The Far Ocean

I dwell far from the ocean,
locked in by sprawling tracts
without the slightest motion
and only stagnant facts.

I dream of sea salt sprays
in acrid prairie lanes,
lifted by September haze
never bringing fragrant rains.

I hope to hear gulls shriek
as they tumble overhead
and search out when they leak-
it sinks as fast as lead.

I watch for other ships
where blue ends at the white
and day dips into night

Wrecked

Used to be a rising star.
Found I am a dinosaur.
About to get wrecked.

Used to be a rising star;
how am I a dinosaur
staring at the asteroid?

Used to be a rising star -
now I am a dinosaur
getting smashed by asteroids.

Used to be a rising star,
then I was a dinosaur
only good at getting wrecked.

Evenings Are My Jewelry Box

A salmon shredded by cosmic claws
fell to pieces along dry scales,
spilling carnelian clouds across the wasted sun.

Buoyant and lovely in alien purity,
a pearl quit the depths of the East
for the height of an inked purple mass.

Later,
Congealed rose-gold flakes of mutable fish
outshone the Luminosity
until the West plummeted –

And a velvet cover appeared,
lining the lid of the world,
hinged upon encroaching hours
in which I fixated upon a dream.

Writer (of the Multiverse)

Down inside my insect eyes
a thousand private worlds collide;

a million minute observations
nurture hungry new creations.

Clenching fingers write for ages,
vaulting thoughts from mind to pages.

Portals leaking from my hand
transport you to another land.

Never doubt these pools of ink
ripple further than you think.

Parables in War and Subtraction

          Two brothers had armies. They faced their army against the other brother across the river.
         One brother commanded his soldiers to fire. One ordered his soldiers to wade across and slit his brother’s throat.
         After the battle no one remained standing; they all laid down at the edge of the river, which turned red that year and killed the crops downriver.

We Could Not Steal Another Horse

Again we rode upon a horse
along the turbid river course.
Below the willows green and fair
we stopped awhile and loosed the mare.

She blinked at us as if to say:

Wallflower

       Glare from the windshields in the parking lot below bothered her eyes. Fiona drew away from the riot of color and rejoined the hallway, where drab buttercups dotted the wallpaper and pale lilies framed in tarnished gold metallic emphasized the antique nature of the geriatric population.