Sunday, April 26, 2009


FOREIGN LANDS


The grit of the boot print
is seen in an unflattering
ultraviolet close-up, slightly
out of focus, a single cusp
zoomed-in on the satellite map.

Who but the prince
could lift the sword?
These stories are already suspect,
like thumb prints around
a throat that’s telling.

Who is the one who can name
names, who sent the princess
past the toll gate? Who can find
the edges of the earth and mark
it finished in the dark?

I guess the answer is,
who ever gets there first…

Thursday, April 23, 2009


FRAMED


Bird song at dawn—
a melancholy one-note.
The capillaried tree branches
etch the sky into parcels
of cold white light.
My window frame can’t
contain them.

Thursday, April 16, 2009


OPEN PALMS, A PRAYER


Such a tired god who labors
between our pauses.
The ground is wet and green;
tufts of color arise
from the rain’s sacrifice.
When I run my hands through it,
it comes up empty.
The shape holds for a moment,
but it is water, after all--
a sliver, a rivulet
to bind us here.

Friday, March 27, 2009


CRUCIBLE


Arms can lift the air
and the dreams we sleep
are bigger than any one
chalice passed between us,
its’ healing work to fill
in the end of the sentence,
a smile caught unawares.

May you carry the goblet
that provides for the rain.
May your cheap hymn set
the roots to rush the next horizon.
May the barrows turn brittle
when you are thrust upon them.

Friday, March 20, 2009


IMPRINT


The full moon hung like a bright
frozen explosion, seen from the tip
of a telescope, or the barrel of a gun.
A birthday was a party hat stepped on
near a puddle of a booze. A smile
was a river that had to be waded through.
The black pavements gleamed with their
secret etchings, the heat of the day rising
up, dissipating. The last light to be turned
off stayed on, a little bit longer…

Tuesday, March 17, 2009


THE PULSE’S THROAT


…is open for business, and taking no
prisoners who aren’t willing to shake
their money-makers for a greater cause.
This is a free economy, after all.

The pulse’s throat is looking for the beat,
like a deaf-mute by the road side, about
to break into song, like a second cousin
second guessing the second coming,
and the pulse’s throat is really more
a matter of suggestion than law.

Please act accordingly…

Thursday, March 12, 2009


SUBJECT LINE


Press the compass to my forehead,
select the GPS location from there.
Oh, did I say compass? I meant compress.
As in compress all this into a proportionally
acceptable segment. OK—Derek did it,
with a claw-hammered family heirloom
in the back garden. Wait—who’s writing this?
I got dibs on the man running out the back door…

Monsters