anniversary haiku

we dive together


like bees into wild roses


hearts surging nectar

made of sky

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The above is a "2D" (or 2 directional poem). It was composed to be read both vertically (down each column) and horizontally (across each row). It is difficult to get a full appreciation for the work by looking at it on a page. Please click to listen to the audio version.

Burn

Like flame on black wind


I dance madly for your love.


Each night I burn for


Your touch as smooth as moon smoke,


The smoldered blush of your kiss.


 

A Gardener's Lament

It is not my breath that rustles the leaves.
I sit monochrome in the speckled shade
barely awake. Everything has changed
this morning. I watch the clematis reach,
stretch toward celestial blue. Green on green,
last night's rain loads a labyrinth of leaf.
Whether dusty sage or prickly pear sweet,
it's not my intention to change a thing,
to favor towering foxglove over
purslane's yellow bud or twisted clover.
A fleecy head of dandelion seed
harms not the noble, indigo iris.
Now that summer is finally upon us,
there is no need to name a thing a weed.


I hear the distant drone of lawn mowers.
I hear my neighbor scurry, scrape and pound.
Where in this wounded land is my place to thrive?
All that matters is to be truly wild,
to vine my heart around the roots of mind,
unfurl the luminous flower within.
The bursting burr, the cinnamon tendrils
of the climbing rose, the pink-tipped petals
of bindweed blooms, the healing echinacea,
all vibrate with the sun, all have their niche,
their time to flourish. I'm the only one
that needs to leave, that can never belong.
Listen how the grass flattened by my weight
springs back into life as I walk away.

Ghost

I haunt the poet. No, I own the poet.


I make him cry or sneer his wry grin.


Each morning I carefully fog his eyes


like bathwater layers gray on pale porcelain.


One would think I could find a better body to possess,


but I grow fond of this one. As long as this old guy thinks he's a poet,


I can speak without a Ouija. I have always hated that game


with all its yes and no questions. With this poet, there's no need


to spell letter by letter. I give him my surreal post cards,


and he eagerly scribbles on the back. You may ask


why waste my time when I could be climbing clouds


or rippling through walls. Eternity is boring, and the dead


love company. How about you? Why are you reading this?


Maybe we share the same motives. We need to feel alive,


to subdue our loneliness, to accept the inevitable darkness.


Perhaps there is something missing in our hollow, thumping hearts.


Maybe we'll find the beauty we long for in a poem.


It is brazenly ironic how we draw fresh life from these hoary words,


bristle with the ghostly rustle that stalks our breath,


choke on the cold smoke of the deepening night.


There is something worth staying for, even as we fade.


 

One Last Chance

First there is a mountain. Then there is no mountain. Then there is. - Donavan


After sexual subduction


and igneous flirtation,


one would hope not much


would shake our latent core.


We think we can do what we want


as long as we want because we can.

 


 The drunken forests swagger


out of the thawing permafrost.


The dog of extinction buries


its bones at their feet.


Like a giant slushy machine,


rivers of ice-melt pump Greenland's


glaciers into the Gulf Stream.


Holland is building floating houses


and Venice is booking scuba tours of it ruins.


The Earth is warmer now than any time


in the last thousand years. The warmer it gets,


the faster it gets warmer, the warmer it gets.


In less than ten years global warming


will be able to feed off of itself,


snacking on polar bears and caribous


along with thousands of other animals and plants.




 

We see no reason to change. B. P. will take care of us.


Fill the oceans with oil so we can fill our S. U. V.'s.


Turn up the A. C. and bring us more beef.


What more needs to happen before we understand?


There is no time to waste.


Our world flutters like a fly in the silken web of our greed.

I Know

In her poem the blue heron leans toward the sun,


poised in a frozen pond, legs caked in frost.


I ask, "Is this real?" She says, "How quickly


time lapses. We need to pay attention."


I know when lost in the long light, I too


can forget the freezing clutch of the wind.






The sun sets without warning. The cold steals in.


Like the heron I'm held by what I love,


trapped by how it changes without notice.


She says, "I am going up into the sun."


I long for her grace as wild as the wind


as she soars the fired sky of the dawn.






Too soon I'll lie flat as ice on this bed


of drool and dream. From my frigid demise


there is no release. I know, like the crane,


my final cry will crack like hollow bone,


unfurl like smoke into glare, and perhaps,


smudge the cold, white sheet of another poem.

Living Under Water (or Why I Like Haiku)

What I love most is
the peace I find floating as
weightless as the wind.




To rise, I reach out
with a deliberate pull.
There's no end to up.

 

A pulsing silence
surges like currents of heart,
sways lanky red reeds.




Under shaded wave
we breathe in the dappled light,
shed our rippled skin.

It's Easy to Be Normal

I can pass for normal if I really try. Sometimes, I even put on deodorant.
Just yesterday, someone asked me for the time, and I said, "1:36,"
even though I always carry a sprig in my pocket
in case that question comes up. It's easy to be normal.


A husky voiced phone survey woman asked, "Sex?"
I told her, "Male." Just like that. At the grocery store, though,
I lost it. The bagger inadvertently brushed my hand and said,
"Paper or plastic?" I said, "It's skin. Isn't that normal?"


Most of the time, if I concentrate,
I can ignore all those variant
meanings words evoke,
and figure out what others want from me.


