“A Splice”

A splice–a thinnest notion
Separates the light from fire, determination from desire
Without from something swimming deep within.  Awesome times admire
Uncertainties of dangers in the undertow, the swelling of the ocean
As it seeks the moon–no hope of union
There, above,of course–a subtle breath of mitigation by disaster, mists
And darkest moulds in what the night sky insists
Is yesterday’s irrelevance, contaminating illusion
Of the present smiling on the past: we must move forward.
Notwithstanding, neither more nor less, in spite
Of evidence to the contrary and well beside the point. Insight
Dictates needs that lean towards or leave behind rewards
Of unknown futures veiled, obscured, preferred at last
Above the sanctions of the status quo and the energies of the mass.

…thanking everyone in advance for sympathies, best wishes and prayers before the storm…

–New York City

“Bitterness”

Bitterness serves the servile senses; malevolence the brine
Payed out to loams in newly flooded fertile delta soils.
Where there are no antidotes, no alternatives, no holy oils
Can soften evidence. When the flesh is spent the rind,
Manure to tried and tired conscience dried, provides desire enough to find
The seed gone stray, some few limbs, fibres of miracles for future coils
Of awe and circumstance. Pick up the rake, then, the hoe; gather roots to boil
And treasure newly welcome honest broth, the meagre rendered never-mind.
The taste is saline, yes? So much for what we cannot say before the hour turns
Sour, the afterthought enshrined within the hourglass that soon enough restores
Its natural balance in the night. A hint of moisture overrides the will at dawn,
Some confidence to see what’s left exceeds what’s been withdrawn.
Odds are that even in the ashes of denial nothing’s left to burn;
Where there is no decision, interest is the fruit that’s rotted to the core.

“Who Tolerates the Touch”

Who tolerates the touch of palm and fingers
Triggers of the tympanum’s lover’s voice,
The involuntary arch of eyebrows, that choice
Of recognition dresses doubt that lingers
Yes a while on what once was until it reconfigures
Long enough to serve the summons, reaction’s invoice,
Undesired but necessarily what is required; a void
Is not an option to the unbelieving mind. Ligatures
Every particle seeks are sealed with audience, weight,
And purpose in immortal cycles that begin and end
In memory, its regeneration suspends
Its own belief and use within its measured time.
For him who wills cannot resist nor hesitate.

“The Greatest Sanctuary”

The greatest sanctuary saves, preserves, and seals
The last and latest treasure; final fears are entertained
And in the end repeat themselves penultimate in any age
That’s spent with nothing left to say. The morass of months reveal
Themselves as names, the briefer moments cast in isinglass,
And hung above the door as witness to emotions borrowed to defend
The journey of both giver and what it is that’s given–split ends
That pass at times for purity of desire. Consternation, then, at last
Effaced, those few peas remaining within the pod will spend
Themselves while outward bound to what is after all a dream
Or merely someone’s lunch. They groom together–the sheen
Is frayed–delay is shame when every effort to confirm or to renew offends.
Reconnoitred, what were formerly evergreens
disclose themselves as deciduous devotions
That decry their former riverbeds as puddles, watersheds of desiccated oceans
That long since disappeared. Yes, we’ve seen this rain before
and now we see it every day;
Umbrellas up, umbrellas down, yet these expose
Themselves as useless as the refugees keep running, hoping, close
To bolting at the slightest sign of teardrops in their pain.
And what is gained in either case, the with
Or the without? The question here is moot.
Is moisture poison to the man who values silks in suits,
Or to the woman bound to shake her fist
At every incident that renders hairspray a total waste?
But these are questions for the sophist’s notepad and fodder
For prevarication while what is relevant to the journey, a blotter
For veneers of life are disclaimers and discounts which so easily make haste
To negate what is evident in a common tin of oysters or a jar of lox:
The end of every one of us is six feet under in a box.

“Abuses of the Flax Seed”

“Abuses of the Flax Seed”

Abuses of the flax seed, innocence in fruits
To sooth the stomach, clothe the back
And something close to comfort in the haystack
Comes to mind to suite
The times while I lie wasted.
I am in need of rest from all I have,
A kind of promissory ointment, beyond salacious salves
To moisten gross reliefs from what I’ve tasted.
Here it comes, then, repetition once
Too often off the mark by widths
Of little more than flaxen hairs. Maudlin myths
Give rise to hopes that round circumferences
Of any given globe lie peace and wisdoms
Enough to neutralize desire and indecision.

