1 New Poem

That Part After
Strung out on concert confetti,

waiting on the primrose lock

for beck-and-call command,

we catch glances in the sodium light,

we clash gazes in form 782 whir

lit up in sangria shade for the season.

Some toothy minder's grin hit me,

some pained twinge of childrens' watercolour

crossed to meet the same in time,

winced and jangled in ragman's echo;

key and clock the very same,

confetti a chemical's trick.

1 New Poem

Surface Tension

The dapple-spark of rainwater, disturbed placidity

echoed in ever-spreading shade the caustic

knife-sharpening act we wear as ill-kempt

tailors tending to the tuning of heart string.

Immaculate as ever the cut of wrist-tied

string we used to trace as breadcrumb, pyre ash

a pagan pirouette sort of ceremony, ancient

dance of drum strike, of churning chemical.

I look redder still, in the mirror more thin

and of softer complexion than some tangled,

matter hair burden's beast where once I stood

in youth's snuffed-candle afterglow.

Still, you strike me,

I quiver as ever.

1 New Poem

The Myth of the Bureaucrat

The flaky breeze of cotton and haydust

tumbling waves like myth-maiden locks in the

granary sink below tides of academic jargon,

the best sharpened scythes of our modern age.

Far-flung from these white shadows of people

in name and flutter coat, trailing to empty

early evening parking lots, running

cost estimates for window shades in padded cells.

I was waiting, shoe-shined, in a melancholy

hour's clock striking, getting ready for

when everything would be wonderful;

I found

it's even a long time waiting to get to heaven.

1 New Poem

Heroes of the Age

The chorded chime of coffeehouse guitar,

little angels in their faulted fisticuffs

taken up at 4AM for police and refuseniks,

in the former time when something was

worth the drawing for.

In some nights I wish I could sit in those

smoke-filled alcoves of New Haven and Paris:

the men and their glass-stained filigrees of insight,

the women and their lipstick rum glasses, raised fists;

but there's too much life to live today

for all that wishing.

1 New Poem

The Last Tune of Summer
The cast of amber skin in wave tempest,

grain affliction to the cast-hitting curtain;

remembering the sniff-smell of hair dye shades:

synthetic as they were, synesthesia of heartbeat.

Prosaic shuffle of metal and licked lip gloss,

thought you had some arc of time's justice to

build this brittle piece upon, thought you were

so much more than smouldered ashes and cigarette signals.

We stood in the low-light deaths of merry-go-round

streets, calliope trills spilling as Niagara winery

in the lop-side river of July evening graces

taking in the last drops of sweetened water, the

last time of carelessness.

1 New Poem

Empty Arms

The cedar clash of orange grove and pine

as dawn-settled we in woven fineries finest

in temptation, were but the passed-close lips

going to taste in talk and tear-stain.

Still like of white lines, depth depressed

in tone of player piano keys

timed to the clacking chatter of

half-polished teeth and carpal sinew.

You paint in the cross-eyed shade

of grand elder oak facades, brittle

as communion cracker and twice as holy,

three times as bright as saints themselves.

Portraits had their frozen charms, reminder

of rush-rattled cage of clock faces,

when I had, in adolescent wish, to find

one day your curves and crossly shape

where there is now but stale air and moonlight.

1 New Poem

Chandelier Crystal

You taste the brigand's waters swish-swirled

in opal trust, the half-moon howls dipped

bit-by-bit in coin and serpentine smile:

you choke on the first swallow, kept it down.

Still, it was a choice ungiven, complex

denials from the skittering passion of vermin paws

upon kitchen tile; the ever-turning complaints of it:

you and yours, yes, how unlucky.