Death in the Morning

The soul haunts itself
By waking. 
From a dream
It seems impossible…
And then the earth starts quaking.

Sleepwalking on a sunspot
And burning in the light;
Watching a fleet of spirits
Rise into the white side of night.

 A mass death march.

All day it’s war
With the seducer Sleep,
And dream recitations
(With no one to weep.)
Then it’s intoxication
And purple medication -
Daydreams of night
And unattainable delight.

Dinner with a corpse
Who rides off in a hearse.
On the way back home:
To be buried alone.

Bruised, to sleep…
Breathing a sigh.
Drifting past murder
Into Life.
Freedom
From the damnation of delay
And corporeal decay.
Floating forever in a black flood
Of dreams.
Rising above the tombs of tyranny
Into the windy streams.
Flying past Saturn.
Never knowing.
Never suspecting for a second –
Death in the morning.

Love is a Rumor

The puzzle:
The requisite riddle for romance.

Life exists solely in a trance.

Love is a rumor.
And that’s the humor.

I am a detective running down
Foggy corridors of rooms,
Through endless cities and
Cold mornings looking for clues.

No one will ever know you:
That’s the rumor:
The birth of true love
And a voyeur.

One thing I know for certain:
Every person, every city-
Must have one room whose door
Is never opened.

Letter to a Man from a Woman

I am tired of kissing ice-cold lips
In a closet hung with clothes,
When I am naked
And you are wearing a tuxedo.
Is that fair?
You admire my nudity,
And mock my immodesty.

You, who look down my throat
To see what’s inside,
And surprised say, ‘I see
A black tunnel.’

You want to know.
And so ask me
To take off my skin.
And still you’d be disappointed
Because it wouldn’t be you.
And still you’d be surprised
To see only muscles and viscera.

Alarmed? Then turn off your clock
And go back to sleeping -
And dream your dream of a naked woman
Who can never love you.

M.D., Psychiatry

She sleeps discreetly,
And is a perfect hostess.
She doesn’t sleep alone.

She never bites her fingernails.
She has perfect fingernails.
The polish never collides with the cuticle.

One might mistake her abruptness on the telephone
For rudeness, but she hates interruptions
Of her fingernail-polishing schedule.

She has lips.

There are a great many certificates of merit hanging on her lips.
She could have teased the professors, but
She didn’t. She was a polished student.

She’s logical:
Madness is complaining.
And slashed wrists cause a blood supply shortage.

She’s normal.
She has no compulsions. Not even to
Polish her goddamn fingernails.

She pretends to be cold.
That’s her one fault;
Her only defense.

Because I know
She really sleeps by herself
And steps on her guests’ lips.

Object of Desire

A battalion of
Torrid fears,
Missed glances,
And mortal kisses
March toward icy risk
And a dictator.

Of Cities

Sailing on the edge of mist,
A purple wave
Of silhouettes,
Gowned in gold
On touring ships:
Pouring whiskeys,
Smiling to themselves,
Remembering cities:
The darkened streets;
The midnight cars
To secluded clubs
Of haunting love.
The elevator to
The view of space
From floating towers;
A balcony of burning stars;
Hotels of glass
Reflecting Mars.

Fog

I am fog,
Moist and cool,
Floating on a woman’s lips
And kissed in the night.
I am the mist on her face.
And like evening Melting into her,
I am the liquid sleeper
In hot pools of light.
Her body wild with delight,
I am the dew
That slips past the dawn
Into the morning air…
Waiting for night
To fall.

Piracy

Lurid lips
And sailing ships
That sunk in shallow seas eclipsed
And whipped by wind and eyes
And perfumed sighs
All memorized
In burning scripts
On sinking ships

Black Nature

a drop rains
and dries

the sun burns
and dies

winds blow
through skies

leaves shade
the muds

seas churn
to suds

the bee stings
and
the widow loves

Time

I can’t fathom how slowly time passes.
It’s the funeral of a born assassin.

Fossil

a skeleton of leafy life
buried in insane
history of the world

Flood

The dam breaks.
People run numb and nameless
With watery eyes
Flooded by the fright
They were born with.
It has happened:
The worst thing.
A bell rings. Children
Go to school. Swimmers
Dive into a pool.
And in a bar a drunk
Falls off a stool.

