Star Storm

Stay drunk, you;
Keep worrying.
Preoccupied
With what’s next.
Can’t sleep
Without churning
Sheets like shorebreak.
Tumbled concrete,
Husking winds,
Hissing palm trees,
Gravel bullets
Of sky-spat rain.
The hole is growing
Withdrawn chill
Bring out the star storm
Get it over with.

Crown of Twelve Trees

Returning from the western desert oasis,
I have found the autumn fading
Gone into the palest blue sky of grey vapors.
I smell far off snow on this blustering wind
Spraying the later leaves from the hardwood branches.
Twelve trees are a protective crown around my cabin;
She’s enchanted to see me back again.
Fill the heart with hot soaking embers
And sign [...]

Postponement and Consummation

A slight stirring of wind
Holds this gauzy curtain away from the window,
Reminders of a springtime outside, all green
And flowers and wholesome shit.
Me, I just want to get drunk
Feel the empty agony of my loneliness,
Postponed by the full bottle;
Consummated by another empty can.
I can feel, yes, I can feel again
And it is maddening, yea, sorrowful;
I did [...]

Thee Angelkitten

A purring song of liquid honey Angelkitten,
Burnished golden metallic wings,
Diamond-bright dinky halo and
Those kitten-soft feet to mommy-paw
Your eyes shut at sleepytime,
Hunting your hair,
As the wind from the waves of her home,
Corner-of-your-eye cat-quick paranoid spirit
Of Cleopatra Mykelti kittenator flatulator,
Calling-cards framing those other cats,
Wrestling with an orange and brown Afgan
Slim but phat tunnel-runner big-eyed kitten.
Lovin’ the palm [...]

Big Olaf

Once, while sitting
On a tide-surrounded
Piece of Sunset Cliffs,
I smelled boyhood,
A summer scent:
Warm sand, blue cool ocean,
Seaweed, shells, swells, surf wax;
Coconut tanning oil
SPF 15.
The silence of waves before they break,
Bodyboard rash and sunburns,
The sharp asphault places in the parking lots,
Kicking sand on the backs of your calves
When wearing flip flops.
Bonfires and beer drinking,
Big Olaf’s waffle cones;
Smoke [...]

Pine Tree

I climbed up as far as my courage
And strength would take me
One day in the life of a monkey-boy;
Those branches were spaced
With a long-armed youth in mind –
A kind encouragement
Beckoning boys to the heavens,
That grandfather pine tree still stood
As of the date of this writing,
And it still looks as tall.
Things change as I grow older [...]

The Pier

The pier is flung out past the surf
Into the deep water
Like a sleeper’s unconscious arm
Idly hanging over the edge of the bed.
Sunlight scuba dives for the flickers
Of schools of little fish
And warms the top of the waters –
Where the seaweed loosely hangs
Like bead curtains or piles of laundry. –
Frosting on the cake of the beach.
And [...]

Rioting Raindrops

The rain came down
Like cartoon anvils,
Spending itself on the cement
In an assault on the town.
The parachute-less troops
Gathered in the low-lying spots
And took over the streets
In order to regroup.
Rioting raindrops,
Seething and churning,
Swallowing curbs and sidewalks
And the floors of a few shops.
En masse, they moved
Like a swarm of fluid ants,
Chewing up the asphault,
Around, under, and through.
They occupied [...]

Sailing to Byzantium

I perch upon a basalt wall,
12 feet high; it surrounds the port
Separating the rough-hewn blocks
Of the well-travelled docks
From the slopes of the mountains lost
To the predations of much-prized rationality.
Many a sailor I watch disembark
From cutter or barge or sailing-ship;
They wind their way from wharf to within
The city whose walls I’ve scaled.
Young and old who, unfamiliar
With [...]

coming calling

The snow has touched the mountaintops
And the leaves drift on the ground.
My breath is grey before my face
As I’m walking into town.
I left my car parked in the drive;
I wished to go on foot.
A whim the moon brought to my thoughts
When I laced my father’s boots.
When I come calling at your house
I’ll check to see [...]