Aria

the glories of her
struck me, made me aria,
singing her body,
my loins were, and were
the scene of stupendous achievement.
stupor.  knees, needing to pray.

all knobs and softness of-
my goddess!-
the ducking and trouble
it swarmed in me
all at once....always
i am excited:
the original crime:
lusting for succulent fruit.

besides a sense of beauty-
my goddess!-
and a yearning for dewy paradise,
what could be more odd?
discontent with teeming minutes,
till He leaves the garden of eden.

Can You Tell Me?

transcendent beauty
can you tell me?
how should i praise you?
through inspiration?

of necessity!

i am he whose brain is scattered
aimlessly.

i am smitten!  i
am.  i am.  i am smitten, i reaffirm,
now the words tumble through as in
lonely moments i hear them.
they are all
about you.  the dance!
the verb detaches itself,
seeking to become articulate.

and i cannot help thinking
of the wonders of your beauty
that strums the lyre of my mind.

Distant Stars

one by one they appear in
my observatory: a few hopes, and
a few memories with present
presence.  how bright the constellation shines!
but before they fade they stand
perfectly embodied,
the past and future eclipsing them like a
cloak of chaos-
moments lived only to
renew the force they
enhance with each hot convulsion.
true, they are not at rest yet,
but now they are indeed
apart, winnowed in the present press,
they withdraw to an orbit
and turn with distant
hard energy, like intergallactic stars.

I Saw a Butterfly

through the rain
and sliding door haze
i saw a butterfly
in golden aura
on white
linoleum
moving
subtle
soft
to electric
motor howls
and fantasy scorching
the chilled cerebellum

On Every Think I Think

on every think i think
the countless shadows fall
of other thinks as valid
i cannot have;
spotlights of fantasies, too,
impossible to me.
yet somehow truer,
being with more power bright.
may i never lose these shadowy
glimpses of transcendent thinks
that modify and minimize
my own, and never fail
to keep some shining sense of the way
all thinks at last
before love's dawning meaning
like the stars at sunrise pale.

Your Life's Story

forty-four years young
still scribbling your rough draft-
two main characters

Transcendence

my mind- not enough
room in my cerebellum
for the universe
and her infinite beauty-
be gone eternal darkness!

Morning Sickness

i do not feel very good;
i think i am dying.
although i have not vomited,
i think it might be fun.
my world is crisp and rubbery,
dripping with karma and irony,
but my mind is still craving her

beauty.

words and their meaning have been swallowed
by a black mist;
the vortex of deprivation.

longing?

ha!
there is no other thing.
darkness....
imprisoning me....
all that i see....
absolute horror.

Alarm Clock

early morining sun
our bodies bathed in ochre
lying side by side

for the last half hour
watching your breasts as you sleep
heave with every breath

staring at your eyes
and willing them to open
good morning star shine

Love's Aria

love's aria lifts me,
beauty's melody bourne
on venus's virtuous air.

i'm played like a pipe,
her breath, not mine,

her love on my mouth.
she blowing o'er
my throat's cords,
making low, unearthly music.

Wee Hours

eyelash moon flutters-
the cobalt sky caresses
my longing silence

Telekinesis

my finger traces
small patterns across her palm-
can she read my mind?

How to Love in These Last Days

i.

all i want to do
is love you famous

all i want to do
is burn my initials into your soul

all i want to do
is write my love
from the middle of an erupting volcano
standing in the fast lane of the
lava flow

the world as it's become
eats its inhabitants

i'd rather
sell arms to the devil
than wait sullenly for
approval from a diseased clown with a
three-piece mind

telling me that i should love through a
bullet-proof pair of rose-colored glasses

i want to be
hated
by Everybody Else who
proselytizes hearts and minds

i want people to hear about my love
and get headaches
i want people to hear about my love
and vomit

i want people to hear about my love
and weep, scream, disappear, start bleeding,
eat their television sets, beat each other to death with

swords and

get out and get riotously drunk on
someone else's money


ii.

