2 New Poems

Different Kinds of Red

The sultry sweat of half-ripe Hamburg

chalk dust sketches sickly sweet

in weeknight half-power caution blinkers

through smeared lipstick windowpane pallor:

the shade some purse-pin upon you.

The moonshone crest of last emperor's lanterns,

pointed pen shapes of capsized myth

cling in tight constriction as

Snow White song in dead-end pale cheek:

the splotched paints picked out in hasty youth.

The flickering lighthouse guidance to

weary whiskey-hollowed traveler’s eye,

tempting warmths of discounted plane tickets

and kosher wine-stained confession:
the sort of gel light I held you in.

Lake Breeze

The constellation clouds in off-pink

shade of deep new day's warming

pitch the half-hung crescent moon's smile

to hesitant accord with solemn-sat driftwood,

with light-catching marble stone of private property signs.

The endless provincial crashing of waves in

sandbar echo a thousand currents past, as always

they have in steely haze of warn blue plank's

painted notion fences, in reflected temperance

to a paving brick beautification initiative.

The controlled salt-stammer, flattened grey

rook rock in same pale fashion as

late summer's swallowing sky, the impassioned

longings lick up as stray bonfire sparks,

stick as unhelpful as stray sole sand grain.