picnic serene and severe

should you find some island as near
that bulwark i call poetry, claim it without flag
in crisscrossing hammocks serene and severe,
drawn back from ocean's furnace slag
that once formed solitude a chalice
from which lips yet parched held moist
vital liquids, not tears nor malice
over life repairs which render one moot under hoist
with heart yanked up to inspect,
valves tapped with random challenge
to insinuate a negligent regime of derelict
maintenence most plainly false, as stands this stonehenge----
    quarried afar and neither clock nor ruin,
    let my state think music with no borders, nor tune
                                   *
serene carried a painted horse past the ocean
without bumping the beachball, or missing
the banker's awful name so severe
the clouds ran on schedule down his cheeks into a glacier of ferns
under which sandwiches of cucumbers giggled
to please the olden lady iron fence hinges
stacked into fort knox nachos under a terminal sun of teeth
for which even a jetty of insulated aluminum
could never hope to help traverse this devalued decade
so serene under her eight night umbrella of glass
made whimsy with her sisters and harkened to distant brothers
as typewriters tell telescopes all quantum riddles
are unboxed sphinx, neither purring nor asleep
claws on a milky way tail keeping day at bay
serene held a kite string and the horse got astray
                                     *
skylight on sunday, a memorial to war
cherry limbs and utility poles,
novices between crevices look for ants: hers.



Mt Tabor, Portland Oregon
5-29-16