From Fog To Fog

The fog on the lake New Years Eve
was smooth and silky, seductive and mysterious.
The fog in my head New Years day
was neither seductive, nor mysterious:
it had the fury of a woman scorned,
the fiery quills of a porcupine cornered.
Thankfully, though, the memories
will fade into myths and legends, since
the batteries in the video camera were dead.

Howling Madness

The wind, like a rabid dog,
mauled the tender skin of my face tearing
succulent warmth with carnivorous icy teeth.

Trembling trees with cowardice,
bare to the curves and fractures of their spines,
moaned with sympathy, but, dared not
pull the beast from the feast of my suffering.

I endured the ferocity, the viciousness
of its demented assault; gathered
an arm full of fat lighter and dry logs
to soothe the stinging in my wounded cheeks.


Thank you all for your kind offerings, and continued support with my long absences. Hopefully this will change soon and I can get back to doing what I love best, well, second best anyway.

A Little Rain Must Fall

Where will the dancers be
when rain ceases to fall?
poets when thirst ridicules words?
They will be clanking chimes of bones
performing in a wind that has no soul.

Forests won’t remember carpenters,
clouds won’t darken with the smoke of war;
sunsets will set fires in the sky, and nights
will sleep soundly without voices wet to mourn.

Fixing Flats

A leak sprung in my mind:
a screwy thought, maybe, but
more probably my worn out way of thinking.

I should take it somewhere,
get it patched, plugged or replaced.
Think of it, a new mind with zigzag treads
that’d wouldn’t hydroplane on stormy days.

Out of my budget, so I’ll pop another patch;
skid around on bald resolve, fixing flats.

A Green Recipe

It may be time for oil barons to be boiled.
Add vegetable politicians, julienne or chopped,
dice up a few judges, add garlic and salt.
Simmer and spice with cloves of lawyer tongues,
stir in all-media seasoning till it tastes dollar free.
Obviously, can’t do this, but it’s appetite for thought.

She Is What She Is

Her sleek outline curves from stern to bow
like a smile, friendly, with a red gunwale gloss,
wet and glistening, inviting sunrise to a kiss.
She isn’t a faithful lover: the sea slips
its smooth hand down the belly of her keel;
the breath of a passionate night to come
whispers in the taut cables of her mast.

Religion

Religion, as a word in Scrabble,
has very little value at all.
In the overall schemes of two-legged beasts,
its worth is incalculable in dollars and cents.
In the bony shadows of widows, and protruding
bellies of orphans stuffed from breasts of air,
its purity is proven when the lest of these are fed.

Waltzing With A Dream

I plan someday to stop working,
not today, but, hopefully not too far off.
Sit on my porch, and watch the sun, clouds,
wind and rain paint miracles across the sky.
Of course it’s part of our culture to retire,
go fishing, play golf and eat peanut butter
and banana sandwiches whenever we like
(take a handful of pills for eating whatever/
whenever we like, too). I, also, want to write;
write words that have the flavor of a juicy apple,
where the dripping sweetness to the last bite
leaves you with the seeds of more to come.
It’s a dream, a hologram of thoughts that spin
like animated dancers in a waltz that may never be.

Miss October

The temps here have started
taking off their steamy attire for Fall.
It’s been a long Summer tease, but
we’re getting ready to crawl under the covers,
and snuggle-up through the night
with a calendar babe of color.

Zorro

What do you do
when you’re created without a tail?
Obviously, you become a cat;
a cat named Zorro, furry, black and white.

It must’ve been hard
to grow up without a tail to chase, but
what foul air missed in swishes and twitches,
ears and long stretches made up with scratches.

To sleep forever for pearly white teeth,
is one way to slip out without saying goodbye.
But, you left everything cluttered with tears, now
your memory will have to clean up this mess.

( For my sister who just lost her cat)

Fanatical Followers

My shorts are getting seasonally shorter, and
my jeans are hanging precariously close to a fall.
I prefer the shorter to the longer, unless it’s
the un-hemmed intrusion of night into day.
But, my choices are whims of illusion, my pants,
fanatical followers of the realities of air.

