Just till I Turn Blue Haiku

Sweet olive perfume
breezes keep my eyes awake
keeping you with me.

Photographic smiles
and letters fade in the night
when I catch your scent.

I inhale, holding
my breath hoping to keep you
inside forever.

Captured in my lungs,
throat closed, face in the pillow,
air seems less needed.

Venus and Mars Tanka Quartet

I peel our sheet back
to reveal your nakedness,
moon lit like Venus found
by Mars, his warlike heart stilled,
his sword put to loving use.

The sparse cover of your
mound offers no defense as
you roll to open your
unguarded thighs to the tender
charge of a single finger.

Dew of half waking
dreams, slick and sweet, precious
scented oil fuels my
lust and soothes my ache, fills
our room and brings you to me.

Mars’ armor will rust
while Venus holds the scabbard
to his sword. Let me
now be Mars to your Venus,
pacified only by your love.

Art of Love Tanka Quartet

Titian moonlight bathes
you pink alabaster on
silver sheets as I
wish to be brush and canvas,
painting you with every stroke.

Painter's eyes, poorly
trained for night, cede the darkness
to sculptor's fingers,
where model and work are one,
poor Pygmalion's art outdone.

Shall love be as music,
heard in the moment, to live
then as memory,
Whisper nightly in my ear
our never ending love song.

Painters, brush in hand,
Musicians, fingers on strings,
sculptors, hammer raised,
defer to poets, the true
masters of the art of love.

Smart Girl

You were the smart girl in the class.
I sat beside you in science.
When the teacher wrote H2O
on the board.
The pretty girl called it
H-two-zero
You giggled and bit your hand
and smiled when I looked at you
and we shared the joke
I have loved you ever since that day
If you never knew
it is my fault
But since that day
Every woman
who remembers my birthday
Knows your name.

Tapestry

The day's fatigue fades our pillow talk
to the gray sleep we crave,
the day washes off quickly under closed eyes,
held in your arms.
The moon wakes me long before the sun
cuts the room or the alarm bangs the day awake.
I feel you in the dark, a curled spoon against me,
your warm ass under my stroking hand
and my hard cock tucked between your cheeks.
Darkness hides you from my eyes,
but touch, taste and smell are my guides,
spurred by a hissed breath though parted lips,
a sigh induced by my finger tips
grazing your pussy, parting and
dipping into sweet cream, your morning dew,
called by my teeth and mouth on your neck and shoulders,
chasing your dream lover from your mind,
leaving me his place to press my belly to yours,
put your legs around my hips and push deep inside you,
heartbeats in rhythm to our cries and moans.
The planet loosens its grip on us as we tumble through the night,
braided, interlaced and woven into love's cloth,
a tapestry of two.

Stud Buckly

Let me be your Stud Buckly
and you can be my Scooter Pie.
Hang your love on my neck
and I can kick the sky.
Spread the blanket on the grass
and feed me what I eat.
Smear jelly on the biscuits
and mustard on the meat.
When lovers roll in the grass
and laugh like lovers do
kiss me with your sweet lips
and I will roll with you.

Let me be your Pup Lover
and you can be my Mindy Moll
I'll carry you in my arms
and toss you like a doll
I'll hold the string in my teeth
and you can fly me like a kite
or hang me in the apple tree
and pull me down for a bite.
Pour wine in my open mouth
and feed me bits of bread
Make a pillow of your lap
and let me rest my head.

Let me be your Bottom Dollar
and you can be my Shiney Dime
I'll drop you in my piggy bank
and keep you for all time.
Spend me like a sailor
or steal me like a thief
I can be a millionaire
or a bankrupt on relief
Pin me to your shirt
and wear me like a pearl
And I will shine like all day light
Riding on my sweetest girl.

What's in a Name?

What’s in a name the Bard would ask.
The name we choose is but our mask
to hide our face as though somehow
a mummers head would not allow
the world to see our heart and soul
and let us act to play a role.
The name my mother gave at birth
was her measure of hope and worth
in me as I would take my place
on the starting line for a race
not finished when I chose the name
to tell the world who I became.

