Pea hail and lightning,
high winds and torrential rains –
new buds by morning.
Mid-Spring Meditation: Florida — a haiku
Month: April 2023
A Full Season of Enervation — a poem
“With a big telescope aimed straight down
I see a red dot of fire and hear the beast howling.”
– Jim Harrison
I listen to the howl of exhaustion,
a low keening unappeased by sleep.
A third month, a fourth with illness
that forces slow, relentless breaths –
it seems to abate, then surges, rising,
filling my lungs, my chest, with despair.
Fitful nights plague, that reduce me
to questions of why, where, and how.
Just now I discover exhaustion –
a draining out – is a reflex response
to a pouring in of melancholy.
Find me, bind me with a tonic;
an elixir!
Send for a priest, some oil!
Bleed me, seed me with spirits
kind and benevolent!
Play harmonies loud, lustily,
to drown out the howling!
…though I walk through the valley of “Get Set Glow” — a poem
I enter into noise that hangs
in layers like the smog over
LA when the inversion sets in.
Would my sound deadening
headphones look out of place?
An undercurrent of song –
“I’ll Keep Coming” coming
to an end melting into “2
Heads,” overlayered by
blowdrying, feathered,
laughter, conversation.
A stylist is busy sweeping
the clippings from forced
smiles – a trophy wife is
swooping out the door.
Overly loud from a sink
in back, “My first ex is I-
talian and my second is
Hungarian-I-talian. Both
know how to….”
Herbal upon herbal
assails my sinuses.
I examine myself
in one of a million
mirrors and decide
I can wait; I can…
let it go, let it grow.
“Hi!” A perky voice
breaks through “Give
It to Me.”
Damn it, I waited too
long – I’m dragged up
upstream into the din.
A Micro-Compendium of Where Brave Fear to Go — a poem
“Life presents us with so many impossibilities.”
– Jim Harrison
To smell the light that comes before dawn.
To hear the stars fade into day.
Yesterday I stepped into a song
so powerful and real – I don’t know
its name or who gave it birth.
Today the song is growing, budding
in our raised garden among Cubanelles.
Tomorrow I will make a salsa
that tastes of diminished
and augmented seventh
chords – its flavor a lasting
melody with a hint of disharmony.
To hit a knuckleball day out of the park.
To slip out of the uniform of reasonable.
Nap of the Earth — a poem
“I walk through many doors that aren’t there….”
– Jim Harrison
Truth is,
I strive to elude
detection; fly
under the radar
so to speak.
Yesterday morning I stood out in the middle of a high school courtyard, courting bluebirds in oak saplings – plying them with my indecipherable birdsong, whistling through the gap between my teeth. Nobody noticed. I did not appear to them as they droned by, directed by their phones, the buds of destruction dangling from their ears. Whatever they were tracking on their scopes had nothing to do with wildlife, with nature.
Truth is,
once I turn off
my technology,
enter the realm
of the living…
I elude so much.
Do Cashiers Dream of Bionic Bleeps? — a poem
A soon-not-to-be-a-teen rolls
me along the conveyor belt,
dispassionately she scans
me, slides me to a bagger.
I’m asked “Plastic okay?” –
as she places me next
to the bread, but on top
of the chips, chatting
with the scanner bot.
Plastic okay?
That’s all we’re given
anymore –
all there really is.
Morning Bird Song — a haiku
When Time Runs — a poem
I’m uncertain how
or why, but time protracts
at will when we part.
It sifts, shifts, drifts
listlessly until we contact
each again, then starts.
When together it’s another
thing all the way around.
Our time collapses drastically.
The window of us slams
shut suddenly, without a sound.
I become a time warp casualty.
Let us this once discard
our technology – remove
batteries from all the clocks.
Let us slip to where
time isn’t measured in grains,
in ticks, in intervals.
Let us drift into the realm
where we can just
and forever be… we.
Geography of Love — a poem
I open my eyes in the dark
of the night, turn to the land
east of where I lie – softly
scented. Terrain I know
so well!
Clouds gathered in her day
have dissipated. Latent heat
from our goodnight radiated.
Sleep that descended on us
has parted for me.
Smooth lines, hills, her vales.
Beneath a sheet, she lies under
the spell, blanket parted; her leg
out in the open.
This is topographic love!
Nestled deep in a gnarled
pillow, hollow of her neck,
her ear turned skyward –
our ceiling fan the wheel
of heaven.
Her hair becomes dark,
lush vegetation, shoulder,
an outcropping inviting
the wanderer’s kiss.
Still, I want her to sleep.
I survey her, check her
against charts I’ve made
over seventeen years.
Soothed by my love’s
geography, gentle breeze
subtle and steady, I blend
my form to hers.
Sleep comes akilter… — a poem
Sleep comes akilter,
a hillside iced.
I hold my finger up
to a crow that calls.
My refusal is deafening.
It is me; I am the constant.
Clouds become hieroglyphics;
rough patches of road,
hidden messages left
out in the open
seeking patterns.
Experienced in spycraft
code, coded missives,
coding software –
submit resume and cover letter.
I’m fine —
colors are mere colors.
Still, red carries a weight
no one can bear.
Life in Portofino 