Purple Moon

flowered cottage
purple moon
on crowded edge
of constant doom

trees that melted
sky that ran
sun that crawled
in endless sand

A Human Being

an artful configuration
of tragedy and jazz-
held together by
rubber glands and blue.

Planet

The head is round like a planet-
And contains storms and earthquakes.
Sometimes it shakes for days.
Water floods and submerges the tunnels
Scientists will never discover.

Creation

Birth.
Thud.
‘How grand! I’m amazed!’
We are all experiments of God.
His puddle in the mud.

Destiny

Destiny can be a calling card-
Or a death certificate.

For the fortune few, a script;
For the rest, a pointless journey to the crypt.

Death

Suddenly, the sand runs out-
Even in the desert.

Black Lace Façade

Funeral water gushed
From eyes too public
For true disguise.

They came, those two,
And false salt dripped…
And stained
The polka-dotted
Underslip.

Aviator in a Storm

Birds are too sensible to take flight.
But the compulsive pilot, cloud-bound,
Has no thought of birds. He is thinking about
The record and the acclaim that is only a bird’s right.

Though his eardrums pound with roaring winds
That could shear the wings in half, he dreams
Of human flights into the infinity of metal-and the reams
Of glory in newspaper print.

The clock in the control tower stops;
And the smiling aviator is sure this is his hour.
His plane is his power.
Meanwhile, the plane depends on a mechanic and some gasoline drops.

In the rain and the brain narcotic, where is God?
He is not at the controls. He is a spectator
Like the people on the ground. His mind, like the speedometer,
Is unpredictable. The navigator takes another drink of grog.

The birds shake their feathered heads in wonder:
To think that a metal creature would do this mad thing:
Fly straight into lightning
Just to hear thunder.

In the newspaper it will be called an accident:
An unexpected tragedy that should never have occurred.
And in the centuries to come it will be another legend of blur.
But the storm, the pilot, and the birds know different.

The Vapors

Breathing the air between life and death,
Floating among the cold vapors of a dream.

The World

No matter how the world ends:
In a burst of blue,
Or a drop of red-
I will finally be
Out of my
Head.

Oxidation

Burning in hell.

J.S. Claus

Treating the darkened cat
With a foot -
That mind soot
That even Santa has
In everyone’s chimney.

The Subconscious

What is it planning for me
In the dark, in my sleep,
Even in the morning light?

The sun reveals nothing.
It is only a bright light
In the night my mind is manufacturing.

My subversive soul.

It’s plotting to steal everything from me.
My art, the possibility of love,
The future.

It will burn through my life
Like a flame burns
Through paper.

Orphan

a drafty soul
hollowed out
by drowning
in heavy milk
from bottle breasts:
their plastic nipples
remain
sucking the brain
for centuries

Wedding

Engraved pieces of paper
Were sent to presents
In anticipation of their
Mail-order essence.

The ceremony lasted
A minute and a half -
And when the black robe said:
‘Forever’ -
The choir began to laugh.

The couple proceeded
To the reception,
And when the punch ran out
The people began to pout: ‘
What kind of blackout is this?
Time to back out.’

And when the groom
Accelerated to race
To put away
The pure white lace,

The face of the bride cried -
And the parents yawned inside.

A Dangerous Man

Today he died.
Everything arranged.
The chaos he fought to dispel all his life
Hides somewhere else. Filed away.
And in the afternoon light that fills the room,
The order of the day lies in silence.
The papers stacked;
The books contentedly unread;
The will composed.
The simplicity of death complete.
And the history is written:
‘Died - Wednesday, a day in August:
A man unknown to everyone
But his unhappy wife
And his lonely children.
A success, though,
In real estate and
The stock market:
His life shared with a corporation of strangers
Who never knew
He was a dangerous man.’

My Psychological Sweetheart

Liquid emotion,
The chemistry lotion…
Pretended notion
To swallow the ocean
- in bed.

Intimate mood:
Music prelude:
Parents seclude
The child that was rude
- and I dread

Playing with dolls
In empty cold halls;
Summers too muggy
And pushing a buggy
- to identify.