Written Proof

Your perfect school girl script.
Thank you for everything
you have added
to my life.
I love you
I cant remember when.
I don’t remember why.
Must have been early.
You didn’t stay very long.
A short hot summer
that could never end
while you smiled.
Dancing to every song.
Drunk on your laugh.
Ready forever when
forever is less than a year
The breeze turns cold.
I never see the season change.
and you are on the wind
like the leaves around my feet.
Is small comfort, no comfort,
when I wonder
if you loved me.
Even if I have proof
In writing.
And signed by you.

Sheepdog Tanka

To deny nature
is only nature deferred,
waiting for release.
The wolf is hungry for lamb
and the dog doesn’t care why.

A wolf among sheep
finds his natural desire
for flesh in his teeth,
met by the teeth of the dog
who eats neither wolf nor sheep.

The confused actor,
who knows the lines, hits the mark,
certain of his role,
in the wrong play, the wrong stage,
bows for applause in his head.

Dogs never feel used.
Even used up and useless,
he guards his charges,
Thinking you are loved for that,
is just a sheepdog’s conceit.

Summer Night

I was the boy who
came to your window late at night,
and helped you climb out
so we could lie on a blanket
in the field behind your house.
You do remember me.
You may have me confused.
Its hard to imagine I was once
such a skinny, slobbering, clumsy boy,
who had trouble getting your jeans unzipped.
I remember your face
as the moon rose over the trees.
You were the most beautiful thing
I had ever seen in my life.
I wanted the sun to rise
so I could roll you over
and look at every part of you.
If love is measured
by how much it consumes,
I have never loved anything or anyone
as much as I loved you that night.
The only reason I let go of you that night
was to get you back into your bedroom
before your parents woke up
and found you missing
In a perfect world
we would still be two young lovers
locked together on a blanket lain on a grassy field
a warm summer breeze across my back
my heart beating so loud
I could barely hear you
whisper please in my ear.
Any night when I look up
and see a summer sky
with a full moon caught in a tree.
I am back on that blanket with you.
I had heard about it
I had read about it
I had imagined it a thousand times
but nothing had prepared me
for feeling of entering you.
The fire in my spine burned through my brain
and I was melted in a cauldron
and poured into you
You gasped and I knew I had hurt you
but the fire was burning
through my back where your hands held me
and all I could do was open my mouth
and incinerate us both in the flames.
I held you so tight I was afraid you would break
but I could not let go or move.
We were pressed together from our necks to our thighs
your breasts flattened against my hairless chest.
I thought I would never move again
and be forever frozen to you
but the smell of your hair
and the sound of your breath
so close to my ear woke me from my from my sleep.
I slowly pulled back
and your breath became a whimper
and again please
like a cry from a well
far away, yet so clear in my ear
drawing me back into you.
There we were, untaught and unschooled
young lovers, who knew nothing but each other
learning each other and making it up.
Me thrusting at the urging
of your fingers in my hair
and your mouth gnawing at my ear
pleading not to stop
not to ever stop
to hold you and fill you forever.
Forever is easy when time stops
Forever is your chin clamped to my shoulder
Forever is our mouths sealed
so there is only one breath between us
Forever is your arms and legs
wrapped around me
as I pick you up off the ground
and we fall back to earth
I will never stop
I will never let go
I will cling to you like precious life
not to be shook off.
part of me will hold you forever
part of you will forever be in me.
And so suddenly I burst open
and you climb inside my ribs
to hold my heart
Oh sweet love, can you love me forever
Can you stay inside me forever
Can I feel you hold my heart forever.

Zealot

I am a zealot
Don't try to talk me out of it.
This place is too cold for you
I'm going in
and you are coming out
under my arm
or over my shoulder
past nearsighted cowboys
and blind plowboys
who can't see you
to where it is green and warm
where lovers lie
with the windows open
in January
and the neighbors wonder
who he has
with him tonight.

