Dinnertime on the stump,  once the dogwood

Sleeping on Blake's hot heart,
testament Thunder one breath ecstatic haibun,
mother bows over my throbbing torn muscle
& blistered bone
I awake staring at shuttering digital hourglass
& the exorcism begins……

she drums my skull with her heart-stick,
summons me to this world, her world
of blue-veined petunias & wild rust maned geranium pride -
her world of wanderin' Jew sat upon rickety colic high-chair outside, sunflower daisy-side
under finger of Norway Maple minister
clinging to habit when merlot-leaves
once do show their rag-time skeleton blues,
wide palmed Buddhas slip emptiness off on bed corner & draw lion greybeard to breast -
the lion's ribs poke through sharp-eyed skin & Mother Death folds lips
'round his reeds & heard is the Duende, the emerald leaf moan, the graveyard jamboree,
molten stone battle god rhapsody of blue morning where I awake
to crumpled jeans on floor,
wet socks on rocker seat,
whiskey tattooed white t-shirt laid out over death row constellation of untranslated
prophecy.

A new day's
old garb
asked to gather
once more
over my hulking cross-legged refinery of bone & blood
that will carry me down the folds of asphalt kimono Route 8
to Brother Raun high in garage rafters sweeping dead roaches & mice
off the beams that hold this roof to peak.

Chipmunks come out of the rock,
Weimaraners flop themselves dizzy in tiny pregnant fields
Of scarecrow daffodils who ward off coal-mine smoke clouds
& tears of electric daggers.

there are shovels to be stacked away -
& mowers elegiac to fill with last year's gasoline.


Without Bail

Siamese dusk cloud

long neck street torch

both beyond my reach -

subject still to watch seagull

pass,

wish

they may

sprout

wings

& climb down

to claw

through garbage cans

for second hand morsel.

[Back]