Printing to Mother
Or Freudian brother:
‘I can love no other
When I am my lover
- I tried.’

Jealousy

Moody dark brains
In gloomy black chambers,
Insane over lovers
In sleepy affection,
Wish no infection by love
Which floods through the mind
And drowns thoughts blind -
Still anguish for knowledge
That lingering lovers
Can never again
Discover each other,
And will forever miss
The rapture of
The first red kiss.

Loneliness

There are many kinds of loneliness:

Unlocking the door to an empty house;

Thinking of lost or impossible love;

Reading letters from the dearly departed;

Perusing one’s past.

A stroll through the graveyard is the cure.

Thirst

Her face was the desert:
Parched and forbidding…
Waiting for the water of the future.
White eyes scorched by refusal
And rained upon by indifference.
Shocked by her own words
From anyone else who dared speak them.
What was the difference?
A cactus, this bitter creature
Had lived through thirst -
And told herself, alas,
That, contrary to the truth,
She had suffered the worst.

Sundown

bats and battered hearts
boring the dark

Quicksand

a shoelace and a pith helmet
on crushed leaves crusting
on grained suspension
of sinking skeletons

I See the Battle Blazing

I see the battle blazing with flames out of control,
Reflected in the armor and clashing with the moonlight.
The drum beats in the distance, as we march against
The white walls of the skull.

The clock of eternity is ticking louder than the drum.
The thrilling trumpet solo pierces high and drives us
In this wild pursuit of freedom past the sleeping cerebrum
Into the red-hot hell that lies within.

The glint of steel beyond the hemispheres
Hints the tears will never end.
The night will last forever, shooting down the suns
That blaze in savage fears.

Bullets pound against the eyelids that keep opening to truth.
And a fury burns the brain, until its charcoal thoughts
Surrender to whatever pain that made this army
March into the skull just to prove its own self-worth.

The general waits behind the troops, still blinded by the chance
Of any victory against the melancholy universe ahead.
What started this hopeless war, ignited by delusion,
Is surely doomed to end deep in the eye of trance.

In the gloom of extinguished flames, the trapped black gulls
Scream the order to escape this tangled torture
Of sizzling wires and lonely space, echoing despair -
As they fly against the white walls of the skull.

Heroic soldiers who fought for dreams all night
Are either dead or dying in the steaming light of morning;
The madness of hot blood on the sword
Floods like senseless ether in the war within the mind.

A last heartbeat rips the silence of the hour,
As dead eyes gaze upon the scene of the ravaged future.
The lonely duel with God remains
To finally prove that no one here has any power.

When Tender White Flowers

She is the white lily
Sugar-faced centuries
Of swords and charred
Victory! cries
In fiery men’s mouths.
And her mouth
Is their fear of lilies
When tender white flowers
Fly out into fire.

The Horror of an Hour

When the lonely clock strikes
The horror of an hour,
And floods the future -
I sear my heart
With the pain of the world.
Stars fall into my eyes,
And make me see my life
As a tiny spark
In the blackest night.

To Love

To love and love no one.
To have no one to love.
To whisper into a deaf day;
Then shout into the wind
And hear a rush of air.
To touch the naked night,
And kiss the morning ice.
To dream the blue wave of night;
Wake to blinding swords of sun
And race to face freedom,
Climbing the barbed-wire fence
Of fancy - with bleeding hands
To show for years of jail
And the folly of trying to escape.
Sentenced to be alone.
This life, imprisoned in a body
That marches to the beat of heart
No longer fooled by others
- Only by    
   itself.

Trains

I have always had a choice in life.
I can either sit in the train station
And watch the trains go by.
Or I can be in a train wreck.

Now, sitting in the train station
And watching the trains go by is fine -
For a while.

But I look at one train go by - and then another,
And I want to get on one.
I want to go somewhere.
So I do.  I get on a train.
But every train I ride – crashes into another train.
And after I recover from the crash,
I go back to sitting in the train station…
Watching the trains go by.

It’s fine – for a while.

But I look at one train go by – and then another,
And I want to get on one.
I want to go somewhere.
So I do.  I get on a train.
But every train I ride – crashes into another train.
And after I recover from the crash,
I go back to sitting in the train station…
Watching the trains go by.