Seven Weeks

Its halfway into April.
School ends June third.
Unaccompanied minor airfare
Four hundred eighty five dollars
Count the weeks .
Seven weeks,
seven pay checks,
seventy dollars per check,
ten dollars a day.
Damn the calendar
Damn the math
Pay the rent late
Child support is already late.
No lunch for seven weeks
Mow yards on Saturday
and pray it don’t rain
Dominos delivery, six to ten.
Cold pizza for breakfast
Sell my TV, sell my blood.
Don’t worry, Baby.
I’ll have the money.
I’d walk there
and carry you back.
Sometimes, Daddy can’t say no.

Nothing

We have to not talk.
There is something
I have to not say.
What does it matter
what it cost me
to give you up.
When the choice
is all or nothing
and all is not mine to give,
can I gift wrap nothing
and make it pretty.
If I give you nothing,
how can nothing take
so much out of me.
I will say nothing
or risk one kind word
or smile from you
and weaken my will,
because when I said
I would leave
before I hurt you
I never thought
I could.

Million Dollar Baby

Your stone seems small among all the others.
"A bud on earth to bloom in heaven"
is the only comfort it offers
for the visitor to this lonely place.
Fifty six years is the half century
that seems like a millennium.
A time before my time, known only through
the unreliable memories of others.
A war that couldn't be called a war,
called the younger brothers
of the Second World War to fight,
maybe to die in a cold place,
and nobody knew why.
Young couples hoped for
their million dollar baby,
draft deferment and exemption for fatherhood,
Two lovers married early
and the love they made was you,
love transmuted to grief,
a swelling bud that withered,
never bursting open in the sun.
A tiny heart beating strong for a day,
fading like a distant light, so near to dawn.
What heart can carry an unbeating one
two days and not die of a hurt so deep,
never to feel or love again.
They wrapped you in your only blanket,
kissed their million dollar baby goodbye
and laid you softly in your tiny coffin.

I wonder if you know what they bought
with your million dollars.
The letter came, the army called,
the Philippines, not Korea, a GI bill PHD,
four more children and a happy life
with one early dark spot that never healed.
Everything that would have been
is someplace on another road,
back before the turn where they left you,
my unintended sacrifice,
who left me a mother who held me like gold,
delighted in my every scream,
just to know I was alive.

The young lovers are with you, now.
I hope they thank you,
for me. I appreciate all of it.

Light and Eyes

You are my light and eyes.
I see myself young and new
with eyes of a lover
polished shiny,
filling the cracks
mending the rips
healing my aches.
I stand under a new sun,
washed in fresh light.
Reforged under your gentle hammers.
Tempered like new steel,
hot from the furnace
alive in a shower
of sparks and white fire
refitted and ready to go.

Indulge Me

Don't turn off the light.
Don't hide from me.
I need to fit you to the template
I created in my mind in the long nights
dreaming of your sweet rain pouring
down on me, soaking though me,
washing me off my feet sliding down the
bank into the muddy water
and deep into the river
where light and sound
surrender to sleep and clenched arms
that hold only me.
Indulge me and comply,
when I hold your ankles,
roll you over and wonder
what cut that small dimple
on your right calf,
study your curves and color
to map you in my mind
to find my way back
to places I will visit again.
Freckles and birthmarks
and fine hair missed by the razor.
Skin creases where you bend
curling under my touch
knees touching breasts
hair fanned across the pillow,
exposing your neck
to my wicked kisses
and search for scars
along shoulder blades
where your wings
were cut free to let you
walk the earth.
Lie still and give me
my license to play
this field and exhaust myself
where round belly
turns to ribs and
rises to cocoa nipples
and a faint tan line
crossing from
shoulder to shoulder,
pulling me to soak you
with my own sweet rain,
hot from my soul,
painting you in colors
of my love,
staining the skin
like a tattoo
never to be washed off.

Ice Cream Headache

You are
sweet peach slices in syrup.
French vanilla with Butterscotch.
No spoon in the house,
I'll just tip the bowl back
and let you slide
down my throat.
The taste of perfume
behind your ear
is my fatal
ice cream headache
screaming through
my brain
as I hold on
and syrup runs
over my chin and drips
down my chest.
Let me close
eyes till the world
comes back.