love ain't no democratic process
love ain't no populist agenda
love ain't foolin' a

grab-bag of
clever wordplay and sensitive thoughts and
gracious theories about
how many ambiguities can dance on the head of a
hallmark card

love ain't no
genteel discussion over
cappuccino and collective consciousness

love ain't no chest-thumping

These Last Days have meaning
as we watch the planets and stars fall from heaven

they ain't no letter press, hand-me-down,
wimpy lovefest about
the broken rainbow

they are a carnival of dread

they are a savage sideshow
about to move into the main arena

they are the thief in the night stealthily slipping
in and out of our lives
stealing a precious gem and leaving paste

they are terror and wild beauty
walking hand-in-hand down a bombed-out history
as missle scream while a
sky the color of arterial blood
blinks on and off
like the light on broadway
after the last junky's dead of
aids....


iii.

i come not to bury love
but to blow it up
not dandle it on my knee
like a handicapped child with
beautiful eyes
but
throw it off a cliff into
icy seas and
see if my unsated soul can
swim for its life

because soul-love is expensive
sorely needed

but....

there is so much iron pyrite these days
apathetic love with a chip on its shoulder
a chip as big as the empire state building
and heavier than
all the bills it'll never be able to pay
because these ARE the Last Days

Everybody Else is hawking radioactive jared-diamond-love
and victoria-secret-lingerie-love that
lowers the iq by fifty points per eye full

the vast masses believe
practicing half-hearted love
is the best way to combine caress and career

we're accosted by comercial love
with eyes like wet stones
peering out from the pages of
glossy magazines
promising that it'll
make us love till we bleed
if we just buy on of their switch-blade versions of love....

The What Could Have Been Pail

nothing ever happens
twice.  the cosmic fact:
we come to life's stage
jazz musicians
improvising-
no chance to practice.
no moment a carbon copy,
no two days the same.

an hour my mind
mentioned your name-
a rose tossed
into my skull,
all hue and fragrance.
now, your name
is the morning star-
a rose?  a rose?
what is a rose?
is it a flower or
a platinum light?

each hour is pregnant
with embyotic moments-
too many aborted-
each carelessly tossed into the blood
of the what-could-have-been pail

with syllabic swoons
i enter the maternity ward-
a jazz obstetrician,
delivering bebop babies beneath
brilliant stars and roses-
today won't stay;
always gone tomorrow.

Dawn

love's dawn:
water purling over ice
blue with rising mist,
glaciers sunk in emerald green,
mountain ram and antelope climbing,
golden salmon spawning,
dolphins frolicking,
the amber jack leaping
o'er the arctic rim.

Pregnant

my love gestates.
i carry it with me
wherever i roam.
throughout the day i am
great with child;
boy scouts escort me
across the street.
women offer their chairs,
no one pushes me rudely.
i waddle awkwardly,
my soul's stomach pressed
against the weight of the world.

Hope

all pleasure-
food, drink, love-
lay ahead
in lengthening shadows.
the most re-
freshing moments
await in the dark
ample lap of e'en

Daydream

midday brightness bruised
desire, scudding my mind's
omnipresent beam
oscillates 'twixt love and lust
strange and shimmering dream

Blanket of Stars

your spaceous beauty-
my heart's great wings beat beneath
a blanket of stars

Aneurysm

distended vein swells,
damned by dilating beauty-
brain aneurysm

Prayer

god, pity me now,
the most desolate spirit
possessed by beauty!
my mind melts like paraffin;
her radiance owns my soul.

Embroidery

infinite beauty
wondrously adorns my life;
rainbow on charcoal-
an acre of embroidery
on a postage-stamp canvas

Love Flows

love flows
from my fissured heart,
scarlet rivulets and dribbling deltas.

love flows,
sipped for lonely hours
from hamlet's suicidal skull.

love flows-
my soul weeps
tears of fecund emotion.

