way to be living

humanity is doomed
I'm doomed
we're all doomed

aren't YOU?

blame it on the moon
shame on Eve

we are the catbird in the bushes buying time
a moment of sunlight fading in the grass

her feet touched lightly
as she walked across the carpet
almost floating
and her voice was
like all the sad songs
sung by romeo s
from under street corner
shadows

claire had soft eyes
gentle blue eyes
dancing
that hid her wicked smile
and sharp teeth  

and his lover could touch places
too painful inside of him
and whenever she cried
he cried
too

he loved her
like the mad hatter
loves alice

yes
he loves her so

and claire had a pit bull/mastif mix
130 pounds
gentle and sweet
so she had him fixed
and then kept him in a cage

she had beautiful blue eyes
and when she smiled
her eyes grew wide
like a cat staring into a canary's cage

and when a body is finally found
in the east river
the coroner
grabs the body by the collar bone
so that what once was a man
dosen't come apart
in his hands

she had
soft
and gentle eyes
and her blue eyes
put an imaginary dog collar on jim
and she is dancing on his tombstone...

kenny composed songs
and sonnets to an angel
that lives down his street

a woman he has never spoken to

3:13 p.m.

skinny as a reed
4 foot eleven
kenny laveg
did some acid
that turned him invisable
being invisable
he had no need for clothes
kenny walked the 2 miles
to heightmuller's house

now,
heightmuller
had a growing disorder
6' 5 in the 8th grade
250 pounds

kenny was not impressed

so,
laveg
who is now invisable
strolls up cold stone steps
crashes through
the glass front door
where heightmuller
lives

kenny is chasing heightmuller
around and around
the kitchen
and heightmuller
jumps on top of
the refrigerator
screaming for his mom
and kenny rips
rips the door
off of
the refrigerator

and kenny laveg stares
at heightmuller
for a long
long moment
winks
and says,
"you don't **** with superman"...

...kenny stole
a 5 ton garbage truck
the day he got out of jail

you showed me how to think crazy
and be free

kenny laveg
sharp-edged and fearless
the patron saint
of us tortured souls and dreamers

the night is still
the snowflakes spiral down
in a slow waltz

she dreams of me dead

yes
I going to make
a few changes
in my life

i'm going to
run
run
run
and

i'm going to steal
a white horse
thunder in her hooves
and lanterns for eyes
and a heart of sand
and gallop
past the glue sniffers and junkies
through 9 to 5 prison
through the steel and concrete maze
past the grass needs cutting
the garden fence
and rotting cherry tomatoes
past the paying of overdue bills
the chicken deep fried

O, that wild horse!

we will make that run
like 2 shadows chased by light
and into the drift of stars
we'll fly

Oh, that beautiful horse!

no more sad songs

some people feel free
sitting in a tree with shotgun
killing a deer
a marriage
or themselves
some people think they are free
staring into the black sun


my love looks at me with ghost eyes
and dreams a shallow grave

on a mountain crest
my body chopped

and mixed with grain

no headstone

she dreams of me dead
                                                        
"roll over, dear,"
i whisper,
"please, turn off the light."

nothing is any good
you know
unless you
share it
so Tom has brought back the bar:

the Elvis impersonator
who almost
played las vegas,
the hair dresser
come future race
car driver,
a sufi
and a seer.

the seer
tells me she hit a cat
the cat was still alive
so she ran it over
again and again,
"and that's when god
talked to me."

"was that before or after
you ran over the cat
the second time?"
i asked.

"She talks to me every day,"
the angry divorced seer
tells me.

is god talking, now?

now, elvis
joins in,
"what if camus and nietche
met. what would they think
about the cat?"

"nah, who cares,"
the race car driver-
hair dresser,
says, snorts another line,
"what if they
started
a rock
and roll
band."

the Sufi wonders,
"who would play
what?"

"nietche on drums!" tom interjects
with a smile.

"yes,
and camus,
a gibson semi hollow."

"vocals???"

"god!" exclaims the seer.

"right on," i say, everyone smiles
and the seer is looking better and better
after every beer.

sometimes the dead
travel the road
to nowhere
with a smile


and i've got to get
up at 7a.m.
i'm a college
educated
toy store clerk

it's closing time at the circus

sometimes
the hangman isn't
hanging
and the night
jumps from the wall
and whispers,
"cut the deck."

"chance," I asked,
"danger and risk?"