Hardened

My hands were smooth and soft
before hammer, ax and saw
rubbed weeping blisters
to cover pink skin.
White snaking scars over knuckles
and blisters leather
into living gloves for
armored claws to keep the world
an arm away.
My heart will not leather so.
Hard use hardens my hands,
but not my bruised and beaten heart.
No scars can shield,
no calluses can cushion
a heart which will not harden.
Love never hurt my open heart
It soaks through skin and bone
like warm summer dew,
to find my heart ragged and torn,
but still I cannot fear new love,
for every cut and tear
is an exit wound.

Hard Day

Hard day coming on.
Too much time last night
counting stars on my eyelids,
afraid to open my eyes
and admit I can’t sleep because of you.
Thinking of the poor proto-human who laid
in the grass under real stars
feeling the cold stone grow in his chest
for the blue eyed female he would never see again.
The first human heartbreak before the benefit
of science to explain
the cardiovascular system
His large human brain
knew where it hurt and why.
Two thousand generations later
I am no better off than
my flint chipping cousin
who woke one day
to discover mating season
is now all year long and
the scent in the air
is now forever in his large human brain
and knew that a life
spent in pursuit of
food and a place to sleep,
was empty without something
warm to sleep with.
So, cousin and I both
wake at dawn,
He, with spear and pouch,
I, with cell phone and wallet.
He stands on the river bank
Looking at foot prints left
by the blue eyed girl.
I thumb the phone book,
trying to remember
where you work.
The hunters move out
tracking the tender prey
that makes all else we catch
worth having.

Fuel

Your love is the fuel this tired engine runs on.
Stoke the boiler
and hang a wrench on the safety valve.
Pull the throttle wide open on a down hill grade.
If we split a seam, scald me to death with your steam.

Refining Daylight

It's midnight under a cotton candy sky.
Exxon is refining daylight.
The flares paint the clouds
with the unneeded and unwanted spirits
of petrochemicals.
Too much of this and some of that leftover.
It all goes to the stack and burns in the night air.
Waste not, want not, wish not, want not.
The flare fades to a smoky glow against the morning sky, its job finished,
and I wonder what lesson I have missed,
of how to burn the waste until the want is extinguished
and if anyone looked to the sky,
the night I went to the stack.

Favorite

I was your favorite.
I know this is true,
from the pictures on the table,
a black and white snapshot,
skinny girl with a boy on her hip.
Playing dolls with a real baby,
bathed me, clothed me,
carried me, loved me.
Five by seven glossy,
A skinny boy in a white jacket,
too big to carry,
with a ring sewed to a pillow,
who turned invisible
in a room full of women and
watched you dress
for your wedding.
Color on Kodak paper,
you're eye level to a tall shaggy boy's shoulder.
Watched me grow
patient and kind
Listened to secrets moma can't know.
Liked my hair when it was longer than yours.
I’ll put on my black tie
and I will carry you today.
The books do not balance.
My account is overdrawn.
You have left with me
owing more than I can pay.
All I can do is stand
pockets and heart turned inside out,
trusting in your allowance and love,
one last time.
I was your favorite.
I know this is true,
because you told me so,
many times.

Familiar

Be my familiar.
I am tired of the new.
Give me comfortable ease
to learn you like a lullaby.
I want to know your thoughts
from the curl of your brow
and tilt of your head.
Be the breath
I hear in the dark,
the hand under my pillow,
the first thing I taste
in the morning.
Learn my touch
my smile, my sigh,
how I take my coffee
and how hot the shower.
Be my shadow
and I will be
your silhouette

Diana

Diana was a dancer, not a stripper,
she was quick to say.
She danced in a g-string, pasties
and dark glasses, for five drunk men and
four soon to be drunk men
and me, who was not to be drunk tonight.
Three dances an hour,
one in a shirt,
one in a bra,
one in a g-string and pasties,
dark glasses for all.
I creased singles into Japanese fans
for the dancers, one per dance.
Long red finger nails pluck the string off her hip
and I tuck in a bill.
A cold hand on my shoulder,
she bends down from
the stage for a tight lipped kiss.
You could do that in those days.
With my three bucks,
six dollars for an hour’s work.

