intimate things

chameleon, witch, hustler, con
makes us wonder if ya shake  for don
   sleep all day, at night for hire
   scaring off the honest vampires

 couldn't care less about saturn on your back
after frontal assault, a dinnertime attack
   my face still sports your loving touch
   broken blood vessels, not healed much

 take your crap to that target store
change the tags, hag, go get some more
    garbage to anchor those credit card chains,
   stuff is better than intimate things

 friends and our wisdom, our groceries, our trust
 gone in a flash from a sadist outburst

    



1634, Boston. 
into the fray

Seven Sonnets

            the wild hunt   

fohn wind hard licks the wild hunt erupting
vultures drop, motionless, shadows disrupting
   moonlit groves, armies of faries
   thrashing acorns as tornadoes carry us

down stark roads over homes wrongful built,
for hearth-fires wodan keeps, unwise wood split
   undoing the road and what's come before
   and that which was known, once before sworn

dandy dogs hunting, stay on your steed
to touch ground when godan hunts; ashes guaranteed,
   our tender feet march not that fohn wind,
   rises hot focus up mountains sharp grin

   cutting god's ice beard, the spray off blood hooves;
   red roaming ghost kings, all sensible move
____________


          selene        


Selene drives her moon chariot wanton wise
pulling men-hearts out to later feed mice
   above green earth her palace so pale
   from craters her whims all mortals regale

moonstruck by proxy, the wine in our glasses
moondrunk the chipmunk, evading owl passes,
   Selene never parks her orb spinning high
   without clouds for hitch-posts cloistered nigh

formed of Phoebe, or maybe old Theia
fished in by gravity, mystery, the moon sees us;
   silhouette of substances similar, serene
   man is kind love until shown his own spleen

shining her trademark, all night she delivers
rolling foul heavens, arming cupid's deft quivers
_________________


              norn       


Swans from swain broods emerge to the Norns
who thread twine, riverine, alluvial born;
   fates tend to puddle, well-tree over-ridden;
  the Norns sort us out, trophy in the midden

a root runs true or turns false no less,
carries our water, the ash of success
   the limbs roost above our imperiled crowns
   widow-maker swooping, silently browned

no fish to swan stalking, mirror calm lake,
no leaf left untasted, the hart there to take
   no dirt clod molested, the serpent true hiss
   there in Norn's weaving wand's illustriousness

   noblest of trees, tried on all sides
   ribs back, arm mind, heart soul& mind
______________


          nemesis spake      


Finally Nemesis spake, her truth a rake,
clawing man's crime piles he takes/takes
   for granted, till spark make bonfire;
   good, party ----get a marshmallow, dear

said Nemesis, whittling weeping willow
switches, laying castor&pollux egg on a pillow;
   mother of helen, cause of collection,
   armies assembled to die, perfection;

ceo, senator,  jocular newsguy, trump:
Watch for a chariot of griffins Clumped
   Yer frivolous Insolence and heads i remove
   Shrieked Nemesis      (her army approved)

daughter of  Ocean, her dagger primeval,
dim man-blood meet Nemesis, measured arch rival
____________________


       semele          


bathing in the river, Semele took note yon eagle
bloody from blots to zeus, his attentions "regal"
   Semele demanded the god in full glory,
   thus reduced by thunderbolt, an immortal story;

from fires sprung son dio, wine god of frenzy
born to soothe  time and man, needing ectasy
   a phoenix not ready, zeus sewed in his thigh:
   dionysus, with river nymphs, and mystis, resides

raised in sheer mountains, with panthers, his wine,
wand tipped with spine-bone,             honey of pine
   mead's golden warm fuel        fires the dance
   epiphany blooms               in orgy perchance

  twice born, the grape low:
  wine risen, man knows:
______________


         ixion       

The centaur bow aflame in absolute fire,
breath cloud via spectograph no liar,
  primordial booze of all make and kind
  ethanol, vinyl,...no wonder centaur's blind

a black hole of methane, tongueless profane,
formaldehyde crib has all life to gain
  loaning out a cosmos to spare
  a rib boomerrang returns for its share

half man-horse,  his core brighter by far,
hera dumbly his target, zeus fixed Ix with tar,
   spinning eternal from fucking that cloud
   (in hearts distillation, purely not allowed)

  big bang banished, moby dick subsumed,
  punished with powers all self-consumed
_______________


         cebele     


Say you know them sibyls of the sistine chapel;
you know the core, seed,        and bite of apple
   do you know that great Magna Mater,
   great mother, mountain planter,

Cybele seven thousand year worshipped,
iron from stars, her magnet, perfect
   cured incorrigible dionysus, raving
   grounded the grove and hearthstone, paving

altars blood worshiped, don't sneer now you mortal;
your fridge full of prophecy, awaiting, a portal;
   styrofoam chapel, all lined with the saints,
   st. bacon, st. whipped cream, st. plastic and paint

   moshing foot grinding the feet grapes undressing
   came first mothers music, mystery, sense blessings


Mt Tabor, Portland, Oregon
Jan 2, 2018


 

carving pumpkins (1988)

a. this is a poem about writing about poetry,
like a cigarette you think
you're only getting tobacco but yer smoking the paper,
like religion you think you got god
but it's just opinion with trace elements of motive,
but unlike other products this poem
has substance and a vague nature
  Q: does it smell like the wet oils of mondrian?
       does it do descarte's illusory polka?
       does it shrink, cotton-candy in the saliva
           of your mind, or does it explode,
            a dream deferred? does dream smoke
               exist, rene, if all thoughts run dreams
the question is, what are you missing
         art thou a happy green cow?
                         