Harvest Time

Her eyes have squinted tracks on sunlight
more years than first glance would show;
a smile flushes out a flock of stars
from a temple with priests of lightning and rain.
She dreams with the maidens of poppies,
but still walks with children of cloth and steel.
It won’t be long before tears make mud of earth,
and her harvest filtered through clouds and light.

Blessed Dysfunctional Clouds

The thunderstorm, that needed Viagra
to express its pleasure as a virile entity,
cooled the afternoon enough so I could
sit on the back deck, and listen to a hoot owl
and hawk harmonize on the same dinner melody.
I’ll never know if the screech, or the hoot,
won the take-out prize, but, I thoroughly
enjoyed the dysfunction of the afternoon storm.

Breakfast Marauders

There’s more to life than cinnamon pancakes,
and fat-sweet bacon frying in a non-stick pan.

But, when

the raging fragrances of breakfast are close
to breaking down the olfactory gate, and

drowning

my appetite in buttery maple syrup,
it’s time to cease my Sunday morning prayers—

“we give thanks...”,

and slice and stab the source of the raiding smells,
sending them to the bowels of contentment.

Skin Art

If I ever decide to redecorate
the birth-issue-fits-all-ages skin God gave me,
I’ll probably rip off two patches
of peel-n-stick blue sky, and
lay them over my dried-out hairy arms.

I have enough sun covering
the hills and valleys on my forehead—
ground cover that never needs mowing;
maybe, some moon-cream to moisturize,
and bring out a soft night luster.

I already plan to get an earring when I retire,
but, before that, I might steal two studs
from Orion’s belt, and brighten up my nipples.
I can hide those under my shirt.

Stud-Mutt With Means

Murphy loves tassels on shoes,
strings on rugs, and gritty lumps
from the cat’s litter box. Yes,
oh yes, that is what it is.

Dry Onion Soup mix is a favorite,
two packets to a box, chewed and
scattered all over the kitchen floor.

He’s in love with the girl next door,
who won’t give him a prayer of a sniff.
Milk bones and Pedigree dining at six
have him acting like a stud-mutt with means.

Needle-Tooth Pricks

She will stick a hollow steel fang
in my arm, or hand, depending where
she finds a vein unwilling to roll over.
Then, draw the plunger back sucking
my blood into a plastic “vial” throat, with me
sitting helpless on sterile butt-sticky tissue.

If she hits the mother lode on the first stick,
it won’t be as excruciating as the last. But,
I know better, my veins are tunnels of
make-the-eyes-squeeze, dog-slink rollers
away from needle-tooth pricks.

Always A Meal After

It’s been over two years since a fish bellied-up
above the ceramic castle in our aquarium.
It floated like a yellow cloud over those
it swam and ate and nipped at as peers.
I slipped the net under its fin-still form,
a dripping mesh hearse for the ride to the trash.
Wet coffee grounds to coffee grounds, covered
on a pile of gnawed-to-the-bone chicken legs;
the burial done, time to feed those that are left.

Keeping Up With

The crape myrtle is full of itself,
decked out in fine Summer blooms.
You’d think it was going out for lunch,
or receiving guests for afternoon cards.
Of course, it’s just keeping up with the petunias
wearing purple and white, everyday the same.
And, they’re determined not to be outdone by
uppity impatients sneering at them from the shade.
My God! A yard full of one-up-it petty “petalites”.
The grass, in lingerie shadows, will not be left out ,
and nothing will stop the pines and pears from
braiding their leaves with moon-dyed ribbons and stars.

Two New Dogs

The one hates the other,
the other is playful and young;
neither of these “anywhere-on-the-carpet”
dog food re-processors is house broken.

The first, was a male Australian Shepard,
street trained, between one and two,
or seven and fourteen in canine math.
The second, a male black cocker with
a schnauzer nose, cuddly, cute
and quick as a blast of back-fire smoke
when escaping the Shepard’s snout.

The younger came without his manhood,
the Aussie’s are intact for another week. But,
even without his testosterone birthrights,
I’m afraid he’ll always piss-out yellow post-its
telling the cocker to get out of his house.