Diana sits beside me, chairs touching,
while the other girls dance.
Cigarettes and lighter on the table.
I hold the lighter up.
Diana looks like she’s never seen it done.
“Buy the Lady a drink?”
She sits on her shirttail,
Green sparkle g-string,
Green lace bra with
Round bandaids stuck
to her nipples.
A five goes on the table.
Brandy Alexander, made with chocolate milk
and a spoon full of rum.
Diana just made two more dollars.
Diana smiles and sips
her five dollar chocolate milk.
“Thank you”

I take another sip of beer
and study my new girlfriend.
She woke up that morning
with tired on her face, wiped it off with a dry cloth,
leaving streaks of fatigue at the corners of her eyes.
Eyes too big for her cheek bones,
brown eyes and brown eye lids,
cheek bones painted red
to glow under the pink lights,
look hollow away from the light.
Long slender fingers wrap the glass
clicking red finger nails.
She licks chocolate milk from her lip
and smiles again.
“Why don’t you smile?”
Deep breath, sigh, sip.
Bottle on table beside her glass.
Another deep breath,
push it back, hold it tight.
My mother died this morning.
Words tumble in the bar noise
to reach her ear, out of order.
I watch her brown eyed brain
reassemble the message to
turn her pink cheeks white.
She pulls my face to hers, cheek pressed to cheek.
Sweet ginger perfume and cigarette smoke.
The pulse in my neck pumps against her cold fingers.
Whisper “I’m sorry,
Do you want me to leave you alone”
This raises an eyebrow.
I have to smile.
There is no more alone she could give me.
I have all there is.
Her glass is empty
“Buy the lady another drink”
Not this time. No more cash.
“Don’t worry.
I’m sitting with the best looking man
in this place.”
I smile again.
Why the sunglasses?
Diana puts the glasses on.
“I hate doing this.
I wear the glasses
so no one can see how much I hate it.”
Why do it?
The tired comes back to her face.
“Money, just money” The glasses come off.
How do you stand it?
“I write poetry every morning
when I get home. It helps.”
Angry stripper poetry
dances through my brain.
“I’m taking GED classes.
We had to write a poem
and read it to the class.”
I would like to read it.
I write too, a lot of bad stuff.
“Why do you think its bad”
I feel bad, so the poem is bad.
“But it’s your feelings”
I have bad feelings.
The brown eyes study me.

I want to say more.
I want to take her home.
I want to read her poems.
I want to write one for her.
I want to feed her breakfast.
I want to meet her mother.
I want to hold her and cry.
I want to know more,
but I don’t know what.
She wants to say more.
We don’t say anything.
“I have to go back to work.”

Diana brushes her hair.
Puts on her sunglasses
and steps into the light.
Slow smooth machine motion for nine silent
drunk men and me.
She is someplace else, writing a new poem
about hating men who think she is beautiful
and pay money just to watch her dance and
more money to sit and talk or sit and listen.
A good deal for them.

Wallet check, one single left.
I fold another fan and wait for song three.
Diana does a high leg lift and a slow sinking split
to slow stripper roll across the stage.
leaving talcum powder and
glitter on her ass and thighs.
She kneels and pushes the glasses over her forehead.
Tuck in my dollar, get my open eyed kiss.
Diana pulls down the shades
And goes back to work.

I step into the hot night air
Dust and diesel smoke,
music still grinding my ears
as I drive home.
My alarm goes off two hours later.
I reach for the clock and pick up my shirt
to smell sweet ginger and cigarettes.

The Suicide's Girlfriend

My tender friend don't ask me
if you don't want an answer.
Don't tell me
if you don't want me to know.
Don't cry for him.
He shuffled the deck
and dealt you a new hand.
He loves himself so much,
he wants you to hurt
like he does.
Painkillers, bourbon,
and a note curled in his fingers
was his morbid valentine for you,
leaving you without
his touch
his love
his future.
But you came home
to a squatted puking green toad
soaked in vomit and piss.
His misery turned inside out
like slop thrown from a bucket.
Take his gift and use it well.
Your touch
Your love
Your future
without this insufferable arrogant jackass.
Climb in my lap
and cry on my shoulder
I know it hurts.
It will be better.
New game, new deal.
You don't have to play.
pick up your chips
and walk away,
now.