                         *
                       
b. for you lazy sack of silt readers
this is an aesthetic poem, meaning
it don't address the mystery of the locked nest monster
nor does it issue a fashion statement
nor does it stimulate emotions deeper
than nausea, loneliness, ennui.
          tonight we carved pumpkins

cut around their stems& pulled out
strands of gooey slime
we piled the entrails on paper sacks cut down
the middle& pulled flat
my friends took them into a dark room and that made it
even darker, they glowered like demons
like a proper wedding
like god al made one with a smiley face
&put it in the gutted out torso of an old TV set,
an innocent model from the 1950's

its shadow flickered onto our faces
we thin gin
we sing sin
we die soon, build fleshy prosthesis controls
we remote control kids
we say no, we silly putty cracks,
we are the envy of the world spanish maid,
indian doormat
god on my side get off my cloud
pumpkins in the office, the classrooms

                   *

we used to get our milk from the goldenbergs
when i was little
when family owned little blue an ancient VW bug
we'd go puttering up to their farmhouse
on the south side of town by the public pool
where brother grant and i first played with black kids
they rubbed baby oil on their skin
to slide thru that water
grant and i would wait by the car when momma
went fetching, the front of the hood
tied shut with rope fenders red white and blue
by the farmhouse was a hedge apple tree
that gave us ample ammo for the cows
in the field their udders all saggy
leather clouds
none of them had bells around the neck
none wrote dissertations or baked perfect pies
they perfected Moos
they never tried to jump that moon
Once we saw them deliver a calf next door over at
harvey's barn in the middle of night
by the light of kerosene lanterns we say it
get born and it was swirly
                         like a red beard full of snot
                         like a frozen sun
                         like heart's drain plug 
mom would come back out with gallon jar
of natural milk, tinfoil rubber banded lid,
at home she separated cream off the top
tho invariably a tiny white curd
or two made it past and we'd wish for store-bought
milk, real milk
i'd like to think she told us sorry that's life
but i think she took it and framed it
on the mantled wall, next to a swatted fly stain,
not the thing itself,
its image.



1988 
stillwater Ok

motion stone

will not ice creeping quick advance 
   o'er sedge and swing-sets rusted creak;
hushing one sense, heightens plans of
   towhee, cardinal, flights oblique;

threading crystals, redolent mine glazed
    sun-scab brite, fracked bracken
shed sound skins, minotaur-amazed
   o'er stone gutters, halls forsaken

cedar endowed, limbs snow-ripe resplendent,
   time's beak frost heaves, super-intendent 
geometry schism, theorem incumbent
   all falls in winter's shawl, dependent

   not will's ice lends, melting willingly
   nor motion stone stay, unthrillingly




12-17-17 Mt Tabor Oregon

geminid gypsy

geminid gypsy, gyrates poetically correct

     hurtling pacifist, non passive accoutreMonts,

hurtling stone hors d'oeuvres circumspect

   talisman to mortality, predicament.


geminid gypsy asked to move on, tarried

   hitched up to earth gravity, married

sparking shotgun weddings prince harried,

   sizzling falcon eyed rainbows, parried


geminid twined, bound braid-lashed ingress;

   slamming to wake ocean floor mantle , ditto:

nine layers of possible timewaves egress

   rippling time granite, tsunami whammO


   geminid gypsy camped high on mount tabor

   lifted near crow flight, rare visit-neighbor

forsooth, the narwhale

poetry forsooth floats human harbor's better
   climes, amid dank dredging's sea-baptised
detritus, whittled perspective wood -redders,
   saw quohog & seasoned salts, capsized;

poetry forsooth fleets flounder schools sleeker,
   able to jet unjittered---- thru coral razors
in sentence bubbles ......evasion's art meeker
   as bait glows or feigns, hiding small lasers;

poetry forsooth claws nebulae from the net
   allowing humans to catch what gods only get
rare trappings of mind, as prescient yet
   drapes flesh over horizon, a personal pet;

   poetry forsooth clams all Thing all so deep,
   butter bay washings, my chowder of sleep.



12-15-17
mt tabor Oregon




   

love forged words

drown doldrums in love letters leaves,
bonfires escaped, pack rat unpleased,
tally the kisses promise delivered
savor perfumes paper misted

dwell on the images photo bona fide,
passionate cave art even Time can't hide
ultimate pledges, sweet pain of youth
harmonious contracts, poetry forsooth

floats maelstroms in love letters haunts,
waves enamored, bilge, overfull trypot ,
syrup the hauls of romances long won
far out at sea, in homes silkworm spun

kiss the tangible, her tangy wood skin,
t                   ouch stamps on the letter 
her heart made so thin,

sniff detail, the canter, the lope
                    of souls fixed, 
read touchings in word forged lunatic bliss