Stars have faded in the eastern sky
as the horizon bleaches black to gray
Carolina bids the night goodbye
and prepares for yet another day

A barred owl silently glides past
to his daytime secret sylvan home
June sunrise is coming fast
acrobatic squirrels start to roam

Mist streamers lift from the still pond
like last night's departing ghost
where cat tails wave like a magic wand
crane touches down silent, almost

There's that black pot
Looming large
And shadowing the kettles,
All sooted like the lot.

There's the master
Lean and tall
And capped, squared;
(encompassed actually)
In checkered skins
and oddly fitting kilts.
A Scotsman on his rite,
A concrete slab afore
The pinafore
And big brother watching
Amusingly.

wear histories
in tired patterns
gather dreams
in idle beds

i remember so much
and forget so little
all the pages sitting
all the fonts and words
in my head

would I be an island
for as long as I could
I would

but there is always rain
to numb the sadness
there is always darkness
for thoughts so not seem
so shadowed

it was a chorus line of hollyhocks against a crumbling red brick building
that devastated my poem,
they laid waste to the words you asked me to write,
you said I would try to hurt you with my intent,
my rhyme,
I said your prejudice and ignorance were showing,
like wearing a hooded down overcoat near the end of June
you said 'fire away' and I asked if you knew why
Bodhi-dharma left for the East,