It’s fine – for a while.

Yellow Hotel

The porter greets me at the door
And carries the suitcase to my floor –
Up the stairs
Through decaying walls
Past empty rooms
Where the faucets leak
And it sounds like rain
In the lonely halls.

In the lobby,
Aging eyes tremble to ponder
An old newspaper as yellow
As the light seeping under
The lamp shade.
A hotel with a history, one thinks.

Suddenly, holding a drink,
A harlot in a purple dress
Bursts on the scene –
Flanked by an army of high-heeled bad dreams.
They walk to work in unison.
Their less than lyrical seduction
Wins a man’s soul.
On the corner seethes a nun.
The women stop to ask her for a miracle.
But there is only the hotel At the end of the day.
They return one by one…
To a night without men.
And there is only the sign in each room:
‘Please don’t smoke in bed.’

The newspaper lies alone in the lobby.
A weeping dying old woman upstairs
Knows her relatives are waiting
For her will to be read.

Night succumbs to the sun.
The roof is scorched.
The top floor thermometer breaks
And the heat goes to someone’s head.
Out the window she sails,
While in the lobby no one knows
She’s dead.

The old paintings crack.
And the walls listen for
The pen to sign the name
Of the next guest to register
Missing.

Vacation

Despair in my luggage.

The Vacuum of the Blue Sky

‘The sun!’
They screamed, running across the beach,
And cursing God –
Quickly filling their hot hells
With clouds.

Ice Cream Soda

Drinking an ice cream soda can be painful.

First of all, the glass is usually taller than the straw.
So I sip from the glass:  a glacial shock.
The floating ice cream collides with my lips,
And they freeze on contact.  The cherry is
Always inaccessible.  The seltzer is missing
Some bubbles.  Meanwhile, the chocolate sauce
Has gravitated into a big blob at the bottom.

And the ice cream soda, itself, rarely lives up
To my dream of the ideal ice cream soda.

Electric Dreams

She is sleeping.
Electric dreams race around the room
In and out of shadows.

A million babies are born
And milk their mothers dry –
While she gives birth nightly to herself;
Nursing no infant,
Saving her milk
For the white light of morning
And her perfect reflection.

Draped in the dark,
Her naked body her lover –
Her dreams born like babies –
And her steaming white milk:
The elixir of outlaws.

The Heavens

Without light –
The black ocean of night.

Proposition

I want to kiss your mouth,
And drink your honey;
Wrinkle your clothes –
And give you my money.

Neon Woman

Her eyes are a flight of black suns –
And her body: the red day
That floods the world and runs
Off to meet the night – or anyone.
Her lips are like the moon:
Nude and cold –
Their bold curve iced on the brain:
The phantasm of fame.
These lips just kiss the night – and it melts.
Stars streak the sky like hot silver bullets,
Burning little holes in time.
Crash!
Her mind is the naked white flash
Of a nuclear bomb.

Ode to Lust

Harder than a hardwood floor.
Lewd liquefaction and more.
Seized. The body
Exploding in fluid.
The brain in ruin.
From liquid
To liquidation.
Naked and numb,
Now that it’s again been done.
A pile of dead leaves.
A crumbling skeleton that heaves the dry wind:
Flesh burned away again this night
In flight toward oblivion.
And now a hot thought to spear the brain.
And when the sizzling starts –
And boiling blood floods everything,
There is only one truth in the world:
Sex kills the pain.

aliberalaffair

The organ began to boom…
When the bride tripped
Over the groom.
And the bridesmaids,
Who had sipped their champagne
Too soon,
Tossed their bouquets
On the way up the aisle.
The flowers were fake,
But ‘I’ll take one!’ cried
The bride’s mother,
As she gazed into the eyes
Of her husband’s lover.
The Bible read backwards:
‘Another one love.’
And afterwards read:
‘Love another one.’
And they did.
No one hid.
The minister kissed
The groom,
And the bride laughed
At the inscription
On her tomb.

             If You Were the Ice Cream

If you were the ice cream
And I were the cone,
I’d be less frigid
Than you.

