This corner is a reference to a description I once used in an attempt to explain where these poems come from. "It's as if I'm hit upside the head with a brick!" The ideas seem to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. I am merely a medium and the words pass through me, it seems. Usually they come to me in a brief flash so fast I have great difficulty keeping up. Very much like the scene in Amadeus when Mozart is on his death bed dictating to Salieri; this impatient demonic voice pushing me but my hand is incapable of writing as fast as the information is thrown at me. The poems I have written are very similar in origin, only worse. It's as if I'm watching a two hour feature film for the first time - at an incredibly accelerated speed. I'm fortunate if I'm able to get an outline on paper before I loose the entire vision. Frustrating and exhilarating at the same time! So, if you're still interested, click on a title below and read on. There's a place for your comments at the end. Don't be shy, I like the feedback. I already think I suck, so it's not as if you could hurt the one feeler I have left with confirmatory remarks.

Pax Romana

Outside the high pines rattle
their dead black bones -
my own feel thin and bleached tonight,

burdened with rememberingg
a child who longed for beauty,
arranging her mother's waxed fruit.

For hours her small hands would carefully
place the rubber grapes to dangle from
the vase's milk-white edge, allow

the banana's curve to nestle the pear and
hide the chip. A few berries loosed from
their plastic vines were gently dropped, for symmetry.

Outside the moon invades
the night and I close my eyes seeing hers -
pale blue eggs.

How light must have assaulted them,
accustomed to color waxed dull,
to bare walls and thin rugs.

She dreamed of a ripe burst of gold and green,
of a bough heavy with fruit which the gods bent
with a gentle wind to her mouth.

Tonight I see a small crocus
waiting under the dark earth
waiting for warmth

waiting for light
and I sleep
with her in me.

[Pax Romana] [Mirror] [Sounds Of Name] [Homecoming] [The City Streets] [Independence Day] [Warning Label] [The Backyards Of Winter] [Locus Amoenus] [Sprites] [Memory Of Orange]

Mirror

Doe eyes follow my hands
when I talk of things
I see before him - his own
apartment, school, maybe a job,
yes, at some point
no more welfare. Deep within
the pupil, I see the red
of the van behind me
reflected. I sense
in the crinkle
of his lip, the tight line
of his jaw, his ears pricked
forward, the tension
he must feel when he thinks
of these things
he never believed
possible. I'm not a magician.
I don't hold the secrets
to any lost civilization,
or a key to ancient Egyptian
pyramids, or know the number
of steps to Machu Picchu.
I'm simply a man who speaks
in a voice, I suddenly realize,
the same as my father's - words
very different, the tone
of assurance exactly the same.

[Pax Romana] [Mirror] [Sounds Of Name] [Homecoming] [The City Streets] [Independence Day] [Warning Label] [The Backyards Of Winter] [Locus Amoenus] [Sprites] [Memory Of Orange]

Sounds Of Name

Sometimes, at night
dark dies into black,
a still oil pool
seen from below,
a small sudden dip rippling the eyes -
the first breaking sound
articulates a syllable
round
pushing a second one
at close lips
flat & a little sad.
O. A.
Maybe the form of her navel -
or the slow sigh heaving her breasts.
rOnA
as a bud crests up,
pulling in to open its core,
stamen of flesh, vibrant.
The wind ruffles up the cane stalks,
drafts seive night's cries
through my window screen.

[Pax Romana] [Mirror] [Sounds Of Name] [Homecoming] [The City Streets] [Independence Day] [Warning Label] [The Backyards Of Winter] [Locus Amoenus] [Sprites] [Memory Of Orange]

Homecoming

nostalgia can be a bad thing
I told him
past artificial hugs and
meaningless toasts there is a history
sealed off in fancy wrapping and solid cork
a vault of aged feeling

driving home
I wondered about the science of motion
how is it we allow ourselves to go back-
ward off future paths
the motion of me in my car
tires rubbing the worn face of I-85
I could only drive
forward

the miles back to it all
filled with traps and deceptions
empty recollections
distance us from the way it was
s t r e t c h i n g expectations
like a faded string on a plastic
loom

chipping away at the preserved passed
emotion

[Pax Romana] [Mirror] [Sounds Of Name] [Homecoming] [The City Streets] [Independence Day] [Warning Label] [The Backyards Of Winter] [Locus Amoenus] [Sprites] [Memory Of Orange]

The City Streets

At dawn they talk of day, at day
of night, but at night
they tell stories that none know.

Like Armstrong, no one has a
sound like them; like a storm
they possess all the colors of gray.