Songbird

Songbird trill for me,
a spring song
to call the thaw
and claim new leaves
for your own
where you hide
in branches thick.
Shy bird don’t fly from me.
I hear your song
and know you are there.

Grieving Place

This grieving place, which you chose
is an arid field where nothing grows.
I'll catch your tear in my hand
and deny it to the desert sand.
Your tears are like a liquor sweet,
brewed from your sorrow and defeat.
Distilled to make a healing balm,
with powers to sprout a rose in my palm.

Narcotic Smile

It still scrapes my soul
when I think of you.
and I swear you
made me feel better
but never good.
Living with my addiction
to your narcotic smile
and amphetamine fingers,
waking wanting you,
knowing the want in me
made me want you more.
Could I love you so much
and you not love me.
Could I tie you to me
with ropes of ash,
crumbling under our touch,
feeling your warm face against
my chest become
a scratching bug in my left lung,
wishing I had walked so much sooner.
Some days the sun burns so hot
the smallest shade is welcome.
Red splattered lava
becomes the coldest rock.
All I can do is walk
to the end of Gatsby's pier,
fall to my knees and
scream your name
to the dark water,
and cough up that
poor piece of bruised soul
that keeps you alive in me.

Pine Knot

Why pine and not some other tree?
Why pine for you when you pine not for me?
If my pine dies, what remains?
The Longleaf will grow too tall to climb
and has no leaves, anyway.
The tallest pine will fall one day.
Someday the last green needle
browns and throws itself to the wind,
bark flakes, soft wood softens and falls away.
Buried in true leaves, the pine knot remains,
too hard to chew, too bitter to eat,
waiting for a fire that leaves no ash,
consuming all till nothing is left.
So I pine for you,
till I pine not .
And leave nothing of my pine
but the knot.

Hot Biscuits

Scratch baker girl in a dusty apron.
Shortening and flour, momma, Cut me in
and bathe me in sweet milk
till I squeeze sticky through your fingers.
Brown me top and bottom,
butter and jam
me in your mouth.

Current and Tide

Current and tide obey an unseen force
we cannot challenge.
No less power pulls me to you than
drags oceans across land.
The smell of your hair,
sweet and pillow matted,
fills my lungs,
moon summoned tide halts its retreat
to gather and roll upon the shore,
perfect template,
bent and shaped to fit pool and inlet,
relentless scour to twist and shape
the ephemeral sand,
so solid underfoot yields,
helpless to the wave.
Useless eyes close to
concede until tide recede.
Blinded in the riptide,
driven by hunger and smell,
I kiss the changing shore
of your spine to find
the sweet cleft that
hides the wellspring of all my desire.
The soft globes pry apart
to yield your tender portal.
My prehensile tongue,
crazed by slow cooked musk,
residue of the nights sleep,
digs and paws for more,
as the smell of all life
fills my lungs and floats
my brain beyond my skull.

Crave

I crave your attention
like a blanket on a cold night.
I want to pull you
up over my ears and breathe in you.
It is an ache
I cannot soothe with medicine.
Only the balm
of your smooth arms
around my neck
and your slender fingers
in my hair will relieve my pain
and let me close my eyes to sleep
in warm comfort.
Everything lacks
if you are not in it.
Hunger has me searching
for what cannot be eaten,
and I thirst for
what cannot be drunk.
Come lie with me
in the dark.
Let me inhale
your breath and
taste your sweat.
Feed me the uneatable.
Drench me in
the undrinkable.
My mouth is dry
and nothing will wet
my tongue except yours.

Cheshire Moon

The Cheshire moon sat just above the trees,
a perfect sliver of crescent,
points turned up to heaven,
so very much like your smile,
I could see nothing else in the night sky.
My hands snatched the corners of
night's blanket and pulled you down for a kiss,
scattering sequin stars
like fireflies around us.
Moonless night will miss you,
and send marching constellations
to force your return,
Close your eyes, press your face to my neck.
Let the night be so black
stars can’t see their own way.

