Dying DVR
clicks and whirrs like ghost crickets
how new is that sound?

VISION QUEST-PAK

How many times have I gone so far away
I couldn’t find my way back, and relied
on the bread crumbs of strangers to
both sustain myself and establish
a reliable GPS perimeter?

How many times have I closed
the tunnel door to the past
and declared this dungeon
a baggage free zone?

How many times have I felt lighter
than air, but cooked the molecules
till they’re lighter than that,
just to watch them burst and scatter
like soap bubbles, and know that even
less than that is what holds me here…

blind white rock of moon
fall foliage blazes red
a beautiful death

I gather my thoughts
like gutted animal skins
drying in the wind

I’m bending toward sleep
crickets sound like cracking backs
fall sway the weary

The brush of my breath
strums the broken-down guitar
that sits behind me

Window-frames rattle
in the last wind from Brooklyn
yup, I’m outta here

The wick still flickers
in a candlelight vigil
for the flame itself

How dim the star is
reaching above tree branches
like a supplicant

Blinking red tower
casts a lonely semaphore
an owl hoots his own

TASK @ HAND

Oh, the Zen of it:
empty boxes piled high
waiting to be filled

Fireflies at dawn
the stars are finally gone
light comes from within

Release me, Brooklyn
from the skin I’ve grown
but still take me in

An epiphany
can be a slip of paper
hanging from your fridge

How small a corner
as a hurricane rages
two crickets still chirp

The night is alive
A cicada symphony
cut with speeding cars

Lightening flashes through
burns a wild, erratic fuse
the stars are scrubbed clean

I should walk a mile
on another man’s egg shells
before I can crack

If I drew a blank
then how could it still be blank?
I got nothing here

Soaked in summer sweat
can memories leave the skin
just as easily?

Fireflies flit and dance
a slow, cautious teletype
erased as it’s made

Oh, late-night TV
robots eating my fast food
this is what I see

APOCALYPSO

Can you feel it? The sway to the earth’s
slow grind, that tight-curled magnetic
girdle trying to muscle in and hold
everything down? How much
can stay bound? I could break
a jaw bone to break into song,
I could break the last canary
out of the coal mine,
I could go with the flow
and be drowned in rivers
much larger than me,
I could sway in breezes
and watch the beats hit
like muzzle flashes just outside
the limits of prescribed sight,
I could break free and still
be left empty-handed…

This dance you do, what do you call it?

TIMES SQUARED

History repeats itself because
that’s what written into its’ contract.
Check the sub-clause. It’s all there
in black and white, or sepia tones;
whatever steps of removal leaves you
comfortable with what can’t be undone.
It’s a self-generating property, it’s
transcendent real estate. You’re on
the ground floor of a value that can only
go down, and down, and down…

My faucet’s dripping
air conditioners still hum
a Brooklyn silence

Tethered spider web
spins and drifts, silvery gleam
from a waist-high weed

Harlem Haiku

Three spotlights skitter
across a mist-laden sky
off selling something

outside my window
an owl call cuts through the dark
we talk about shit

Moon-bright flecks of light
drawn on scurrying current
toward dark waterfall

Damn my misplaced faith
I had the key to all things
and then I lost it

Uneven warble
bird song breaking out at dawn
I couldn’t name it

Animals squabble
who can point to proper blame
out my dark window?

Brief, compacted wind
sweeps through the stuttering trees
but does not touch me

MIXED PIXELS

I’m just coming into resolution
but I’m friggin’ losing it!
I’m the pause button before
the calm before the storm.
I’m a handful of neutered
thunder claps, I’m the sound
of one hand washing the other,
I’m part of the bigger picture.
Won’t you mix with me?

Chain-link casts shadows
a distorted spider web
for me to walk through

Luminous city
like an afterthought rising
from the river’s mist

Dawn’s dull light spills in
azalea blooms burst blood-red
a deepening green

The mewing newborn
in a concussion of green
blooms about to burst

A siren at night
sounds like an owl’s frantic call
if you hear it right

Wind clatters the leaves
insistent fingers that reach
outside my window

In this gathered night
a car parks, stereo blasting
then the quiet speaks

Lost balloons sail past
pale orbs in the twilight sky
planes criss-cross above

Leafless branches bloom
silver-lit raindrops at night
just a passing fruit

The moist lip of spring
fresh magnolia blossoms
beneath the street light

The gibbering beast
outside: just a cat in heat
or my own worst thoughts?

Train’s lonely whistle
rides the mist @ 2 AM
closer than it seems

Misty halo moon
black tree branches’ tendriled scrawl
flock of geese sing past

Sunset skyscraper
sends a gleaming path across
the river to me

Seagull reels through mist
river buoy flashes red
rain speckles my sight