Romantic Ragu

caressing in bed,
two bodies meld into one-
romantic ragu

Loneliness

i swallow my loneliness,
a handful of liquid thistles.
my congealing blood flows
smooth as a gravy avalanche.
i sip the hemlock of separation till it
disappears into the glass that contains it.

Gravity's Bars

your sensual gravity,
your radiant magnetism,
encompasses my soul
with iron bars.
how can i be expected
to concentrate, when the tides
of my mind are controlled
by such celestial beauty?

Ashes

my love poetry
ashes from my blazing heart
toss on more kindling

Tenacious Tom

i put you out,
tenacious tom.

you pay no rent;
i put you out.
all my best rooms are yours:
my brain and heart.

get out
feral feline!
i put you out.

disconnect the electric,
throw water on the fire;
i put you out-

stubborn desire!

Her Curses

my soulmate loads me
night and day with her curses,
honey always on her lips,
yet i know she loves me.

how?

i equally expend myself
day and night
in perservering longing-
knowing too well
my hopeless love.

But Now

oft, i have strolled near the garden

the fertile fragrance wafted
o'er my insatiate senses
and the honeysuckle
drew the bumblebee from its hive
to silken stamen cup,

her pollen was potent
her nectared petals shimmering saccharine stars
her verdant vines summoning venus,

but now

Spit of Your Beauty

o my incomparable,
you
have unhinged my mind!
let it wander azure-eyed
from ecstasy to ecstasy.
shatter my skull,
pour in the wine of madness!
i am crazy
for you,
with you,
with us.

beyond the sanity of fools
is a burning desert
where your helix is whirling
in every atom:
drag me there,
let me roast on the spit
of your beauty!

Call Me Indigo

the way your beauty snags
my skin when i'm waltzing
through an afternoon, for the thousand
crows caught in my mind,
how it rains when i think of you
on misty-black days.
call me indigo, azure, cerulean;
call me
every shade of blue for being
so in love with you.

the way you pluck
nightingales from my heart; writhing
as if it were my ribcage being played
beneath a moon that is no grapefruit,
but the bottom of a jelly jar.

still the sound of you
rising from my blood like a prayer at midday,
or the ragged song of cicadas
tugging frogs out of watery homes.

well, the day is too dark
for dreaming; the neighbor's pitbull keeps barking,
my mcdonald's steak bagel is eaten by buzzards,
and my brain is full of love
letters that have never been sent.

Visual Wealth

the visual wealth of you-
growing ember
of eternal life,
lava of grace,
buried stream
singing from well to well,
transcendent dream-
consumes the cells of my mortality.
me, a thunderous heartbeat,
lost in you.

Easter Blessing

i collect fortunes
each breaking dawn-
a fortune of color and texture,
of light and shadow,
or motion and moisture.

i tuck each fortune
into a brain cell
and hide it.

later,
the easter blessing:
discovering
each glistening treasure
anew.

Separation

gray,
shades of black.
the lack of color is cold.

only she has color,
only her color has warmth,
only her warmth has life-
her life moves ankle-deep
through gray powder.

the powder covers
living backs,
flowers, trees, birds
and the singled roofs
of dark houses.

the sky:
one shade of gray
except far on the horizon
where it is black,
one shade of gray
with gray powder falling,
cold, bleak,
forever
gray

Without You

winter; the woods
empty; the axe
sunk in a stump;
its thud a sob
startling the sleep
of a dreamer
waking, calling
where am i? who
is there?

Paper Afternoon

paper afternoon
a stage set in broad daylight-
life away from you

Perfection

my sensuous soulmate,
goddess of priapus,
voluptuous venus,
nectar of aphrodite,
charming beauty:

God has sculpted you
from a solid block of desire.

in your presence
other women are but shadows;
trembling, envious vacuums.
you are perfection!

Fossil Beetles in Amber

i ransack my mind
for poetry,
finding nothing but matchbox cars
and a piece of frayed string.

my brain has suffocated
in another day's rush and tumble.

a few crinkled words-
notions captured
on faded red and green
accordioned crepe paper,
dehydrated thoughts-
unfurl
dusty verbiage:
glissandi riffs
of separation's purgatory.

notions of your beauty
pleading to be freed-
fossil beetles in amber:
images of sensual perfection.

