Poetry

Betwixt Tables Bearing Couples Headphones and Ashtrays Jupiter's Sea On the Courthouse Steps Violet Evening Waiting for Autumn's Chill to Descend

Betwixt Tables Bearing Couples

When crossing through the double door
even Ghandi might grow the ill-tempered boor:
where lights swing gentle above cozy
butcher’s paper--blank sheets begging
sketched verse. Those spending days
drudged sculpt the same for those
bussing tables. Lines penned in swirling
cream, revolving in the warm cocoa
of coffee, as stars dusting arms
of spiral galaxies--twirling in heaven.
I came for sight of a living few,
perfection not blinking my bluest eye,
a pen and a pad by a half-full mug,
betwixt tables bearing couples and sighs.

Jupiter's Sea

Air explodes in a halo fifty miles wide,
cumulonimbus surges in vapor mountains 
striving to reach earth's azure dome.
Broiling clouds blown into anvils--
wide feathers stretching across sky.

Gazing upward, lost in lazy cirrus,
where thin tendrils breeze over light
atmosphere; do feet touch gravity 
of this fixed world or are legs caught
in late-leap diving into Jupiter's sea?

Swimming through violet whirls, orange
maelstroms. Sunset captured in blended
hues of three-hundred year old hurricanes.
Pale-yellows of sulphur storms that could
suck this world whole into the void.

Curls of eternal cloud-peaked temples
where dreams perch, sternly divining
imaginary threads between infinite stars.
Espy wide shadows of gargoyles aloft
gliding from gateway to gilded steeples.

To fly without wings through boundless skies
where I can feel storm clouds of every world.
Cosmic beauty grows from helium thoughts
billowing in quiet minds unfurled softly.

Headphones and Ashtrays

I am infinitesimally small.
I spit grey ash.
There is no music
loud enough to counter this.
I can not make myself
deaf enough
to excise the amber
clogging my veins,
to claw my soul
into catharsis.
No final screaming
chord-shocks and delight.

I quit this lot.

Violet Evening

Violet evening descends upon flooding meadows green.
As lilac scent takes solace in rustling springtime's heart,
Silent sentinel trees stand watch around the lake unseen.

Water licking shoreline stones, in mud the moonlight gleams,
ripples caress droning frogs and draw sleeping weeds apart.
Violet evening descends upon flooding meadows green.

Grass-lined breezes hum choir-notes, lulling ponds to sleep,
tasting midnight quickening dew melting off the stars.
Silent sentinel trees stand watch around the lake unseen.

Porchlight's halogen shaft a deeper darkness only brings
to the waving wood slumbering on the shore away so far.
Violet evening descends upon flooding meadows green.

The dampened trunks smell of moss and teem
with seeping veins of water quick beneath the bark.
Silent sentinel trees stand watch around the lake unseen.

Perpetual shade, the calming blanket, night-time gently sings
to minds floating on waves of bliss, to the lapping sandbar.
Violet evening descends upon flooding meadows green.
Silent sentinel trees stand watch around the lake unseen.

Waiting for Autumn's Chill to Descend

The poor thing was hooked up beside rust.
Rust eating through an old air conditioning unit,
Discarded on the roof. The sort of rust that burns.
Her off white gown stretched out over a surface 
of cracked tile, sand, tarpaper, a million glass shards.
She uncurled herself from the steel monster's base,
yawned as a cat, and turned her gaze upward 
from the detritus of the smashed roof, one last tune
echoing in her head, and the faint blanket of mist
covered everything. It poured from green forests
awakening in the distance. The rising sun draped
tossed blues and bright refracted yellows.
Pink and lazy violet spread through the sky.

As slowly as those scenes of multicolored morning
evaporate into the days beyond, she took one last breath,
brushed the hair from her cheeks, discarded one water lily.
withered, it fell, whispered slightly as it brushed the debris
before being blown off. Silent and unseen it drifted
waving slowly to the earth below, resting in the shade.

I can not bear the thought of the morning dissolving 
carelessly under the rising scorch of the afternoon sun.
So much so that I can no longer sleep at night.
instead prying my eyes open with mental toothpicks,
laying in bed awake, my throat dry from breathing,
strangled in the bedsheets. Then rising, rubbing gunk
pulling it from the corners and squinting, horrible
tastes sticking in my mouth. Morning glory unleashed.

Lingering on the rooftop trying to console her memory
hoping she remembers the morning always comes
and not knowing the anchor dragging sighing love
northward to the place where the curve of earth
overtakes reason. The place where the distance 
becomes freedom and dreams. My own leap too late.
Never managing to stop her before she glided past 
the buildings edge. I watched her shatter as glass below

On the Courthouse Steps

Bullets of cold rain dropping
from darkening clouds above.
Grey twisting to grey. hazy
quarter of light, bright spot,
barely sunset in the west. 
Stillness of water falling quiet.

Shoulders drawn in, hunched.
Braced against the splattering drops.
Cigarette smoke drawn in circles
around my head, draws of breath
taking twice to expunge the drags
heavy leaden with autumn fog.

Chimney smoke and smoldering leaves,
Breathe softly through the turning dusk.