Isn't that what normal is,
doing what others expect instead of being who I am?
The most important thing is to try to be like everybody else.
My biggest problem, perhaps, is I don't watch television.


In polite conversation, I have found it helps
to nod often, even if nothing makes sense.
I probably shouldn't even talk
about peppers. When the waiter asks,


"Ground pepper?" I say, "Please." Simple enough.
The problem comes when he says, "Just say when."
I usually say nothing. When he gets tired, he walks away,
What I want to say is, "Whenever the grinder is empty."


Lately, I have started to carry
my own bottle of pepper sauce
for places where ketchup is the only
condiment. It makes things easier.


I wonder if anybody is really normal,
if other people nod because nothing makes sense.
I think I would fit in if everyone stopped
pretending. Why do some people take everything so seriously?


I could be normal, if it paid enough, but it is truly overrated.
It is certainly no way to raise children. I guess I should spend more time
worrying about how things look. Also, it would probably help,
to occasionally be on time, but then there is always


that poem I am working on that won't let me go.
Somehow, I get by. I have a good life, I must say.
There is really no reason to change,
unless, of course, I spill hot sauce on my shirt.

Going Solar

It is so quiet
I hear the yellow fish sing.
Spring swims inside me.
As I step, the grass whispers.
Grass feels no sadness
as we waste our paradise.
The animals come
and go and always the green
returns. The trees do
not hesitate to burst bud.
Wind lifts the grey gull,
as the white bear stalks seal on
the last floe of ice.
Why does grief fall heavy as
I walk with beauty
through this breaking swarm of green?
What more do we need
than father sun that powers
all that lives on earth?

The Long Drive Home from a Gig at 3 AM

The pavement is not real.
The stars like salt
spilt on black velvet
show no sign of life,
stare like glass eyes from space.


Sugar Blue whines
and growls his hollow ache,
moans his hot harmonica wind
through brass and plastic,
charges the vacant night with longing.


Everyone who
ever plays, stretches
for that note
missing from the chord
that binds us.


Sugar digs it out, slams it
down on the rough road
like black ice, scrapes
it against raw face
like sand paper.


Inside the wrenching bend
cowers a persistent yearning,
a burning loneliness that drives
each fragile breath
we pass from lung to lung.


We roll alone down this road
of night that never ends,
tumble like a cage of seed and thorn,
from deep within our pain
a stout and solitary joy begins.

The Leap

From cliff top I look down the throat of green to the fallen trees dark with yesterday's rain. A breath of pine cools my sun warmed face. I do not remember climbing, only the mist parting after snaking around snow drifts and evergreens. In front of me miles of deep fur shade splattered with the lime of newly opened aspen. Behind me lurks a mountain of confusion, smoke, a mouth of dust, a path weaving nowhere. Over the edge the fresh scent of melted snow and crisp blue cuts against a gray fringed passing of white. It is time to choose. I must fly to go on. I know in my heart I was born with wings.

in mist the fallen
trees dark with yesterday's rain
it's time to let go


crisp blue space etches
a gray fringed swirl of white
scent of snow melting


at the edge of green
it is clear I must jump off
I was born with wings

This Moon

scrapes the thawing earth,
gnaws on lurking snow.
Skin melts to skin as I draw you in.

How do we stumble
across what makes us alone
into this radiant knitting of bone?

Your heart drives my blood.
My arms swathe your moans,
breathe with your lungs.

Too many years without you,
frosted with pain for so long, gone
like moon shadow in a blaze of dawn.

Memory Care

- for Anita

I heard some of you got your families living in cages tall and cold and some just stay there and dust away past the age of old. - Jimi Hendrix "Up From the Skies" (1968)

age breaks the cage
the canary
lingers

the boiled egg
of her mind cracks
open

day after
yellowed day
nothing stays

each morning she
rises to a
fresh world

smiles as she waits
for the shutter
to snap

plays out childhood
from vague finish
to start

she rides the glass slide
through the fogged
mirror

March Triptych

God designed the month of March to show people who don't drink what a hangover feels like. -- Garrison Keillor (2010)

Eye

Dream hands
claw the shift
ing field
dig in

That which is
can be known
without open
ing the eye

Reach

My hands scoop
to my face clear water
rolls through fingers
down over itself

I catch color
in the formless
splashes, each
drop topaz

I always reach
for what
cannot
be held

This day like
no other
this moment gone
as I grasp it

Hold

A single crust
of snow left over
from October
refuses to melt

I am amazed
how the earth
swells like
a black sponge

Opens at
thaw's edge
to take
more in

There is
reason
to hold
on

To hold what
we may
as close as
we can

Nothing
resists this
yearning to be
made new

In this
we are
all the
same

Even after
long winter
life stirs
in the last ice

After being told I look good for 67 (on my 57th birthday)

damn fluorescent light
carpet seam carpet
gray on grey
air machines hum
the building thinks it is alive
damn fluorescent light
bright eyes open

to a dimming world
veins ridge skin
it takes longer to chew
almost everything
creaks yet the mind
grows younger
the heart more childlike
the longer we hang on

our engines slow
as the scenery
speeds by
there are no breaks
aging is a paradox
a wind bitten rag
dancing on a stick

the grim reaper
telling jokes
window glare window
knock knock
no one is there
everyone is moving
damn fluorescent light