Op-art

i lay on the first stroke
of color:
a big, wet
hilariously smeary lip-stroke.
after that,
the canvas of your body suggests-
even demands-
i do this or that;
talk about liberal art!

Liquid Morning

in waxing light,
i rock with the motion of morning;
in the cradle of all that is.
i'm roused from half-sleep
by the spectacle of your
silver-tipped beauty,
cries of the sandpiper.
love is my will, and my way,
and my spirit runs, intermittently,
in and out of the rhythmic waves,
runs with the intrepid shorebirds-
how graceful the skitter before beauty's sea!

in the first rays,
all is a sacred scattering,
a shining.

Silver Beauty

my soul aches-
inflamed canker my mind's tongue
ceaselessly fondles-
to caress your silver beauty
with my unrefined lead arms

Bituminous Desire

your beauty touches
my bituminous spirit-
a flame ignited

Sweet Beauty

sweet beauty
invisible mist of
i-
my soul-
o'erlong lovesick,
o'erlong alone:
would your sweet soul bind.
long have i
sought you, hungry,
as to where our souls
might tryst.
my soul, your soul,
go there,
sweet soul;
be kissed.

Swan Lake

sibilants settle
pink petals on passion's pond
enchanted kisses
supple dancers performing
perfect pirouettes

Piano Forte

a bolt of your beauty
rakes my eyes
with white-hot claws-
a thunderous cadenza
played on the keyboard
of my mind-
carrying me away
with the powerful passionate pace
of its rib-shaking grandeur,
over reality's obstacles
into meadows and coverts
of half-realized flourishes:
tongues of flaming arpeggios-
concerto of the muse.

March Shower

i wish
my kisses
were raindrops
pelting your body
in a march shower

Smitten

a car-struck mailbox,
tipsy, leaning on moonlight-
my love-smitten heart

Damp Dreams of Torment

thoughts of you come;
stars,
hands-full of salt
cast across the onyx sky
of my mind.
hosts of images scattered;
a vandal with quill and ink
set loose
to randomly punctuate
the bleached dome
of my skull.

nerves and atoms whirl
scintillate within me;
hallow-boned birds
forever hovering,
damp dreams of torment.

i spell your name
with magnetic letters;
romantic runes
charged with erotic enchantment:
the whole alphabet
you
the smell of honey passion
you
the salmon sunrise
you
the sweet-scented subtle sheets
you.

damp dreams of torment
are delicious,
swimming within a diamond,
your dew moistening me
through the wool
blanket of the day.

Combusting Carnivore

prowling the nocturnal neon
zoo of my mind,
groin-deep in desire,
suckling love's sweet underbelly,
swinging full
the luscious flesh festival,
seduced
by siren song
of sacred craving.
i am a night being
stalking,
dangerous.
i am a sentient being,
disillusioned,
seeking.
my fingers burn from dancing
with the flames of
love
and wanting.
i come to you
in a rolling angel's fire
fast and hard-
creating,
scorching the night,
dancing,
ranting,
raving,
blazing-
a combusting carnal carnivore.

Thin Ice

i am so consumed by my soulmate,
so pregnant with her body,
her scents,
her mewls and moans,
her retreats and returns,
so obsessed by our love,
my mind feels like thin ice.

The Sculptor

i am a sculptor,
a molder of words.
everyday i shape
origami idols.
but in your presence
i crumple them
and watch them burn
on the hearth
of your blazing beauty.

i massage stone syllables,
chip love into them.
but when i consider
your voluptuous form,
i grind them into chalky powder
sprinkling them like fertilizer
on your perfumed garden.

