Soul-spoken spirit,
unbound, in flight.
Pineal eye gets a look.
Events celestial.
Of a hair’s breadth am I,
in this filament.
Then,
a promise warms me
like an innocent’s blush.
And now
this mote
understands.
Category Archives: poetry
Cadaverous
In the wrenching spell of nightmare,
something cadaverous,
phosphorescent on the forest floor.
Bleached as if drowned and months missing.
Current-carried, caught on some subterranean thing.
Tell me it isn’t you.
Tell me.
Oh, my love. My life.
the cane mutiny
As we sat
in stuffy waiting,
you came by,
lady with the cane.
Regal in your latter years.
And I had a flash dream, unreasoning.
You in white apron and slippers,
sounding your steps on creaky pine.
Your support- a bannister with loose pickets.
And you did not rely on it, did you?
Too little, too late?
It doesn’t matter now.
What you say.
What you do.
If you cry,
gnash teeth,
rend clothing,
wear ashes.
There are no more new leaves
to be turned over.
A change of heart grows of its own,
and not quickly.
See,
only a few will have seats
in the parliament of planets.
Mister wrong
The blush of May-December
A soul-spoken smile.
Sidelong glances
In a game for two
Illicit attention
then Public shame
She preened no more
And December went down In dark turbulence
Two wrongs, though eager and rushed,
Did not make a right
The test of time
In forest found,
a javelin,
its haft bejeweled with beads.
Its feathered shaft unraveling
was hid amongst the reeds.
Such luck there was
to find this thing,
of mythologic worth,
whose perfect point and balancing
impaled the crooked Earth.
A rainy day
Tie-dye me a shirt
the purple and ochre of bruise.
I’ll salt it away in a drawer,
and save it for a rainy day
like this.
If only you knew what’s inside of me now,
you wouldn’t want to know me,
somehow.
33: A mantis in Atlantis
Under the sea
Under the sea
Life is much better
Down where it’s wetter,
take it from me!*
I was strapped to a stool
facing a desk
on a concrete floor
under a hot light
Behind the desk sat a Mantis.
Unusually large (s)he was.
Triangular visage.
Opaque eyes.
Saw-toothed arms, chitinous wings.
Elbows on the desktop. (do they have elbows)
It wanted me to play the shell game.
With actual shells.
It lifted the centre shell
and placed a copper key underneath it.
I knew it would fit my locks.
With a whiz whiz here
and a whiz whiz there,
it stymied my eyes.
Then chittered out some tiny bubbles.
I was to pick.
Left-hand one: empty.
Right hand one: The key! I had done it!
Whereupon it raised up a grassy palm,
stopping my reach.
Pointed to the centre one.
I lift.
It’s me, miniature me. Runs around with a puny scream.
Mantis makes a grab. Stuffs mini me into mandibles.
Reaches out with saw-toothed arms…
*Disney
Watch your tongue
So close, so comfortable.
Confident, and cocky.
The tongue to the teeth.
It whistles and wounds,
Tickles and titillates.
But, have an eye on avarice,
lest the teeth, with a bite, rebel.
And often check for unlearned lessons
and Egos prone to swell.
Always falling when you come calling
Slate grey bird
high high up
sails slowly and grandly
skimming the underbellies of grumbling cloudbanks
Pteranodon of today
we think he summons the outliers of fabulous flocks-
chortling geese bound for southern climes-
the Flying “V”‘s of fall.
Aremyfeetofftheground 