WHOLE SALE NIGHT

The moon, immutable, punches
tin-plated grey calligraphy
across the swaying tree tops.
The slow rotation of the electric
fan like cars shushing
down a distant desert highway.
The words can’t be read, or even
said out loud. The night will close
us whole, if we just let it--
leaving us reduced to our essence.
Like the quickly ticked-off items
in the police blotter of some
small town newspaper, random
acts of petty larceny and
drunken vengeance,
the ink of mingled lives
coming off on our fingertips,
as the night’s heat disperses…

VIEWFINDER FINDS HORIZON

All the cowboys have been scalped.
All the Cities of Tomorrow a cindered prayer.
I am back on that 2nd grade shag carpeting,
oversaturated afternoon cartoons
spilling from the wood grain console.
I am aware of the treaties
and foreclosures of the past,
a tired trail whisking me
into its’ vortex that fills the screen,
the blood of every footprint
reduced to a color cell;
undifferentiated background detail.
I will streak my cheeks red
and play the Indian in the back yard.

EPITAPH

After a day of steady rains has ended, some one plays a warbling, mournful tune
on their flute by an open window, 2 AM, Brooklyn.

CAPSULE REVIEW

The Garden Mother lifts her skirt
and hence, the verdant plains.
I stand at attention
deficit disorder,
and generally miss the point,
which rests on a much-needled
voodoo doll that the angry mob
has taken a sudden dislike to.

I will take religion as a mouthful,
and want it reduced to an even
more concentrated capsule;
one slip under the tongue
and it’s done.

Salvation turns on a dime.
A neck thin enough to break
between two fingers,
like a wafer.
Hence, the verdant plains…