Paint pink the white clouds
color the dark clouds too
the closet of dry bones awaits
may today be open and new....

Adam's Lament

We slept into winter
with its barren apples
held out as gifts when
all we wanted was a
little romance, even
dry romance--but aromatic
While in the cove the
pirate danced.

The sun, that leaping sailor,
that fine red edge of life,
rises, shines its song, as,
tying my tie in the mirror,
do I.

"Ego"

Let me play the hard copy of Wednesday
the one dressed up as seven or eight dreams ago
it's trivial mustard seeds, its tying of my elevator shoes
to concrete stairs but Tuesday as in double time Tuesday
Tuesday when I really learned you or thought I learned you
and I didn't learn you. So Gabriel go blow my horn.

Remind the lush picnic apple
that I don't love her and that when I
awake and face the sunrise I don't
love that either
what I love is a hot dog on the Fourth--
that's when I get my gun and stand before
God's mirror and button all the pearls
on my embroidered cowboy shirt

Dawn

Having to say it
recommending its time
its red lingering on the white
top of a strawberry
with the earth a sheltered fortress
and rain the answered prayer
to the morning dew

Loose nuts of power
and the vehicle inspected by
cold weather
to see if the battery still haunts
the dream
the one that motors reality and
drives the A train into summer,
the hot rod into spring.

"Brunch" (a la Barbara Guest)

The saucer eyes the cup and
I eye you omelet clean with
butterfly ribs that shatter and
I lick the plate for small talk while
the eggs fry their onions brown.

so listen to that distant drum
and let us exit star bound east
the coins of gold in each of us
mix with his red and green....