Candles

In the darkness you sit and cry
For dawn’s arrow to pierce the sky,
but never strike the flint on steel
to flame the tinder to reveal
a man hidden in midnight blue,
and his hands which reach out for you.
There is true word in all my verse
for a blessing to end the curse
As well in the dark I may sit,
but I know how your candle's lit.
A candle bright is burning fast,
the night is long but will it last?
The answer sought always depends
on candles burning from both ends.

Beautiful Boy

BoyBeautifulBoy
Infant who climbed over my shoulders
Boy who ran over the roof like a goat
and through trees like a squirrel
You fell in my pond and didn't touch
bottom until the other side.
BoyBeautifulBoy
Carried the world on
a ten year old back
Never stopped
Never looked back
Made of concrete and steel
BoyBeautifulBoy
You brought pretty girls
Like a proud cat
leaving a mouse on the step
Worked like a Trojan
and never kept a dollar
BoyBeautifulBoy
If I was your island
in your sea of grief
You were my gem
found shining on the beach
and now you are a ship
sinking beneath the horizon
Dressed in green
with a black beret
BoyBeautifulBoy
I hear the pipes, Dannyboy
They call you
and I want to
stop them with dirt
and beat the man
who uses you so poorly
BoyBeautifulBoy
Let me hold you
before you leave.
Climb over my shoulders
and swim my pond.
It is the strong one's
turn to weep.

Borderland

Borderland is a stripe of soot and gray
where souls loose traction
fighting the long slide's last twist.
Terminal of the train to self destruction
and all points beyond.
The last ledge before the drop off
into the black forever night
where nothing escapes
but hollow wind and the sound
of cracking bone.
Transient town of half hope
where pain is a dull roar
in the ears drowning out the alarms.
The streets crowded with
the lost and misguided
brought here by chanced misfortune
and their born weakness,
where I see you today,
lost among the lost soul draggers.
Why follow me here
only to be pulled into the black
and destroyed with me.
This demented rescue
will destroy us both
like a fire on both sides of a mountain
racing to the peak.
Your ignorance will kill you.
A dip in the rinse water
of my corruption
would age you ten years.
I may fail
or I may return to the light.
It is not for you to know.
If I go over the edge
you will tumble behind me
If I return to the light
I cannot bring you with me.
While time allows,
leave, now.

Beauty and Truth

Shall I speak the truth and be heard? Listen
and understand with disbelieving ears,
for I speak the truth, indisputable
as sunsets and true north, if other’s sun
sinks upon a different horizon
and world turns on a separate pivot,
sensible only to them, I will state
my truth and not standing their weak dispute,
my claim is true or I am not myself
and deny my own face in the mirror,
the mad know not themselves, but being sane,
barring hesitation, I will say it,
you are beautiful, as beauty was created for you,
as you were formed and crafted to be the mold of beauty,

to be the key which fits every lock,

opening doors as you pass,
and all who look upon you are held, unable to turn,
knowing not and caring not
why they no longer control the object of their attention,
feeling only the hunger no food can feed and the thirst no drink can wet,
and I am the humming bird drawn to the crimson blossom,
but not for the beauty of scarlet petals
which only signify the sustenance in the sweet liqueur
born deep in the bloom, but because I must,
just as the flower twists on its stem
drawn to follow the Sun’s arc overhead,
I extend my tongue, hoping to taste the air in your trail,
the never bottled perfume, brewed from the alchemy of your skin,
the transmutation of flesh into love, the reduction of my will,
for to say I will this is to say I will to breath,
and I cannot will to not breath
as the will submits to the need,
as a suicide leaps smiling into the river
to spend his last breath clawing back to the surface,
it is all beyond my will, it is my must,
my lust to be the wave which washes you off the beach
into the surf and embrace you as the ocean holds the shore,
to be the earth and open a chasm under your feet,
dropping deep inside, closing over, sealing us as one body,

Blackberry Summer

Blackberry summer, blackberry Sunday,

Blackberry nipples show through your shirt.

Night rain swollen blackberries hang

from the fence, soft and juicy,

to stain the fingers and tongue.

Two buckets lined with white bakery bags,

we walk through wet grass to the old fence line,

in early morning’s cool air,

buckets swinging, hand in hand.

