Still they live
in Odomankoma's womb,
and cast pearls
into the ocean
we call the starry sky.

They look down
into his pot,
and ask the old (wo)man

What is that black smoke
and that flashing flame?
Why do they cry
when they know
you do not hear?

Odomankoma,
wisest in all the heavens,
tells them:

That is hell,
with her new gods,
preaching fashion and make up.

My daughter sits at table
I know how she tilts her head
like mine

And she's always able
to mimic
my comedy foibles

I wonder as I gaze upon
her wistful face how
She will find herself

I will long
for her adventures
as she stumbles
into her life

My daughter
is me
but with possibilities
don't you see?

Samurai snowflakes
bird song slice through frigid air
light-hearted, the moon

~~~~~

poet code-talkers
running like fine race horses
speaking many tongues

~~~~~

never the same leaf
blossoms, silent the cherry
everything is light

~~~~~

golden calf is living
high off low economy,
rich get richer still

~~~~~~

there are debts to pay
Lucifer comes collecting,
what is left behind?

Sinking, falling, shaping reshaping,
through the strata of life's great layered dream,
becoming green, blue, any hue that fits
with present situations,
ever revised and analysed, weighed,
balanced on the scales of common sense,
and even that has moments of pure doubt.

We've been together for so long
memories of the times before
now seem out of place and wrong
like bare shelves in a busy store.

How can it have come to be
we've shared three and forty valentines?
Though time has been unkind to me
you've improved like rare red wine.

Our path has often been unsmooth
as we've traveled through the many years.
You haven't anything to prove,
you've already shed too many tears.

sincere
the breath of time comes to linger
and lay

like china smiles
tinged glass

slide drawer with cards
and cigarette silver case

drawn away thoughts
by a raucous cry of a dark bird
whose shiny eye exclaims

voices from realms
a visitation in steps
an engine idling in park

a phone cell number
when bored for a lark

we wait broken from the spell
the cloy of antiseptic balm
and boiler steam heat

fingerprints on brass numeral
buttons

Three gay men ,
Three fey men,
They all ran after the farmers son,
The farmer shot them with his gun
Their in between bits hit the sun
Now they're done
Now they're done
See them run
see them run
They ran away from the farmers son
The farmer was too highly strung
He wished to string them up one by one
They're three dead bums
Three dead bums.

WOLVES
[1911: mountain village in the southern Apeninnes]

They came down
from the hills
riding an icy wind
lost in the white and gray
of a winter’s day.
into each village and town
they roamed
looking to feed
looking to kill
driven by hunger’s pain

They smelled the dying
and the dead
scratched at the earth
of the newest tomb
hungered for the flesh
still in a mother’s womb

Nor'easter rough cut blowing;
flaps like a sail against my ear
as I lean out, hoping the torrid trees
will help me out of this white walled,
squared up room.

You can bet on the market, on horses,
on the roll of dice
but my money's on tomorrow:
dawn's dark colours, the ritual of coffee,
the radio with its familiar concerns.

The news takes its place.
The crescendo, as my Mac opens,
seems metallic, cold;
email, Facebook, Twitter,
the scrolling hunt begins.

It makes me salivate
those golden
crusty
morsels
on a plate

like golden embers
shiny
glistening
basted pleasure
remembered

carbo-licious
tasty treats
like
sticks of
fatty dynamite

crunch crunch
scoff scoff
the pig persona
plays a
Bacchanalian lunch

A chip! A chip!
My round plate
For a Chip!