Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies
                                                   ~Robert Frost

no one dares write poems about fireflies anymore
because fireflies have been well-written
yet their tiny glimmers make the heart glad
and I like to think these little points of light
might shine for you, too
and burn off that throb of solitude
make the ancient emptiness a vestigial

coat of arms        today the lost pups came home
and whimpered ‘round your bed after an unexpected
outing in the thicket, yet you’d not the audacity
to write poems about liquid brown eyes
and unconditional love because that has been done, too,
but we allow that each deep look and love
and undried river smell is not all about dogs

but us and the day—lass, you deserve
licks on the nose and grunts of contentment,
dreams of cowboys with wide-brimmed hats
playing guitar to soften a hard bed of clay—
we might envy the stars and be left with sobs,
we might draw maps of our hoped-for kingdoms
charcoaling out the only roads to cities
of sea roses and oklahoma dust

in every poem, we might howl like babies
yet we hope we are not pretentious, surrounded
as we are by made things that take us away from the heart
of the woods, the hollows we wish for our beds,
newborn things pushing through the detritus
of fallen leaves

this is a dangerous storm, but I’ve the umbrella
and you’ve the pretty house, and we’ll make it
a mere inconvenience—we’ll write our clichés
and turn them into topiaries of chicory blue,
a pavilion of poppies bursting forth in a wave of joy

changes when air closes in, the fog hangs tight
and I forget all beyond the tree-woven  roof over
my steps & porch, the hot wet rosy white radishes
I bite with a strawberry that gives to the touch.
My 9'X9' patch of dirt yields salad after salad
and the longest day just gone.  I am

mosquito bitten knees, those brief stars of fireflies
hanging in the rhody and over the driveway
like these paths belong naught to me
but to the pines, the red patched woodpecker
who woke me with the sweetest alarm.
I leave windows open for the night song,

the phantoms of fiddleheads—angelic the pine tree
sounds of sonnets and some one to write them for.

Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making
of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread
                                                            ~Pablo Neruda
 
this poem contains no morals to be pinned
on trees—just a string of  a thousand pretty words:

    palimpsest—syzygy
                 —polliwogs—
   —edelweiss—contrabass—gladiolii
               — anemone & so on…

they belong to us and us to them—these words
sprung from the teeth of our ancestors—
may they carve us a new blue marble
should the old not suffice               let us

gather stories from starlight and hearthstones
shake vowels in a bone cup, gather tales
from rice paddies and shopping malls
craft lines to ride on the crest of the knife

as the dead take their place, give them words
to rename our streets and villages
to quell the battles       

in John 21:3 Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing

     for the bombshell of understanding
     for the celebration within us,
     for the recognition of ourselves
             in the prisoner

may the wisdom of words move us to madness
fold poems into origami birds
compose songs from the candle ends
of our conversations—wish for us
on a thousand paper cranes

a little remains dangling, splash of wild
in flowers and fish scale roofs, a moonchild -

to see clearly one must cross a frontier
cross the street, visit the chocolatier

to a door that knows everything
from your eyes - listen to songs of redwings

wait for me, the stars; I've something to say
taking street lamps hostage, picking bouquets

I'm impatient for the river to flow
by my door delivering a boat to row

so I don't have to walk far to escape -
Scheherezade will tell my story, shape

her sister's while I recline by the pond
watching frogs, goldfish, comedy beyond

the burned night and tragic morning endings
skip my kisses, write your own stories, sing

without ever seeing dawn light coming
I missed them, too, the dead with hands stroking

our midnight prayers; they knew and I'm sorry
I slept before writing their history

little by little I'm changing into
cold castles and decaying stories through

moss grown towers - so sweet skies filling my
chest with this rare air, frescoing blue my

thirsty skin

 

when the trumpet plays
a morning begins where
I bite through experiences,
fat, stuffed queen
olives, one after another

I read poetry of moonlight
and dewdrops - mystical
morning fog makes a dragon
of the old cart horse
and a castle of your shoulders
and arms

you drop a kiss on my instep
and the black back lash
of branches on the windy night
before makes me believe
in the tender artichoke and
cloves of garlic, harvests

in other lands - the redolent
earth of spring, the faraway
glances of ice leaving the rivers
the fish beginning to swim
the promise of sunlight - all

that was and all that will be
we sing in songs of the season
our bones and brothers
everywhere, planted with
seeds of tomorrow

i.

 

Let's let loose and ride the carousel

of bright bells knocking air and circumstance—

another verse, this river of belief

over creeping things, over fowl of breeze.

 

Your face in the window—my anchorage,

ear to the ground, fists pressed against my lips.

Lest the wild things leave the looking glass,

make me plead--sing it for me baby, please,

 

I'd drive out west if you should say the word

to lie with you in fields of celandine.

On picnic made an ancient sylvan bower

beneath my hair, give in to vertigo.

 

With Luna's phases: maiden, mother, crone,

I have your ear, mon petit Van Gogh.