Advice

Be careful not to go down the drain…
And don’t forget to wash behind your brain.

Passenger

I’m just another doomed passenger on the Titanic.

The Wasp

I loved once for more than an hour.
In a silken flood.
No cold colognes drifting through the air –
But hot perfumed blood.

A wasp with a stinger.
An affected finger
Inviting fools,
Then kissing their faces;
Introducing the intoxicated.

Affections that lasted
For fallen kings
And her fatal stings.

Her love creeped into glass.
And when I left,
She wore an icy breast undressed.

Rendezvous

Your lips were cold this time.
And your warm breath
Fogged and blurred mine.

I marveled at your green eyes
And blond hair…
And complimented you
On your stare.

I wished you to come nearer.
You began –
Then hesitated,
And drew back
From your side
Of the mirror.

Politicians

Promise-drunk
sober ones
keep drooling whiskey.

The Ancient Legend Of the Arrogant Aristocrat

Morose humor
Shook his brocade belly;
His sneering chin replied:
‘He simply has no polish.
He’s no gentleman, as such.’
And he stumbled to his left –
Not much.
But a wayward finger
Shattered an antique glass
That he never really touched.

Deviation in Retaliation

The interior decorator
Removed his football helmet,
Flexed his muscles,
And asked the public to leave.

Nowhere

Maybe nowhere is where I’m supposed to be?

Travel Talk

Going somewhere?
- Over to the other side of my tomb.

Do you go often?
- Only whenever I dust my coffin.

Leonardo the Painter

Leonardo dipped his brush,
Made a deduction,
And painted the world’s
Greatest seduction.

Astronomy

A woman is the whole universe.
A man is a mere planet.
Probably this one.

Interlude with a Bank President

I efficiently gained entry to your suit.
And, in a trance, I heard you make
A jest about trysts in outer space.
- With all women aboard a spacecraft,
There would be no rush to get to Neptune.

We laughed -
Then, tired and smiling,
I laid my lips next to your cheek.
You murmured from the text
And read:
‘Society’s loves aren’t secluded.’
Then you said:
‘Rules take precedence.’
And my tears ran over your face.

Liquid evaporates.
You blinked away the water from your eyes,
And then brushed away the dried salt.
I watched,
And with perfect execution,
You diluted my salt solution.

As you raced to jump back into
Your proper, pinstriped suit,
You became the male commander of
A rocket to reach Mars first.

Leaving liaisons for bank tellers.

Liquidity of cash trumping one last kiss -
I saw your silver car speed through
Its wavy reflection on the cold glass
And steel of a skyscraper that will
Never quite touch outer space.

Advertisement

Posies posed for my nose
to sell:
Their perfume was too sweet
and not very rare –
like an undiscovered model.

The wind whirred
and stirred
and evaporated
hair spray.

I told my lies
to butterflies,
who flew by no more
than once
to hear beer tones.

Do trees
need antifreeze
when there’s
a cold breeze?

I slipped -
and tripped ants
standing on cement;
smothered by
visions of seas
and sewers
and nature tours
of bushels
of listless
love commercials:
just waiting…
waiting…
for a burst of evil.

The Salesclerk

He walked like I apologize,
And constantly fingered his bloodshot eyes.
At his files no one had ever peeked -
His fever blister leaked.
Blueberries blotted his year-round pants…
And in his shoe a cockroach danced.

The Public

The public
Drops its ice cream cones
On its toes…
And the cream oozes through.

Anonymous

a
neuter noun
known
now and then
as
nice

Midnight Zoology

My night to be with no one,
Watching an ant floor-crawling.

Remember

Remember:
You’re only a mammal.

Living Too Long

If words are my oxygen, then I am drowning.

Words are deserting me, like people deserting a beach
on a rainy day.

Words are oxygen, so send for an ambulance
and a dictionary.

What is left but the search of the right word?
The waiting room, the door of rejection,
and the surgeon’s knife.

Going to one hospital and one deserted beach
after another.

Is this life?

Waiting for the next heart valve to stick
or for a sea gull to pick the last word from my brain.

My head is full of sea water.
I am part of the world’s minutiae that race in like algae
on each ocean wave.