"COLD DESIRE..."

she had it tattooed
on her ***

"COLD DESIRE"

we shared a quart of beer.
the dust of time in her greying hair.
she had a wooden leg
and a glass eye
a blue bottomless eye

and she had that, smile
like razor blades and dice
and
sometimes
the hangman
isn't hanging

thundering clouds
and no rain
she looked me in the eye
her good eye
(maybe not
it was a dark tomb
and the night
was blue
or maybe her good eye was blue???)
anyway
she kick me with her wooden leg
I hit her with a right
hand and her
glass eye flew
rolled along
the floor
towards a mouse
hole

a hole in one!

and i
yelled,
ROLL OVER

COLD DESIRE

I wrap my arms around you

hold me tighter
I say
hold me till the flowers bloom
and the leaves appear on the trees

hold me
when the wind rustles the leaves
and the turtles sun themselves
on branches in the brook

hold me closer during a distant thunder
walk me through flowers and forest
take the hat from my head
and run your fingers through my hair

i belong among the wildflowers
and when the rain comes down like tears
hold me close to your heart
far from fields of blood and distant wars

molly
the waitress
at Town diner

wants to be a model
or a nun,
tells me she's a poet

we're sitting on
a couch in her apartment.
molly takes a poem from
a foot high stack
on the end table,
hands me a poem,
"FIRST BRA," by Molly C.
it's about buying
her first bra at 12.
"i was big.
i needed a bra at 11,"
she smiles.

now
she doesn't wear bras.

she tells me
rod mckuen
is the most read
poet
in America.

"what about walt,
plath,
hughes?" i asked.

"no
no,"
she says,
"mckuen is the MOST
popular poet
in American history,
no,
really
the greatest American poet."

molly loves rod mckuen.

i love molly.

"if the public loves
rod mckuen,"
i tell her,
you've got a shot.
you could be the  female version
of rod mckuen."

molly smiles
takes me by the hand
and leads
me up the stairs
to the loft.

she takes the ribbon
from her hair.

i lay her down
on the bed

and bang the hell
out of
the next
most read
American poet

I know I dreamed of you

so shoot me
bury me in an unmarked grave

and in a 1,000 years
archeologists will dig me up
only to discover
a dusty pitcher of margaritas
still cold

the ashes
of a half smoke cuban cigar

and the picture of you.

a shadeless lamp
lit her face

" i'll teach you how to dream,"
she told me in her room

broken and beautiful
she was 32
red hair
she had freckles
on her *******
and lost eyes
desperate grey
eyes
like a coming storm
offered heartache held in the palm of her hand

her name i can't remember
it was a kind of whiskey
she loved whiskey

she said it again
"i'll teach you how to dream"

but i had surrendered
many times
many years ago
somewhere along
the road
to nowhere

and she passed out during the act
and the rabbit
was dancing in the ditch
and
so i finished

"don't you get it," i whispered
through her snoring

"we were faded
broken

a long
long

time ago"

walking out trailor
the saddest place on earth
is sante fe at sunrise

she searched for pleasure
ran through all the stop signs
and red lights
and lovers

danced in rain and thunder

a true believer in fate

and in a landscape devoid of whispering trees
i felt her heat

there's peace in madness
freedom in illusions

!laughter and love and neon lights
the visions and strange dreams...sarah

beneath the lids
your eyes grow fixed
on the edge of the dark
on the brink of the void
perhaps finding that elusive peace

(in the cold chrome handles of your coffin
i search for meaning)

if you go down forgotten streets
where the lights push the nightmares aside

and travel down
some forgotten dreams
to hear the melody
and are drawn in
by the strumming of guitar strings

and there on the stage
a heart walking a wire
with a sad smile of thunder and rain
that rolls you like tumbling dice

and if you believe in love at first glance
and listen with a young heart
you'll hear the wind and stardust
that she's chasing in her song

miles davis blowing sad
and in the ruins of his room
among the empty beer cans

the room where the floor is tilted
like the fun house floor

he wrote his poems
on the back of over due bills

on paper plates flung out the window
like dying daffodils

on those orphaned buildings
on cookman ave


the click clack
and the sad echo
off his duct taped boots
drifting off empty stores

in the soulless town
he gave a heart

the man
axe in hand
chasing tommy down 5th avenue

too soon the night has found you

too soon you left this earth

7 men walk into Deep Pool
an outlaw motorcycle club
the man in the red leather jacket
stood with his back against the wall
and every once in a while
for reasons
unknown
he'd yell,
"just nobody touch, Toad."

