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.