Landscape

gloaming
01.13.06

each day cycles
light blazing
sunrise to
setting sun
while eyes
lock with darkness

copper bursts
flicker and burn
on glass towering
above stubborn blindness

we brace ourselves
on the brink of
another gloaming

shackled
in a mass of tin
on rubber, a
head tilts up and
eyes, instantly rapt,
reach for the song
smoldering in
soliloquy embers



I See
11.17.05

I
see
tenement
towers
brick
glass.
mortar
brimming
with
broken
life

as a man on this swarming subway
admirably angry, collects coins
from three willing hands



A Thwarted Retreat
Summer.05

Some people read,
I prefer to look.

Sitting on the throne
In that chic lavatory
Naturally, I looked up.

An air vent donning masking tape–
Brittle yellow edges, corners gone,
Transmitted a cryptic message
Scrawled by some foreign hand:


“BIRD OR Something
In “Vent” Beware
“makes noises” when off
[sic / emphasis theirs]


Blast, another wrecked reverie!
“Not now!”
I shouted to the grotesque interruption.
Sorry to say, it was a standoff.

Strange,
That damned piece of tape
Shrewdly illuminated my
Vacation Villa charade.

And the moral of the story?
We are, all of us,
Mortal beings blindly
Crawling through muck
In search of
One true throne.



blackbirds on a wire
03.16.06

blackbirds scurry
painting chaotic script
before these clumsy eyes

wings flap like
a rushing river scourging
my naked shoulders

their black roar
echoes through
a stagnant canyon

all around
this city
they’re waiting

perched on wires
above my head
black-winged, watching

as melancholy
blankets this chill
with unsolicited comfort

wing to wing
blackbirds upon a wire
banish such nonsense

instinct sets wings aflutter,
implores unchained down to
mingle like rain with blue

all around
this city
they cry

black-winged
above my head:
“Fly!”




desolate demand
Bodie, CA
1.29.06

sacred hills shelter this
once upon a time
land of luminous lust

hedonistic tales.
historic tragedy.
bitter facades murmur

houses of ill repute
crumble on
insatiable earth

count the cost:
mining for riches
striking poverty




window moon
01.15.06

waxing moon
quietly suspended
oddly close, splendid

window watching
moonglow warming
nearly touching lunar texture
with yearning fingertips

light bulb crudely clinging
paints her portrait on glass
with nowhere near the distinction
of a crisp breathing flaxen moon
gliding serenely with the passing of night