i push past Toad
on my way to the men's room
and as i'm *******
i think about Ron

he trapped rats in corners
then let them go

slapped angels in the face
and ihe craziest things he'd say
like
"the smartest rats
always get out of the maze first,"

he'd give you a knowing nod
throw down a shot
and walk away

but like a miracle
he had you wondering

ron dreamed of the angels
who stand under vapor street lights
at 4 a.m.
or sit on barstools til closing

but love is never
what it ought to be
and he lived his life
like a circus high wire walker
wandering back and forth
day after day

and one day
he disappeared
like the rabbit in magicians hat

now,
Ron was a warrior
he drew to the inside straight
to sunlight fading

and outside the 7-11
where his x-wife worked
with a pair of her nylon stockings
he hung himself

kent state

jackson state

waco texas

ruby ridge

"live free or die"

she had 2 horses
but she was the...long shot
pretty and flawed
edgy like storm clouds
drifting over the sun

that brief moment

of a faltering ray of light
fading in the grass

you belong among mountains
you belong among  the columbines
blue violet
pale blue
that bloom in the high meadows
above tree line

you are a memory
and a walking dream
so run away and find another lover

and on the snow white bed sheet

I write the words

that you longed to hear

LOVE,

5 cards calling
trying to fill that inside straight 

love
the baby kicking in the mothers womb

the match flickering in the wind

filling that inside straight

an ember glowing after the fire

love
the nightingale's song in the night,

love the one who knows your heart

cows and horses
the dog barking at the tv
no westerns tonight...

the DEA at my door
want to know if i can point them
in the right direction??? ...

a tip jar at the liquor store
and the mother- in -law is moving in...

a passing fire truck with someone
in a Mickey Mouse costume waving


AND YOU CALL!!!

on a windy fall day

rain can be beautiful

"Liston caught Patterson with the right
and Floyd kept trying to get up
trying to get up
off the canvas
and that's something

beautiful
terrible
free

if you have,
HEART

and i'm shooting to turn in
one
last
great performance
knocked to the canvas
i'm trying to get up

i'm going to punch a hole through the moon
through nightmares and rust
through days shorten
like streets that have no street signs

through memories of you
in that yellow dress
dancing in the lightening, rain and thunder

it takes Heart
to ask to be forgiven

the radio was playing softly
and the space between your 2 front teeth
and your crooked little smile

and then I was holding you
in my arms
delicate and soft and tender
and i'm stealing quarters from the wishing well

what was the name of that song, anyway?"


"Rain Can Be Beautiful," she says.

I.

she lives in one of the crummy rooms
down the hall
in the building
where the rats run and tumble
through its terrible walls
like children at play

she has intimate conversations

with saints
and pigeons
and the daffodils in the park
and the rats in the walls
and late at night
with her dead daughter

her boots echo down the hall
she's going to clean the gutters of trash
and feed the cats
I watch from my window
the cats come running from the abandoned church
hundreds come running
the kids call her cat queen
i call her savior

II.


I still hear those boot steps
when the air turns cold
and lakes freeze
and her ghost tells me
people die the way they live
and through the looking glass
down the rabbit hole
we'll all go


III.


there in this concrete
in that crummy room
was the thief that hunts my dreams

but you were something gentle and kind
a brightness in the projects

a caring heart
a loving soul
in this city where there were few

sunrise on the river
a million stars
2 fishing poles
and my brother

in the kitchen
on a shelf a digital clock
5 baby doll heads on one side
and 5 baby doll heads
on the other

the digital clock is blinking zeros

a can of Schaefer in his right hand
a cigar stub
in the other
he s plants dead flowers
In his garden
tills the soil searching
for his forgotten prayers

his grey eyes
narrow slits bright as steel
his crooked dreams clutch night

he knows no other way

he stands in the fire
he knows no other way

a lonely rider lost in a glass of yesterday's

the digital clock is blinking zeros

"after 6 beers," says crazy george,
"she's not gonna be looking any better."

                      *       **

Oh, woman!
wounded spirit
of moonlight and broken glass

Oh, fiery night
Oh, heat
raging, dazzling light

the wild place
till the red morning light

till the red morning light

hold me tenderly
hold me with those gentle eyes

hold me in your arms
far from shadows
where the nightingale sings

till the red, morning,  light.

unchained spirit

simple beauty

a flower

(as it was meant to be)