Exotic Perfumes

o my love, my beauty, my life!
your appalling sensuality
is the rack
of all enchantments:
i am stretched
on the wonder of your existence.

the elixir of love
swells in my veins
even when weekday,
torturous separation
buries my soul's ardor
in tyrannic darkness.

still, i rejoice in the eternal
flame of my soul:
the quixotic, pure love
that continues
erupting in a riot
of exotic perfumes.

Opium Night

i captain,
in the moonlight,
a sea-worn freighter-
slide it up the bay-
the dreaming vessel softly
parting silvery silk waters
with its satin-shin stem,
prow pointed toward the
four winds of the universe.

there it glides
in broad moonlight,
nocturnal hulk faintly throbbing,
incomprehensibly trembling,
chuffing,
gently churning.
the buried waterscrew onward thrusting,
heading out to sea,
eternity-
stars of the mad mate's sexton,
rosy galaxy-
cleaving the stirring surf-
lustrous, opium night.

Chaos Theory

sexual. sensual.
residential goddess.
beauty immense enough to leave
an imprint on the stone
tablets of my mind.

today the chaos theory is true:
the flutter of a butterfly's wing
equals the force of a hurricane.

You-biquitous

i am certain
of nothing more
than your existence.

a thousand ants
crawling under a log
may find themselves
exposed
in my child-like search

for you.

i am eternally
destroyed
by your love.

i am like a survivor
of a flood
walking through the street
drenched with
god. surprised
that all of the
drowned victims
are still walking
and talking.

maybe there's hope.

i rush to each
memory
sucking what
i can of you
out of your

various incarnations

to touch them
is to touch you.

to kiss them
is to kiss you.

love is an artform
slightly removed
from its element.

the kiss
you kissed
as if you

alone

could forge
the signature
of the sun.

i close my eyes
although
i never know
the difference
i stand before
a brighter light
at lesser

distance.

things blur.
the sun darkens.
river
like oceans
oceans
like answers
questions
in cloud form
raindrops
in stanzas

to be
or not....

to see
or not....

my dreams and reality
blend in
ancient themes

the base is of venus

cross-faded to ankh

your love drops
from a cliff
over-looking
my
heart.

When I Say I Obsess

i mean
an emergency
worse than a bassoon
or an old hag who just won't
get out of the way

i don't mean a parking lot
but the greasy oil stain
the reeling arms
of awful drinking

wooden teeth

beating war drums
hurling horses over cliffs
a red-headed step child
on a rusty swing set
or the least wanted crayon

a hydrogen jukebox
or a heavy anchor plunging into the sea

sometimes i mean
a foil galaxy
a black-ice highway
or a ghost

a honking goose
a sitting duck
a river of frozen moons
or an enemy of democracy

Stone Gargoyle

our bound souls
shift through
hidden corrals
and passageways-
i will find my way
to eternity

within you

when i can feel you
breathing into me
i, like a stone gargoyle
atop some crumbling cathedral,
spring to life
a resuscitated
angel.

Hum

i empty myself
waiting, listening.
there is nothing there.
nothing, except the hum,
discrete, growing, holding,
swaying, being, raining,
flooding, ebbing, standing.
i sense it as a vibration,
a hum, a single chorused note.
this is it:
this hum is the sound of love.
nature does utter a peep-
just this one.
birds and insects,
meadows and swamps,
rivers and stones,
mountains and clouds:
all whisper it.
there is vibrancy.
i wait, i give my life's
length to listening.
the ice rolls up,
the ice rolls back,
and still the single note obtains.
the tension is intolerable.
the hum of love
is not fantasy-
it is all there is.

Heart Murmurs

i am he:
the cube of ice
on a sizzling stove,
surfing on its own
melting tide.

i am he:
the bear with fat
enough to suck my claws
all hibernating winter,
feeding on my own marrow.

i am he:
the dormouse gone
into my winter quarters
of deep serene thoughts,
unconscious of external circumstances.

i am he:
the divining rod
of finest memory-
its sweet spring coursing
along subterranean streams.

live a starved existence
if your choose, but

i am he:
the hawk that soars
searching the horizon;
my talons poised
to pick up a sparrow
now and then.

