the crying circle 10/21/2017

we were all present there
in the crying circle:
blindsided by the squall
as vulnerable tears fall,
drops in a bucket.

dowsed in discomfort,
us storm-tossed blossoms
caught up like roses in a gale
couldn’t help but stab
with reckless thorns.

impending dawn 01/19/2017

As the hours dwindle
and white wolves mingle
just beyond the gate,
hungry to rip health
from the throat of innocents-

those last restless minutes
in bed before reckoning’s
raucous wake-up call
fall all around, dissipate
in a precious effervescence.

Is it cliche to mourn
the end of an era?

Still it ends, inexorably
dismantled, defunded,
and deregulated-
a legacy desecrated.

emergency action: panic attack procedure (11/8/16 edition) 11/29/2016

a dense fog, a coming frost. cracked continents crumbling
like crushed ice in a cheap fountain drink.
hopes and dreams hollowed out into eerie jack-o-lanterns.
a bitter, expensive pill to swallow.
five things I can see.

convulsions. a heartbeat, your arms:
four things I can feel.

freeway noise, tears and static.
three things I can hear.

tangerine peels and cool night air.
two things I can smell.

one thing I can taste.
ashes.

a calm, but how long?
but a few restless hours
til the inevitable cruel dawn.

the future’s so wet, I gotta wear scuba gear

Hope you enjoyed New York while it was dry.
Sandy was only a preview of coming attractions.
The feature presentation’s the dramatic rift,
Continental shift as Antartica crumbles,
America stumbles and Trump bumbles
An amphibian blowing bilious bubbles
Of hot noxious air,
A methane surprise.
Ten feet of sea rise
and a black snake slick with death:
Impending threats.
None were mentioned in the thinkpiece
titled “What will we do next.”

scrap from 2012 04/29/2016

Could a sound signify a place,
a sense of saudade, sweet as a sigh
on some other’s collarbone,
a nook in which she’ll never again nestle?

Briefly, where solace was sought from
the sun-soaked glen,
shale shelter where tongues tussled,

a return to find the oak home hollow,
hale, unoccupied by
fate, kisses or wisdom.

cyanescence 02/21/2016

sweet like cedar tea,
dulcet tones and hemlock cones,
skulls fuzzy with lichen.
I’d liken it to the stump unfocused
a thalamus distracted
a sense of self retracted
into dilated time.

we held hands
in a fortress of softness
adrift
on an ocean of moments
carried off by currents
swelling, strengthened,
running deep with love.

forest grove 01/23/2016

Eucalyptus gift
A little rift, mended
Needed-a-friend-ed.

Cedar sweet tea,
Hemlock cones and stones
asleep in a forest grove.
Wave to the Giant Sequoia with a
Fallen flower skewered on a limb.
Stephanie says,
Visualize ancient glacial sculptors
ice floes forming fjords, slicing slopes
into the site of someday’s Seattle.

This is just to say 09/02/2015

I have eaten
the Drumsticks
that were in
the freezer

and which
you were probably
saving
for a future
dab-and-Drumstick
sesh

Forgive me
They were delicious
so cold
and so stoned.

Summer of 2000 07/13/2015

A velvet beach dream in pastel:
Rainbow water slides and calypso music,
Inner tubes and tidal pools,
Screen doors, smoothies and
Soft, soft sand.

Specters 08/27/2014

Ghosts proliferate here:
Fossilized memory remnants
Fuel the perpetual emotion machine.

Spectral-fed gears
Gnash their teeth,
Fed steadily on irrational fears &
Worst possible outcomes.

We think thousands of thoughts a day.
Each is a unique chance to let go of all these sticks
yet still I can’t sleep more than six hours
Without waking up to worry.