 

ii.

 

Black dirt rows divide the fava beans.

June sun shines between pillars of rock.

Here are shades and lights laying lines between

your idea and my plan for love. Talks

into Monday and moonstones, nights forsworn

to raspberries or our idea of them--

their red juice mingles with the French horn

of the Stones—you can't always get—hmm.

My shoes have their hollows at your feet.

Oranges there are bigger than here.

Hear the songs of my parakeet

because she is the charioteer

that brings you closer and rings a bell.

Let's let loose and ride the carousel!

 

iii.

 

She lived in a house with a red front door

and had a smile white like summer lightning.

A dinner out was at the dime store

scrambled eggs and a song on a heart string

 

played on the jukebox with a pinkish prayer.

Madelaine sunbathed riverside, singing

names of her childhood friends while elsewhere

she heard birds sign and fishes jumping.

 

A flowing river, chocolate voice on fire—

without lights all is dark as she waits,

counting syllables in the sweet briar.

A deep breath she draws and hesitates.

 

All her life is a rose, a winking glance

to bright bells knocking air and circumstance.

 

iv.

 

The season's lemon leaves fall on the lawn,

muting the sound of foot steps. Fogs slip fey,

slides us along the road to Babylon.

We might awake in deserts or Marseilles,

on backs of Indian elephants with bells

around their necks—songs mixing in the rain.

I chose an ostrich on the carousel;

you stayed at home and wove a grosgrain

ribbon through your beard. Pancakes & coffee

steamed the kitchen, filled the trees with wind.

Shoo-ee, on wings of bumblebees we flee!

Nevermind untraveled roads, streams that bend

between your path and my oak leaves. Weave

another verse, this river of belief.

 

v.

 

Such self-indulgent writes, am I in love

with worlds of my creation? Or is love

my bread crumb trail to feed life's hungry dove?

 

Conceit within these lines—that I know what

it is to lie in dirt, that I paint what

will come to pass of blossom, fruit and nut.

 

I've lost my voice, lost what I saw in water,

the false patience of one long underwater

for mediocrity and unseen slaughter.

 

My pockets are full of arguing bones

of ancestors--a mother's pleading bones—

I find excuses in their warring tones.

 

I claim dominion over the fish of seas,

over creeping things, over fowl of breeze.

 

vi.

 

My sweet, your feet are gleaming like fishes;

your blessed hands hold echoes of cathedrals.

I need you here when every other language

floods the fires I've built. All night the raining

 

and half-speaks of Zephyrus mask the rhythms

of my lines. Nothing ventured, nothing gained—

between the rumpled sheets, you speak this adage.

Dawn nears and the pull of the moon is waning

 

for the catching of the morning—daisy

days are all they are and all they need be.

The poet is in love? I whisper wishes

to buttered toast, into new pages, feigning

 

brilliance in my verses. Above the dishes

your face in the window—my anchorage.

 

vii.

 

High times this evening, dollar paints and wine.

Tattoo my coat of arms upon your breast;

expose this sparing spot for our house guest.

Lay fruits de mer on ice—tongues touch the brine—

shrimp sit in crystal. Play the concubine.

Our summer house, he saw how you sundressed

the slip of strap let down (for him?) Celeste,

he seeks you now in grape, the muscadine,

 

and loses you beneath the shadowed things

that darken streets and strains of mandolin.

He'll miss the idle way you tip your hips,

the way you never think to hide your wings

or how you curl up nights, wait to begin,

ear to the ground, fist pressed against your lips.

 

viii.

I've kept your chair open on the front proch,

tipped over in the rain to keep it dry

where Grateful Dead burns by mosquito torch,

a blue-green fire kindled to keep me high.

On these nights alight, dancing on the bar

hips slung, shirt riding up, belly moving

to the Doors, Garcia like bumper cars

with the prying neighbors disapproving.

My hot pepper garden and tomoatoes,

baby spinach for our greens tomorrow—

I just might harvest the gold potatoes

for breakfast (yours/mine) rather than borrow

a lawn mower, cutting clover and grass,

lest wild things leave the looking glass.

 

ix.

 

The phone jingle-jangles. Slow as molasses,

I yawn, uh huh? Pennsylvania 6-5000,

and bring the world in focus with rim glasses,

swim out of sleep like a lethargic hausen.

But it's his voice, that smooth chocolate slide

of trombone asking, do you have the time?

So I creep down from the classier side

in my Imperial Sedan and I'm

ticking, hot as radioisotopes,

my legs parting like the V of Churchill's

two fingers in a melt-down wet with hopes,

thinking of his nuclear reactor skills—

Leapin Liz! No heart, but that tin-man's squeeze

makes me plead, swing it for me baby, please.

 

x.