Like desire, more footsteps lead
to longing distances, than to home.
I still remember the way his hand
cupped change, or the way our gazes
locked, or how your back arched over the table,
crumbling bread with your hands,
already I could feel your shoulders in my hands,
or trace the line of your back, your eyes
timid and fragrant
bending over me like the touch
of your lips when you said goodbye.

[Pax Romana] [Mirror] [Sounds Of Name] [Homecoming] [The City Streets] [Independence Day] [Warning Label] [The Backyards Of Winter] [Locus Amoenus] [Sprites] [Memory Of Orange]

Independence Day

It's my turn
to spin the bottle
in the red clay heat
hoping I've done it right
with a just-perfect curve
of my wrist
and it will stop
its long green neck arched
in your direction

you sitting on your heels
making finger-tracks in dust
biting hard on your bottom lip
the air thick and hot between us

biting hard
watching
the bottle spin

wondering
what taste
our mouths
together
might make

[Pax Romana] [Mirror] [Sounds Of Name] [Homecoming] [The City Streets] [Independence Day] [Warning Label] [The Backyards Of Winter] [Locus Amoenus] [Sprites] [Memory Of Orange]

Warning Label

I tried to play fair -
even showed you the tattoo
two enduring words
Oiseau Rebelle
before the penne started to boil

The looping letters should have been enough
for a tidy understanding

a caution etched in flesh

You even traced each word
inching your fingers beyond black lace

while offering me almond pudding
which you later lapped up
off vowels and consonants

I thought you knew I would fly at dawn's first glow
swift and quiet as a scrub-jay.

[Pax Romana] [Mirror] [Sounds Of Name] [Homecoming] [The City Streets] [Independence Day] [Warning Label] [The Backyards Of Winter] [Locus Amoenus] [Sprites] [Memory Of Orange]

The Backyards Of Winter

Their only privacy now is weather,
Leaves of hedges blown south to reveal
A vacant picnic table, benches unended,
A swing-set rusty
As roses after frost.

In summer we hear but do not see
Our neighbors: laughter in the peach
Trees; clink of barbecue plate and
Croquet; chatter like a woman
With one strap off
Her shoulder.

This winter bare limbs drip,
Coated with running water. A neglected
Rake leans against a shed
And the silence is broken only
By an occasional door
Closing.

The backyards of winter stare
Like a face after a loss
Where one would hesitate to intrude
With words or footprints
Or anything less than
Summer.

[Pax Romana] [Mirror] [Sounds Of Name] [Homecoming] [The City Streets] [Independence Day] [Warning Label] [The Backyards Of Winter] [Locus Amoenus] [Sprites] [Memory Of Orange]

Locus Amoenus

What slow pomp at rush born morning
Bides laggard in the cool reaches

Bides laggard in the cool rushes
Shadow still, stripped and stripped
Net veined turns of ramble brown
Bide laggard in the cool reaches

Beat hidden fire to color now
To wind to bruise to hover
When what may not ramble again
Bides laggard in the cool reaches

And darkly then
Slow, hapless as when
Hapless as when made with turning
Still in part and partly turning
Turned light and troubled turning
On the black but answering surface

Glide beggar in the pool riches

[Pax Romana] [Mirror] [Sounds Of Name] [Homecoming] [The City Streets] [Independence Day] [Warning Label] [The Backyards Of Winter] [Locus Amoenus] [Sprites] [Memory Of Orange]

Sprites

flash above the Pacific.
We don't know why.
Far above the cumulus peaks -
fleet blue singers,
or momentary sparks
of bloody-red and purple blue.
Lying here, blue, with the AC
hardly making sway
In August, and so much
weighing heavy,
it'd be nice
to blaze up somewhere myself.
But resurrection
can't be all that much -
just a beginning again
from a middle or an end -
like that one, huge wave
that's swept the Pacific
these last eleven years.

[Pax Romana] [Mirror] [Sounds Of Name] [Homecoming] [The City Streets] [Independence Day] [Warning Label] [The Backyards Of Winter] [Locus Amoenus] [Sprites] [Memory Of Orange]

Memory Of Orange

I

you(th)
not once to be recovered
golden to my back-reaching sight
at my touch you turn to stone

being old at seven, I grew backwards into you
trying you on first at eighteen
by nineteen you began to fit
clinging and soon well-worn

at twenty, you ripped
just one place, low, and sort of in the black
no one noticed, in don't think but me

yet noticing, i couldn't stop seeing
so, somewhat reluctantly, i made do without you
just for awhile, and not really having a choice
- all the others, they had new clothes, you know -

midway through twenty i wanted you back
and you wore a new place
round my confident waist
or even just slun across my chair, near-by
me always rememberer... while they'd move
ahead...

[ MoRe... ]

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