Napalm Stiletto

her beauty stabs me
across the miles
deeper than a dagger
and the wound haunts
me everywhere-
stiletto of icy fire-
a tangerine scalpel
thrust into my heart
as when,
descending,
she pierces
my immortal soul.

Suddenly I Am

suddenly i am
in a white-walled room
with air washed fresh by the sea
while beauty descends.
i cannot see your
clothes,
your eyes or hair,
but i smell beauty.
it is neither lemon
nor rose nor lily,
lilac or orange-blossom.
it is not clover in a hot meadow
nor new-mown hay, nor wild strawberry.
it is neither honey
nor wine in a king's chalice.
women might smell of perfume
out of vials and bottles;
but you are beauty.
i taste your scent-
nectar and ambrosia-
in a white-walled room,
with air washed fresh by the sea.

Chocolate Love

sensuous beauty
coats my liquid-centered mind,
melting in the heat-
you are the taste of desire
spreading all over my tongue

Anniversary Spice

cayenne in our souls
kiss and caress, laugh and love
peppery passion pours

Would You, Still?

sumptuous septet
soul-spirited and joyous
love's holy exhale
a nun's prayer softly uttered
breathless with thanksgiving

days waft heavenward
retrieveless sunbeams captured
in love's dreamcatcher
not one granule of sand lost
from life's ever flowing glass

Sweet Blueberry Beauty

meditating,
i trip over your
sweet blueberry beauty,
a navy-blue shoe
in the shadows.

i stove my brain.
my thoughts water.

your denim clad bottom-
a sapphire
whipped-cream dream-
whispers saccharin secrets
beneath a cobalt hand.

Again

white sables cloak
wintery morning branches
glistening down
drifts heap in my mind's corners
allure's accumulation

throughout the day
a snowglobe's hypnotic spell
mesmerizes me
thoughts of you and me falling....
in love....all over....again

Someone Else's Mind

each time i journey
o'er your transcendental form,
lacking an atlas,
i finger-paint a map of
beauty so overwhelming,

the landscape seems like
a fantasy in someone
else's mind.

Quartermaster

your love
your devotion
the parka
warming my soul
on frosty mornings

your beauty
your radiance
the lantern
lighting my mind
on cloudy afternoons

your kiss
your caress
the bridge
spanning the abyss
between morning and night

She

each day's
alpha and omega-
blossoming beauty,
blended chorus of ten thousand
thousand dreams.

my lids bow,
my mind trembles,
distinctions blur.
i quit my tent
and pray without ceasing.

Romantic Definition

i watched her disrobe
firelight dancing on her skin
how was i to know
desire's definition
was not the same in all lights

from glowing embers
curling wisps of smoke arose
hearth to chimney draft
memories of e'en's romance
carried to the galaxies

Inlet Flame

at the inlet
waves crash against the break wall
snow begins to fall
her voluptuous body
heating the hearth of my heart

Eclipse

it was like dying.
without pause or preamble,
silent as orbits,
a piece of the sun vanished.
a lemon slice lost;
in its place,
flaming phosphorus.
blackbirds fled to their roosts.
my surroundings dissolved
into dusky deep indigo.
alpenglow painted
the beach's bare dunes.
it was the last sane moment
of my life.

the world was wrong.
the beach grass glowed golden:
every detail-
stem, head, and blade,
shone artificially distinct-
an art photographer's print.
the sky was navy.
my hands were silver.
the distant waves black india ink.
everything was lost.
i fell down a chute of time.

a lustrous leaf loosed
blowing across the day-star;
a luminous lens cover.
my brain's hatch slammed,
my eyes dried,
my arteries drained,
my lungs collapsed.
i was a dying man
rotating, orbiting,
embedded in the planet's crust,
while the earth rolled down.

my mind was light-year's distant.
i had, it seemed,
once loved the planet and my life,
but could no longer remember their ways.