 

One day you just don't feed the goldfish, cruise

past work and never hit the brake, away

from zinfandel and wet heat, sunset hues

that burn vermillion in the rearview. Play

the words you spin for me into asphalt

expressways, test them on your lips before

you press poems complete to mine. Assault

my reason with your tongue—I've left the door

wide open. Tease me, take me, bring us home.

Shared breath and sweat in shaded hollows, pools

of promise into pleasure fill the tome

of verse with sighs and merging molecules.

One day perhaps I just don't feed the bird

and drive out west if you should say the word.

 

xi.

 

In reverie a summer dance revue,

black wings on water, blue-steel needles dove

and spun a complex mid-air rendezvous.

 

I watched for hours as light trails interwove

the muted laughter of my children and

your poems in the murmur of the stream

 

with castanets, a drunken sarabande.

A Moorish fire and grace was brought by dream

and I could move my hips for you in ways

 

self-conscious thought does not allow. Songs wild

and plaintive, lyrics made to paraphrase

in tongue along your body's span, beguiled

 

and stole you from pacific waves and wine

to lie with me in fields of celandine.

 

xii.

 

I frame our picnic on a linen square

so crisp and white on lawn by river's slope,

beneath the willow branch, its swing of rope.

My hands cup dry red wine for us to share;

the tang of grape to taste of skin compare.

Restraints release, on zephyr mild elope,

soon twilight paints the shadows mauve and taupe.

You light a blaze, its lambent flames a dare

 

to leap skyclad across the Beltane fire.

We welcome days grown long, our Maypole dance

begun as soft wet ribbons wrap desire.

Release on linen crushed in evening hour,

to celebrate, your fertile seed decants

on picnic made an ancient sylvan bower.

 

xiii.

 

The stars tonight, an anchor holding me

to light and sleeping eyes—on insect's song

the night air floats the distant salt of sea.

a lilt, your verse I've lived all summer long.

 

Place your nomadic hands on rivers of

my mornings. Cup the bee's vibrations, blooms

of rabid roses. Wait on winter love

for mourning doves to fill the timeless rooms

 

with embers burning at our feet. Ice-cold

the tongue of dew, the meteors of days

that drop between the lines. Stories untold

I'll slip to you on wind-swept holidays.

 

Lie so under the sky my mouth lie so

beneath my hair, give in to vertigo.

 

xiv.

 

Diana's vigil, a meniscus moon

she pins on smoky skies to hold the night

together. Wind unwraps a gauze cocoon.

Cerise-tipped breasts, ivory in demi-light,

 

delight his eyes. The silhouettes of day,

begun á deux with fruit in crescent bowl,

slide into evening. He is held in sway

by luscious Anjou curve of hips. Clouds roll

 

as Hecate's crown displays a cat's eye star

to mesmerize. He traces the faint line

cupping her womb, a silver sickle scar

of birth and moon, before they intertwine.

 

She captivates him with each facet shown

of Luna's phases: maiden, mother, crone.

 

xv.

 

On this rosy day I am Guinevere,

lost in your gray gaze of isinglass.

Over my left shoulder, a bandoleer

of daisies woven with lemongrass.

 

Give me the crushed grape of your lips,

the silence of red dirt under your feet

and my skirt—the wind an errant whip

driving us to hide in empty streets

 

where the weather is unseasonable

and your dreams nail my hands to the clouds.

No birds nests here unreasonable

and even in lowest evergreens bowed,

 

you live both here and there, aloft and low.

I have your ear, mon petit Van Gogh.

sit here at my side
put up your little feet
while I sing war songs
by firelight
betrothed by wine
we marry poems
in a musty book
hearts a handful of dust
might we be the happy dead
how thin and clear
the battle call across
the miles how our
women care
for their babies and
men and how the women
become the man
voices bringing back
sunny hair and flowers
over weeds and
a country’s smile
cold as a snare

she's counting duck down willows
in a dangerous storm
people outside should avoid windows

short songs are winter - the sum
of her stories in bubbling stew
and cozy fresh-baked bread

at mind’s sunset, we all say grace
fortunate as a howling baby, we have our
voice and what we see in the water

my sweet, your feet gleam like fishes
your blessed hand is a cathedral

the poet was in love (she whispered)
he was in love with the creatures of the sea
he loved them more than her     she lives

in bristling places
between the rocks

does a poem have to be a big idea
bigger than the brightest stars
in my field of view from my front porch

bigger than the drone of crickets
or frogs      never is there silence
but a thousand years of catastrophes

no one said there is a void from which
we should begin      the equation starts
from the first word spoken, from ice flows

moving over the bones of lobe-finned
fish        those first steps frozen
in the third layer up of the Grand Canyon

whistles of the past look at the poet
who finds words in fire    in sunspots
between winds coming up

     through door stops from
        leaky windowpanes

give me the patience of fish underwater
of people who know hunger
its dark grumbles and complaints

I do exist for want of anything else
    from a grain of sand sprung
my life, I give you this, thinking but

       never knowing again, lying
in your skin
                    barely stirring the air