Old petrified moon,
you borrow light well--
like a dowager's ball gown.

The miracle dream,
the one that holds the diamond,
always seems amused.

Waves rise like moments,
moments rise like waves.

I met a sailor sailing as
he sat upon a log.

He said the stars make
good bank loans when
the dice roll storms at eleven.

Worms, he added, are good
when the trout are hungry,
and if we could fin-swim
we'd be whales.

But only those whales whose
oil is good for light.

Then he got off the log and swam off.

red lead heavy
the color in the waist
of the day this drydocked tug

The sudden cloudburst,
the one winking me
every flowing, flowing, sea.

The threat of the mirror,
unlike the window,
it knows how you look

Carapace,
the dimension
of your innards
is me.
Silky, my dream
of freedom. Silky,
my call to love.

Darkness folds tentlike
while the stars crapshoot midnight
in this great outing

Firefly----
who owns you?
The Milky Way?

The long winter of the new
whispers I love you's
once buried snow deep

The azelias fade,
but will flower again.
The new dogwood,
steadily growing, now
blooms. I water both.


Hitting on midnight-
she wears her feathered boa-
eye shadows her stars.

Stipulate
"thy will be done"
and the dust
will still be dust
but finer,
almost a healing dirt-
certainly a growing one.

Big grin locomotive, your
ties drenched in creosote-
that you do not smell, that
I dare not smell- until my anger subsides.

Catch me, the moon said,
in that window with the new white lace.
Am I not your new bride? If not,
curtains to you!

Good morning, I'm the truth,
please give me a big hug and a big kiss,
for I'm that snow white bird in a dark thicket,
one near that so-far-distant tree. Yes, that's
what I am, that's what I do. Love me.

Coca-Cola colored,
they told funny stories
(these underground seeds)
about how it was to bloom in the light
about how it was to feel redeemed
about how it was to finally breathe,
to finally give, take,oxygen.

Those memories,
the ones that spit on time,
the ones that sail like hubcaps
after a crash
are the ones undimmed
are the ones that blind
are the ones to meet head on,
to talk about before ...

old country store seed packets,
like shimmering dreams,
get tucked in tight drawers

The cannon balls
whistle lightly
above my ditch.
Surrender? But
that only brings
freedom.

"Trooth," she said,
"I'll get you one--
fifty cents. Put a
dollar in the machine
and get two. And that's
the honest trooth."

It battles still-the wreck of me-
Karl Shapiro and his poem
about his new Buick.
Me, a Hot-Rod magazine kid
whose father drove Buicks,
big upper middle class Buicks,
Buicks which were not quite
Cadillacs but good enough
for a Sunday ride to the
Presbyterian church. A
good church to be sure, but
not quite Episcopalian.

Twilight comes
the color of an aging bruise.
The Daffodils have come and gone.
But the Tulips still bloom and the
Impatiens nod and wave at the sun,
the slowly warming sun.

small musical notes
and billowing kettle drums
the cloud orchestra