“They Spiral Out of Control”

They spiral out of control from coffers spun from circuit spools;
Images of speed spin webs of egregious debt beyond the means
Of organic opulence in public nothings; obscenities gleam,
Gratuities scream for leverage and credit in psalmistries of fools
And idol vendors’ biases. They feed on repetitious runes
And civic machinations, seizures of domain and sovereignty alike, slide
Markets and the rule of law in rubrics rank in rows of 1′s and 0′s. Abide
Beyond the codex then and close the open yaw. Computer litanies in rooms
Are daily sabotaged by Trojans soaked in scripts that rake the silvered sliver
Signals on the mountain noting slightest change to encourage evanescence.
Prolixity is the key to programmes obsolete and in arrears in advance,
Entitlements among the fêted calves and levied bank accounts
and corporations that deliver
All night long at half the cost of virtual holocausts
and ritual endlessness in angst in single souls:
They’ll not abate this side of cancer,
nor speculate beyond what they’ve been sold.

“Briefer Images”

Briefer images at dusk along the street and wonders
In me–who is that woman? Street lamps, yes, the moon
Or worse that slaps us both; tarnished, and in a tangent off some June
From long ago, memories in a travel log of time when I still blundered
Through the odyssey of all my fears and slumber seemed forever light,
The blush and dimming of the spots somehow pleasing to so many people,
Then, and still I stood in line to see her eyes.
Distilled prayer beneath the steeple,
Midnight trains and wornout seats in Greyhounds,
uses of the every highway dedicated to gemutlichkeit
And momentary glory! More, a never-ending wanderlust and steam
To drain the festering boils of youth in rhymes of two dimensions:
Points from “A” to “B” to “C”, perhaps to “D”, and mention
Here and there of this I saw or that within what dreams
Concealed in endless intercourse in the night and I so moth like in the rites
Of great mahatmas in repose amid the golden spinning wheels and kites.

“Too Dark”

Too dark, the image is spontaneous surprise
Allowing for callow simplicity, widespread, not
Freely strung, perhaps, nor finely wrought.
Spoken, an oblique word to add to some collection, surmised
And measured plans without a thought to instruments of light,
Nor proper canvas housing hues and filigreed beams
To grace medieval drawings and ever-flowing dreams
In cold rejection foiled, splays to mask the monumental heights
Routine in use no matter how magnificent: you preferred hopes
To need, to full-grown trees but tiny seeds,
Or wholes that must in time disintegrate; a flute, perhaps a reed
In need of being played, the player all too often wrapped in robes
Of musk-dyed silks and ancient tides,
And all the while I merely smiled and let it die.

“I Anticipate the Moments”

I anticipate the moments. I strive,
But there’s not it–the fireflies sweep
Through me as legacies of sheets
Of rain and sleet within a tired mind. Contrived,
My expectations are a tepid fog compared
To what I feel when you are with me. Now
I see I cannot trust myself to disallow
Disguise and art; when face to face the errors
I embroider come unravelled right
Before my gaze, and I am bound to show
Without what should remain within. Even now,
I cannot recreate myself in time to face the light
Of what I am, so plainly seen by you and all our gods, and I deny
I ever waited, wanted, longed, or even cared to see your eyes.

“Surprise Her, Then”

Surprise her, then, and leave the rest
To guess what took so long; he waited patiently,
She preferred a mirror; he, a glass of sanctity.
Eternity? He had no time. Her guess
Was lost on both of them; they never cared
To tip the waiter and neither bore the blame
For tastelessness in choosing tables, lame
Excuses mumbled that the appetite just wasn’t there,
And, after all, the glory of a pearl is its frugality
Amongst the gems with nothing wounded on the sharp communal knife.
These holy breads come whole, unsliced,
A lethal wafer, lightly tasted with a toast to purest blasphemy
And one more for the road. Infinities in anonymity are served in double slices
As an altar’s daily sacrifice, eternal virtues
stripped of immortality reduced to vices.