I only want to be saved from being stranded on shore with
All those
clocks.

A ticking, chiming symphony of clocks heard round the world.
Even heard out on the ocean and in the Milky Way swirl.
Sending the gloom of structure and finality into outer space.

Where is the flashing time of fresh youth?

The rush of new love is now the crush of the next hour
and how to spend it.

Politics

thunder
hid the wonder
of the blunder,
when a hot gush
hastened the hush…
the wind blew out
flaming candles
and the shudder of
scandals all over
the genitals of
senators who ate
the wedding cake
and the flowers
on top of her
red ruins.

World History

The lunatic rules.
Beauty and Horror follow like fools.
Beauty dueling with Horror into the sea,
While the noisy crowd schemes into eternity.

A wailing whore in the house;
A bleeding head in the street;
A grinning comedian who keeps time to a beat,
Cracking jokes about evil in the sweltering heat.

This little hell is an eye in the brain
Which Beauty must blind again and again.

Cerulean cities floating on earth,
Where cool rooms of glory are certainly worth
The destiny Justice awarded at birth.
A truth that is gnarled in each wooden cross;
The reunion with oneself far above death.

The monarch who falls from madhouse or tower
To the throng far below and the peers of all power.
The valor of living one’s life in an hour.

The anger of ages imploding to stars
Which plummet from darkness and then disappear
Into the ocean like merciful tears.

Each star, a sun that races ashore
In a luminous wave – making sand out of war.

A great god who explodes in a wild hurricane;
The white light of triumph in the thundering rain;
The pain and pure dazzle of love in the glow:

Keep hidden the hell under bright winter snow.

The Narcissist

The slanted smile.
The armor of ice.
Fear buried in murder:
The flame of life.

Obsession

Invaded!
A cancer thought –
stillborn:
commanding
a thousand helmets
shooting paralysis

The Person You Know

You never really know someone.
The dark interior.
The childhood horror.
The defective brain.
The real impulse.
The façade.

Ruling the Universe

The two most dangerous forces in the universe:
Mothers and hormones

Somewhere There Is Nothing

Somewhere between the starlight of your mind
And the beauty of your face,
And the charm that is your grace…
Lies nothing but disgrace
And the vacuum of a place that you call home.

The news will not record
The murder in you room;
The killing of a heart -
The moment that you start
To seduce another soul into your doom.

Somewhere there is nothing…
In the streets and in your heart.
Somewhere there is nothing
Like the endlessness of feeling that will start.

Somewhere between the brilliance of your mind,
The beauty of your face,
And the warmth of your embrace…
Lies nothing but disgrace
And the coldness of a cemetery stone.

The news will not record
The murder in your room;
The killing of a heart;
The agony of gloom
And the unmarked grave of someone in a tomb.

The lonely silence, when I think of you – so soon
Walking out to freedom from the courtroom.

I was a traveler:  an adventurer who could take any risk.
I walked into your world that never did exist.
My future in a room – your face:  a strange black light.
I never knew that you would casually take my life.

Somewhere there is nothing.
In the streets and in your heart.
Somewhere there is nothing
Like the endlessness of feeling that will start.

The Prison Door

After years of waiting, the prison door opened.
The hated keys jangled as I walked into a jail of light.

The guard’s eyes grabbed me with one last fist –
His delusion of power now down to his own erect spine.

Greeting God, I muttered one final prison truth,
Knowing even in the sun I would be damned.

The air was as icy as the warden’s cocktail.

And as snow blocked the road, I waited.
It was a reminder that nature is the deep blue
Of a prison guard’s eyes.

Madness

Madness grows
Behind prison bars –
Not of steel,
But of real people.

The Pluperfect

Life could be a jigsaw puzzle.
What if the bloody piece fits?

Winter

When one waits
For ink to change
To black liquid thought,
One seeks new chains:
Even in a dangerous heart.
At the start It’s a dive in a cold blue lake.
Then it freezes hard.
No ink, no days, no lake.
No black blots to make
And figure out.
Each doomed letter
Locked in space.
And eyes that wake too soon
To watch a bird with snowy trace
Fly into a winter
Which will not break.