28 dollars
got him one to life  

the revolution was at hand
he was going to be free

george lived
like an outlaw
in the land
where he was born

Be prepared to be shot down


George Lester Jackson
lived like an outlaw


George was going to be free

you run along the ledges
walk the wire
have a touch of larceny
in your heart

and  I love it
like a ****** who
pretends to love you
every time
and you believe it

madness is like pouring rain
on the wet street
at night
reflecting through headlights
making a never ending waterfall
hot and white that s
dancing madly backwards
when you crank the Harley
and fly
over the cliffs of perception
into endless night
or star dust
or
into clarity
lore or god realized  

this world has gone insane
and this is where mad men belong

madmen belong in your arms

the nights grow long
in summer
in sauk rapids
minnesota

an empty pocket book
put on a corner on main street  
she was standing across the street

watching
laughing
smirking

and this is how I met Sarah

a storm of unshed tears
in the stillness of her eyes
but that smile sweet
sweet smile
and you know
you re her only one

and after 4 weeks
in sauk rapids
we knew each others secrets

the midges danced
above the field of wheat
"just say that you love me," she says.
and she began unbuttoning her red flannel shirt
and after
we climbed the town water tower naked
and howled with the wolves

captured in that moment
of sunlight fading
she taught me
all I'd ever need to know...


...I see you sitting beneath the dog wood tree,
whispering leaves
falling all around you
and you are humming softly

the chiming of church bells is calling

we ll meet again at the end of time
my love
and walk across the sun

you strayed into my heart
like a candle flame flickering
in a mirror
and there you'll stay

so i m gonna steal me some flowers
roses
red roses

i 'm gonna steal me those roses
so crimson in color,
and the rain,
i'm going to steal the rain
and the echoe of thunder
from that night

and a porcelain vase
too
white as snow
white as the ptarmigan
in winter
with blue tear drops
falling
forever falling

frozen in that moment
when you left

i'm going to steal the roses
that you love
from my neighbors garden

red as the sun
coming out of the sea
at dawn
and put them on your grave

crimson roses in a porcelain vase
for you

bicycle by your side
hands tied
arms and legs askew
faceless man
who are you?

what did you do?
who weeps for you?
who loves you?
children, any?
father?
son?
who put the gun to the head
of the faceless man of BUCHA?

lying in the ruins of the street
what horrible creatures did you see
in that last, darkening light
of BUCHA?

magic depends upon believing

and in the dingy hotel room
the ***** in a red dress
the poet and the pen

*** without love

manuscripts that no publisher will read

she removes her earrings
puts them on the bible
on the night stand

and he throws her down
on the ink stained mattress like
a bouquet of dead roses

he beats her

tenderness
is the old woman
in the alley
covering herself with garbage
to keep warm

tenderness is the wolf and the lamb

he rips off her red dress
and he climbs up the mountain
through the ice and snow

tenderness is the wolf kissing the lamb

but
if we can find
magic
between warm thighs
that lock us in
tightly
tenderly
like our mother's arms
keeping us from death
if we can laugh
walking along that thin wire
where shadow and life marry
where the lions wait
in the witchwood of our dreams
where angels sing and dogs howl
if we can smile
at children playing  
and sometimes cry,
if we feel the warmth
from someone elses hand

then I say.

pump.

deep and fast
between empty eyes
that can hold
no wonder any longer,
climb up through the
ice and snow
and never be found,
and when you get to the top
of that mountain
keep climbing

magic depends upon believing

the diver pulled
the body from the lake
his limp arms
kept falling off the stretcher
a tall black boy
about 7 or 8 years old
motionless and staring
through me and the others
through the green treetops
and the painted sky
through his mother’s tears

the ambulance slowly
drove away
and  we went back to our games
and joey and I made a house
out of a big
cardboard box
and everything I said
was so funny
to joey
and when joey said
anything
I laughed
and all we could do
was run and laugh
until joey’s mom
called him for dinner
and he left

the sky turned dark
darker than i had ever seen it
and i climbed into our
cardboard house
lit a candle
the rain hit the cardboard roof hard
the wind blew
and the candle flickered
out

summer was over



                        
                        
       ­               

                      
,

born in the artic snow
she chromed
her heart
in steel

flames could
not
touch that heart

always a half a step ahead
sure
a few stumbles
but never a fall

and moonlight is just
a heartache in disquise

till one day
leaning out a car window
a scar upon his cheek
and the luck of the draw

was the jack of hearts

and the queen of diamonds
had
never met
anyone
quite like

the jack

of hearts,

black-haired blue-eyed
her beauty inspired
stupid men
to commit foolish acts

and as he smiled
the queen of diamonds
thought she had

the jack of hearts,

blue sky shimmering
in her eyes

jack became
the brightness
of her day

and the jack of hearts
saw a flame
flickering in her eyes
that he had never seen
in any women's eyes
before ...
                
               act. 2

... a strange destiny
was unraveling
and one long poker hand
was over
and the snowflakes came
down like ashes
under the street light

and then
the jack of hearts
walked away

a pale spirit fleeing
a graveyard
into the wall of night

and the queen of diamonds
cried

the sea into sky

with eyes
like twilight
waiting

to eat away the day