the world imploded.
i knew a superior light
had usurped the sun's throne.
trees withered,
sand became glass.
i was alone in eternity.

i grabbed my bucket and shovel-
grammar and lexicon-
and blundered about the beach,
scrawling in the surf,
but writing
the breadth and simultaneity
of such an ethereal event
was like scribbling a crayola sketch
on a construction-paper Christmas card-
the angel of the Lord,
the glory of the Lord,
the multitude of the heavenly host-
shepherds wouldn't be sore afraid.

my mind warped,
reeling through space.
the universe,
the clockwork of ceaseless spheres,
was overcome with stupefying,
unauthorized urgency.

i screamed!
seeing it happen,
knowing it was coming,
couldn't prepare me
for the dizzying dispatch
with which my retinae
carried the blinding image
of her supernoval beauty
to my brain.

Sacrifice

dropping a hundred
in the brass offering plate
the lone sacrifice
i ever make in my life
is letting you out the door

I Try, Anyway

my heart screeches!
an atomic blast,
a mushroom cloud
orange blossom
on the horizon.
fascination overwhelms
sensibility
obliterating
meaning itself.

words fail me,
but i try, anyway.
i sift my brain's
buried alluvial bed,
picking the strata
for morsels of bone,
silver slivers
that might- perhaps-
explain the inexplicable...
beauty of you.

Club 21

mid-winter morning
your twenty-first birthday
radiant sunrise
white carnation petals beam
in an unrelenting rain

Fantasia

Endless fantasia-
My fairytale forest's find?
e'ergreen enchantment.
lesser, deciduous thoughts?
the richest soil for love.

Monkey's Paw

the monkey's fist
will not release a sweet
though his captor looms-
i understand such greed
each time i hold your hand

Succulent Fruit

the arbor of love
in the midst of your garden
yields succulent fruit
a pleasure to my senses
and nourishment to my soul

Charismata

a kiss 'tween soulmates
a language spoken in tongues
no need to translate

Organic

your beauty
is organic poetry
supple rose petals
not a museum fossil
but a living specimen

Firefly

your beauty
singularly cool and wild-
fresh as a pot of sea-mist paint-
radiates for miles,
a firefly in society's dusky meadow,
bright and high-arcing as a shooting star:
a firefly of the firmament.

Mirror

each poem i write
is a polished silver glass
reflection of you

Crimson-crested Snowbird

standing there,
a traveller frozen in my way
in a crowded Christmas Eve mall,
i was reminded of your incredible beauty-
you leaped out,
amid the cold powdery snow of faces,
a fruit of the season:
a delicate crimson bird,
shaking down the powdery snow
with your glimmering presence.
what a rich contrast!
tropical radiance on cold white snow!
such etherealness.
such delicacy of form
in the stern, barren crowd-
a brilliant crimson flower
blooming out of season,
the first peach fully ripe on its stem,
an adornment, a ruby
reflected from ice crystals
momentarily flourishing
'midst the drifting snow.

Infinite Beauty

infinite beauty, i can well declare,
no other woman could i hold so dear;
but that i love thee, this i do swear,
not now, nor ever, another revere.

enchantress, thy face is carved in my soul
and though mortal eyes can ne'er half receive
the glorious charm thy visage unscrolls,
in eternity's clear eye, i conceive.

my heart is thy captive; thou hold'st me now
in the prison of thy radiant flame;
a bond-servant to love, i humbly bow
brimful pleasure at the sight of thy frame.

each day infinity smiles upon me.
why would i seek other beauty than thee?

Transfiguration

my lover adorns
whatever part of my life
she touches;
whichever way she moves she
transfigures the universe.

if a common person
speaks to me of love,
a shallow
dull-colored puddle appears.

but if she speaks of it,
blue water and reflective hills
appear, for she has been there-
i hear the rustle of leaves
from the forest as she goes through.

Prestidigitation

love is
a magician's hand
where once was:
a red ball,
a silver dollar,
the eight of clubs,
a white dove
so confused
by its release,
that it flew
toward the audience
only to appear
on your outstretched finger.