Spring

Spring is the bug eye
Of an insect seeking a mate.
Flowers are out of control;
Pollen overpopulates the planet.
The crime rate goes up.
The sky is hot and sweaty.
Things start sticking to each other.
Glue begins to drip
From a stamp on an envelope.
The stamp falls off a love letter,
Which never arrives.

Will I Ever?

Will I ever again cling
To the wings of a bee
And buzz through the garden?

Eternity

I can grasp eternity.
But tomorrow escapes me.

Solitary Funeral

Along the hall
A body lies
In piled-up dust
That closed his eyes.

Passing by,
He looked so still.
No one mourned;
He left no will.

Suffered once,
But silent now –
It happened when?
Who wonders how?

On coldest floor
There rests a head.
Along the hall
A cricket – dead.

Morning

Consciousness rolls in like a lonely wave on the ocean.

Seashells

Hunting for seashells on the beach…
Blind to the tidal wave.

Riptide

A glance from a stranger’s eyes
Threw ice water on my anger –
And I floated up a street
Of jellyfish.

Waking

when bare bodies
suddenly freeze
by the wide-open window
used for flying

Like a Sailboat

Like a sailboat gliding into the sun…
The ripple behind disappearing in a wave;
The sail catching fire
And burning orange against the sky,
Smoking, floating into space –
I have left no trace of myself:
No sweet melody – and no friends.
But bitter acquaintances
Who cannot wait to forget my face.
They lit a lantern,
And I exploded like a lake of gasoline
Waiting for a match –
Scattering insults and lists
Into every breeze.
Lists of their frailties.
If only they would remember mine.

Narcissus

Stoic Love fondled my heart.
He understood past illusions
And pale lips; the wish to fly in ships
And watch the planets move.

He seemed so solitary in his dome above –
But so sure in his knowledge,
I asked: ‘Whom do you love?’

His tear water splashed on the sea
And brimmed in shells on the sand;
His blurred eyes could not see the land.

And as he sadly took the mirror from the shelf,
I was shocked when he murmured:  ‘Myself.’

Thoughts That Pass

Thoughts that pass
Out of the mind
To where?
Like looking to find
A sound.

In the deep underground
Hot liquid rock
Beats in a furnace

While somewhere
Snow melts in the air
Before it whitens
A place

And beach sand blows
Far from the wave’s
Onrushing race.

Like the wind
That hushes;
Or a face that blushes
And disappears.

To hold in a tiny box – a whisper
That echoes even after it stops:
Is that too much?
For I am a lover of intangibles
With a need to touch.

Chance

possibility
creates choice –
and suddenly
I have no voice.

should I take a ride
on a carousel pony
or spend my money
on the horse races?

too many faces
to doubt the difference –
I must decide.

to take my turn
or wait – to learn:
yet, learning only
by choosing –

and knowing already
that if I chose,         
         it would follow me             
                 wherever       
         it             
                 goes.

Unfinished Things

Unfinished things
Or events forgotten     
   and missed –
Or someone that I never kissed…
Stir imagined memory
Much more.
What I would have felt
Letting the candle melt.

Watching the match
Flame by the wick;
Yet, keeping it
A touch away:
That’s much more
To dream of…
Than a puddle of wax.

In a Room

In a room you can live beyond the street –
But the lonely street misses you.
A yellow taxi drives by your window,
Hoping to take you somewhere.

The darkened theatre anticipates
Your entrance, while the eyes of
Gallery portraits watch for you –
And the minds of museum sculptures
Await your important opinion.

Night clubs throb with your heartbeat.
And waiters line up into infinity.

No one may ever love you, but the city:
Not just the grim bar interior, but
The sleek buildings and the water tumbling
Down urban fountains.  The oxygen
From dying trees needs breathing.

One can drift through indoor dreams –
And hallucinate the city.
But it is the dream that deserts the world.
And the world needs you –
Even if you can live in a room.

The Darkened Stair

In the little room
Up the darkened stair
Is my life.

Strangers in Dreams

Who are these people?

Sleep

The wave of departure from the shore
Reflecting in the water.

I met you onboard a ship that never sailed,
At a party of odd strangers that never lived –
Yet I know them.

