2:43 a.m. and I get up to pee. There’s only the night light, knee height. I shuffle arthritic, steady the wall, when a white thing bumps my eye like a drifting balloon. In a hissed whisper, “bitch” it says, imploding its albumen, stifling my breath. I don’t have to pee any more.
The motions
I am left-leaning,
by dint of bones.
In love
with the art of the cat
and his season of the witch.
In the morning shower,
in coveralls of numb,
I cook up paeans
to the nebulous You.
This feels wrong
A recent change of heart.
A looming change of mind.
An anxious left-handed day.
Unforgettable
Author, I call you.
Explorer and visitor.
Architect of chapters
in the tomes of my dream.
a plan
Coffee in the quiet warmth of morning. Birdsong ‘neath a cloud’s tilted anvil, and the way they paint their paths to a landing. Soft intrusions of fly feet and the clack of a late beetle. The imprisoned cat, with his round lamps and cobra sway. Later, I will buy boxes of band-aids.
Please
Give me your hand, Love,
in these cold rooms of doldrum.
Give me your hand, Love.
By design
What is here,
by design,
is umbilical to me.
This feed of life
and blood of red.
But now,
instead,
a sorry head
thinks of strife
and the future of a knife.
Stewing in the green
You know,
don’t you.
You can tell.
I sit in the greenery,
but perceive only symbols.
All of its inhabitants
seem impatient,
as if to chide me
for this microscope of mine.
I am strafed with ill-considered bullets,
held down with malice,
but find a friend
in an unlikely place.
alexa’s home
A pajama morning,
and I’m barefoot on the splintery deck.
Creamy coffee smoke’s rising,
and a gull’s keen scream beats up a warbler’s song.
There’s a sun-gotten image of a fulsome tree
trapped and cancelled between smoky panes.
Inside, I speak to a machine, who answers tritely
in the accent of the day.
The Following
Awoke,
did I,
to trap a dream
untrammeled in its art
But hurriedly it lost its gleam
Though I drew it part by part
How to capture?
How to keep
such singleness of soul?
Such loving rapture
born of sleep-
‘twas one of Heaven’s foal!
Aremyfeetofftheground 