A few sacrificed to taste,

you bite our first victim and feed me half,

blackberry sugar fills my mouth,

sweeter for being crushed by your lips.

Briars bent by their fruit yield a bucket full

before blackberry clouds chase the sun

from a blue summer sky and a cold thunderstorm wind

finds us in the old hay barn, sitting in the loft door

listening to the cloud’s shadow

dance and clatter across the roof.

Desperate dust devils scour the pasture

for damp leaves and sticks.

The sun hides in thunderstorm twilight.

Silver dollar rain drops drum on the tin roof.

and the chilled air raises goose flesh on your thighs,

lying in the hay, straw catching in your hair.

Tin rumbles under waves of rain,

timbers groan under the weight,

covering the moan deep in my chest.

I inhale the electric air surrounding you.

Flash and cannon fire lightning

paints you marble white

against white hay in a bleached world,

Color returns to all but your face,

closed eyes and open mouth

sucking air for a heaving breast

White knuckles wrapped in my shirt

pull me over you for cover

and shield from the next bolt.

What comfort can I offer except

good company in our incineration

and blackberries, hand fed to a trembling tongue.

like a pin feathered hatchling in our straw nest.

Let the blood return to your cheeks

and your heart quit pounding like the rain on the roof.

The day will outlive the storm

and we are safe in our loft

to plan a summer afternoon

to wash blackberries for making

blackberry pie and blackberry jam

and sweet blackberry love.

Castanet Dance

Sugar sand for twenty miles
and we are alone
As the tide recedes
to reveal a brand new world
of broken shells and polished glass.
and trash from the sea.
Little foot prints fill with foam,
dwarfed by the track of a walking crane
I stand in the surf
Holding back the Gulf of Mexico
to shield you from
sharks and stingrays.
But today the only danger
is a napping crab in the high tide debris
who wakes to your stooping curiosity
to do his castanet dance
to your shrieking song
that charms the gulls,
leaving crab tracks
back to the Gulf
and toe prints halfway to the dunes.

Air Combat

Where the pine line cuts the field
Gray Guardian holds the high branch,
pitched in the wind,
watching sky and ground.
Hungry bumble fumble Crow,
egg eater, chick killer, nest robber,
crosses the line.

Gray Guardian fires into the sky,
fast and high into the sun,
flips and dives fearless, into crow back.
Strike once, strike twice, tiny talons tear,
bumble fumble tumble Crow falls,
trailing black feathers like smoke,
recovers and flies
for cover in the pines.

Fierce Guardian rolls and climbs high again
to strike and hold, tearing crow neck,
gray and black wings flap against the sky
screaming orange beak,
shredded black feathers whirl toward the ground,
locked in free fall until Guardian breaks free
to hold the air between
Crow and pines.

Bumble fumble Crow flees
across the field to hide
and preen his torn coat and pride.
Gray Guardian holds the high
branch pitched in the wind,
to sing his victory declaration
to the trees.
Hear me, Crow
I am Mockingbird.
This is my sky.
No chicks die today.

Four Old Men

Four old men and me,
drink coffee on a Saturday morning.
Nick names become real names,
names so old no one remembers why.
Fatty, Coach, Blackie, Push, and me.
With this team, I can
drive a steam locomotive,
invade France,
win 2 State championships,
and fly a P-51.
I can tell them why
their check engine light came on.

More coffee all around.
Fatty raises his chin for a kiss on the lips
from the waitress.
Blackie wears white pants and shirt.
“You must be a virgin, all in white today.”
“Maybe I am. I can’t remember
the first or the last time.”
Coach worries for his wife.
Surgery on her leg didn’t go well.
Push says she will outlive them all.

Children live in three states
Grandchildren too far away
Not complaining, no complaints
Its just the way it is.
A trembling hand on a strong arm
reaches for the sugar.
USMC bulldog in a helmet tattoo
hiding under the hair.
“Take your coffee black,
You can send anybody for coffee
and get it right.”
I’m drinking coffee with four old men
who knew my father
and they think he was a fine man.
Sometimes they forget who I am
and call me by his name.