from her morning walk

A shoe in the window, or it's a cat
She seemed to say, with her mouth half open
Pointing with both hands. See. There. Look at that.
Face damp with spray (or tears from the ocean.)
"it came out less than I intended,"
She said clearly, I could hear. Both eyes
Look at me. The cat...
"I walked there," making coffee,
"Couldn't see the point," she said,
"Clearly." The soft grey in the corner.
And curled around her ankle.
Faint moaning in the distance,
She shakes the droplets from her hat brim.
A little cry of hunger from below.

Change: one

Elect me as your president
Open this new chapter of life
History speaks through your blue eyes
A quality of strength in your make-up
You mediate the channels of the heart
Loosen the knots of red and white.
Enter with me, this majestic plane of power,
Discover your true feelings. Open,
Allow yourself to breathe
The warmth and happiness
Of your nation,
Your people,
Your power.
Celebrate,
The shedding of the skins:
Masquerade of colour,
Changes of the moon.
Lift me out of glass-green night
And raise me as your flag
Spangled with mystery
To fly, free in the brooding wind.

questions

Are you the one for whom I searched?
Scratching the surface of the skin for hidden stings?
Poking in places where I did not belong?
Have I embarrassed you?
Made you blush and turn away?
Are you aware how long I've looked and lusted
After the traces of your scent
On the gentle breeze of evening.
I've torn down houses looking for you ,
Mowed down old forests like they were merely men.
I've drunk whole oceans,
Thirsty for the taste of you,
Only to find myself dizzy and belching
On the shores of a dead sea.
Do you know the mountains i have moved?
The deserts sifted, grain by grain of sand?
And how many answers have I found?
Your name written in the mist?
You calling out with the voice of the wind?
A flower exactly like your skin your lips your eyes?
A bright spot of sunlight shifting on the forest floor?
A star that died in eons past
Whose light only now begins to twinkle in a corner of the sky?
What are your names, the first and last?
How should I call you?
Is there a number for you?
I can reach across space and time,
But only so far, so long.
When I find you again, will i know?
It has been so long,
Am I still searching
Or merely waiting
For the end?

Of friends, kin and travelers

I Dreamt that I had Quarreled with my Brother
and Woke to find His Blood on both my Hands.

Sister Told me we were Both born only Children
and our Kindred wandered Far across the Land.

Each of Us must Search to find our Mothers;
Take our Places in the Family of Man.

As we Gather up our Promises and Wisdom
and Suffer in this Place of blood and Sand

Learn to See your fathers' Loving Heart
In Every one you Meet,
and Hear his breath in Every word you Say

Someday You and I will Meet again as Strangers
Pray we greet as Friends and fellow Travelers
and Recognize our Kinship on the Way.

Don't look surprised!
Poor old William
Shook off his winding sheet
And stumbled into sunlight!

-March 25, 2008

Et tu Brute? - Then fall Ceasar!

And you too my son,
shall know the taste of power.

Sighting Whales

A child, my parents took me sailing.
We often crossed the old whaling
grounds off Nantucket and Cape Cod.
In the spare sphere of sky and water,
My Father cut the engines
Tacked a swerving course
Across the Open Sea.
Our tiny old ship
Barely made headway,
And we'd wing the mainsail
And the jib,
Posting out the genoa
Like a flying spinaker.
We took turns
Hanging on to a sheet line
Off the side
Just for the chilling rush
of dragging through the deep.
I think I first learned courage
Hanging on to a rope under clear skies
while the fathomless Atlantic
rushed around,
Below,
Salt stung my eyes
But I recall how the mid-day
Sun pierced the depth, Illuminating volumes
of green emptiness.
Maybe trust, was the lesson
and courage only followed.
I was only ten or so
but as i drift across the years
i see my father's strong arms
Hauling me in
Lifting me full out of the water
Pulling me to the safety of the transom
with the firm arm of a hero.
(memory serves as well as truth
some days: for Caesar
was an honorable man.)

The whales came suddenly,
like a revelation. at once
they were all around us
breaching the briny
meniscus of their fluid empyrean
with a whistling blow
that left misty plumes in the air.
A pod of ten or twelve
With at least one small fin
breaking water
alongside it's mother.
Then as my parents
pointed cameras
to capture the truth of the moment.
A great rush of water
yards off the starboard side,
great swell of grey whale flesh
and the glimpse of one dark eye
before the creature dove,
he raised the broad fluke
and smacked the water once
like a gunshot. They were gone.
I shivered naked in the sun
My father struggled with the helm
Mother slack jawed,
staring at the horizon.
That was us in a snapshot.
The photo's showed a grey back,
a fin and just a wisp of whale breath.
Nothing to remember.
just a ripple in the sea and sky
Frozen in my memory
I see us all

Trying to stay on course

Recording this moment

Standing alone
Stricken in the presence.

missing

Her hands hold
An old photograph
Fingers touch
The image, faces
Shadows on paper
Burned in silver
In a moment of light.
I cannot see
My sisters face,
But are these tears
In both our eyes?

Ariel to Ferdinand:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

Will-o-wisp

Wind and rain re-wrote the dust on my wind shield Which used to say “wash me.”
Now I peer through the mire that my wipers make, the fog too great and dense. Even the Mounts that squirt fresh fluid on the glass, miss the mark and aim over head, spattering the car behind me with blue fluid. I drive slowly, avoiding the lines painted on either side of the road. I wish for better busses, cheap cabs, and a means to see the light ahead, glowing green or red. If i could only take my hands from the wheel, and guided by mist, find my way to where I belong.

“Of Course I feel needed here,” I said.
And the old places where fog always gathers, still fill with obscuration.
“You Will Always be a part of me.” she said
” I need a cigarette, ” said another, passing the same churchyard.
A thousand days since my sweetheart went away,
Found a baseball player, another city to be proud of, still
The mist gathers in the field by the old chapel.

I walked there after work some days,
among the palmetto and the pines,
a hidden grapefruit tree
bore the rare pink fruit.
I 'd throw the fallen, bitten ones
Against the laden branches,
To knock the occasional,
fresh sweet orbs
from among the
Common scrub.
One day a woman asked,
(as her spaniel sniffed the hidden traces,)
“Is That your tree?
Do You live here?”
I answered, “No,”
“But this fruit only goes to waste.
There is so much.”

At the service station,
A young woman asked for a ride.
She had some beer, as did I.
“Where to,” I asked;
She said, “Just drive.”

(Do I dare?)

If you see tiny lights
cross the bay-way
bridge in the distance,
or shapes of fog dancing
between the trees,
by the old church,
If you wonder at
The Murdered Princess
Mound, or other places here about,
I'll be your lad till Bloomsday.
We can sit and listen
to the hiss of distant traffic,
Listen to the lisp of tropic
Waves against the sea wall,
And wonder at it all, but if
You're just out of smokes,
Can't find a light, I'll Drive
You back to the booming intersection.
I let down my, shaggy locks
By the lisping water at the wall:
confessed my weakness,
near the misty field,
the secret grapefruit,
kissed my love between her thighs
'till it felt like rivers.
And the rain.

Where were you when the car broke open?
Morning blushed the pale sky?
And I saw peace in the glint of your half closed eyes?

Where were you when i gave these other women rides?

Past the churchyard, i remember.
The wispy fog that clings the ground.
The lights across the bridges and the waves against the wall.

January: central florida, gulfcost.

I've come so far south
I forget the pristine
torture of the snow.

How miserable

when everything is nice.

I almost break a sweat
On my morning walk.
Ospreys
In the mist,
catch fish.