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.