Drunk Writing

everything
that is poetic has
f
a
l
l
e
n
from me like leprous limbs.
i can write no more verse-
thank God!
this then?
this is not verse,
this is a song.

i am love drunk.
i have no veins or blood vessels,
no heart or kidneys.
i am a roll-top desk
filled with innumerable drawers
with labels marked
in white ink, brown ink.
red ink, blue ink,
vermilion, saffron, mauve,
sienna, aprcot,
turquoise,
onyx.

it is to my soulmate i am singing.
i wish i could sing better,
more mellodiously,
but my songs are
always off-key.

the thing is:
i want to sing!
i am consumed.
i glow with a white flame.
i am mad.
i am tone deaf.
i am....
in love!

Reflection

i plead guilty!
as i stared at you this morning,
the saffron light
tenderly caressed your flesh,
your curves combusted cravings-
i came half-a-step closer.

my rival came too,
touching you passionately.
you smiled at him, eyes closed.
he drew you near as i-
inhaling, kissing your skin.

i nearly killed him-
my doppelganger.

Work Day Blues

the grand old poem
called "work day" came round
again, without any
connivance from me.
i looked out the window
and saw the faded
gray pavement where just
lately I kissed you.

it seemed as if your
departure came without
any interval
since your arrival-
i wasn't prepared
to see you scamper
away so quickly.

i wondered if i'd
dreamed you, but i saw
you took time to take
your breakfast, lunch, hand-
bag and coffee cup

your departure came
fast as falling snow.
it's a wonder i
didn't lose my sani-
ty; one instant you're
beside me, the next
you have disappeared.

weekdays love this rhyme
so well, they never
tire of repeating
it, so sweet and whole-
some is the work day,
simple and moder-
ate, satisfacto-
ry and perfect, that
her children never
weary of it either.

what a poem! an
epic in blank verse
enriched with a mill-
ion tinkling rhymes.
it is solid beau-
ty. it has been sub-
jected to the vic-
issitudes of mill-
ions of years and not
a single super-
fluous moment is
left unmolested.

Dusty Lane to Nirvana

i never know
where a poem about my
soulmate is going.
it's like a car
driven by claude rains,
an unreleased movie,
a ticking bomb
with eight-point-three
seconds left before detonation.

i never know
what love might whisper
in my ear
because its sibilants are
syllable over syllable-
a speaking in tongues-
words aching to be born.
every line is a dead
reckoning, a strategy
for getting so lost in her
that no gps could ever locate me-
each stanza is a dusty
lane to nirvana.

Anesthesia

in the violent
radiance of her beauty,
light fills my retinas,
mind, nerves, bones- every cell-
with explosions of color.

my senses dissolve
into shimmering lakes
on snow-capped mountains-
only in her absence does
the anesthesia wane.

Bathroom Love

she leaves the bathroom-
leaves our pre-game huddle-
and takes her position
on the field of life.

within minutes
i too am on the gridiron, pressing south,
straight-arming hoar-windowed cars
that lunge from driveways and side-streets.

i plunge through the line of scrimmage
triggered by the snap of a traffic light
and charge down field
zig-zagging through the faceless opponent.

breathless, i cross the goal line,
drop onto our bed,
delivering to her what i have carried intact
all the way from the bathroom.

Love and How It Gets that Way

to walk in love
through the everybody else crowd,
protected by love,
lulled by love,
dulled by love,
the crowd itself a love,
no single object anywhere that is not love,
the breath love,
love, love everywhere
and still not enough.

and then there's no love,
or little love or less love or more love,
but love, always love,
and if you have love
or you don't have love
it is the love that counts
and love makes love,
but what makes love
make love?

Winter Wheat

a field of winter wheat
reminds me
our love is still in its infancy-
a florid fact mythology mutters:

it stretches forth its arms,
tiny fingers
reaching toward eternity-
fresh curls springing from its bald brow.