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.