Sleep:  The realm of the vision.
The old painting in pastels of immortal love,
And landscapes lost in the mist of beauty.

Sleep: the red flesh of revenge.

Sleep:  the exploding soldier, who walks on air.
The war that awakes to a green forest.
The blood that never flows.
The tale with the different ending.

Sleep:  the cool cloud of oblivion.

Sleep: god of the dream:
The lantern of the night:
That luminous other life.

Sleep:  the arrow shot through the day -
And caught in the heart.

Charlotte’s Clock

What black-cloaked creatures
Haunted your tiny heart
Locked in the dark birth of
Milk-fed fears?
Who scolded your ivory fingers
When the piano offended some ears?
What god breathed
In your bed – draped and silken,
Sleeping in your love?
What clock keeps ticking above?
What wet wick
Yet flickers there
Hidden in molten flame?
What secret?  What shame?
What night bird shrieks
Past the window pane?
What symphony stops?
What odd face?
What tale of rain?
What hour?  What castle?
Midnight?

Paragons

Paragons
And perfection
Consciously sought:
Passing through transparent flesh,
Wrapped in the luminous drapes of death,
Drifting – but caught.
Alchemy’s soul:
Idolatry of the whole.

Statue of ideal atoms:
Marble nymph:
Plato’s dove – with
Feathery silver hair,
And cold heart
Melting with love.

Shadows dispersed;
Moving shadows;
Shadows seen, but not
Photographed:  a phantom
Profiled by none.

A painted reverie of night dreams,
Passing lovers –
And others:  all
Similes – but one.

Death of a Butterfly

The moth seduced
The butterfly
With dirty wings
And breathless sigh.

Blades between
Reduced to one:
Hazy green
In dewy sun.

Yellow wings
Cloaked in gray…
Two moths marched –
Then flew away.

Dark Love

a raindrop of light
at perfect noon
will die in the eye
of a cynical moon.

one blue drop of night
turns to glistening mist
to illumine a heart
which has never been kissed

by love in the dark
that darkens the sun…
and lingers there
till the shadows come.

Cyclone

There are many startling things on earth,
In air, on cloud, cyclone…

But perhaps the most startling of all
Is to live one’s life alone.

Time Blown Backwards

The man’s white hair and anguished face
Demolished by a young boy’s brilliant eyes
And smile – disappearing into a lake.

The withered face of the memory of a
Girl’s wedding kiss - circling down from
The pink clouds of the sky.

The funeral tears lost in the sea.

The history of life floating for one second
On the water’s reflection of a swan in the moonlight.

Something Contrary

A man views a woman
And, his eyes eclipsed,
Sees a ghost with red lips –
And something contrary
To what he expected:

Her invisible body
Filled with light!
His maddened mind,
Cracked with fright,
Skulks toward dawn
Undetected.

In an Icicle

In an icicle
Lurks a lie
Or my life.
A watery tale
Of cold-hearted deeds.
Soft echoing wails
That make the past freeze.
A dungeon of icicles,
Each with a name:
Clear drops that fall
From a ceiling of eyes;
Each drop exploding in pain:
Nitroglycerin.
Caves full of snow: white wall of mystery.
Crystal ghosts crack the crime of history.
They are the truth the gods even despise -
Frozen in silent centuries of ice.

Looking for Genius

If I were a genius, I would have figured out
A way not to be born.

And yet I look for genius in this world –
Knowing that true genius will never be found.

And still I try to find the emerald in the cesspool;
A diamond in a dump.

But I only find a large jewel on the finger
Of a spoiled, witty fool – who has nothing
Except his black tongue.

Desperate to figure out a way not to be reincarnated,
I wonder where God’s loneliness ends.

And where is God, anyway?

Perhaps we will meet in a bar,
Listening to a teary melody.

If I Had Never Been Born

Would it make a difference
If I had never been born?

Would the moon still be as beautiful?

Would the iceberg still break away from the glacier?

Would the window glass be stained
By someone else’s tears?

Would winters be as cold?

Would love still be impossible?

Would the world be just another sword duel?

Would morning feel like a new life?

Would dread surround the white clouds?

Would summer be a joyful splash in a brook?

Would a thief be waiting?

Would anything be different?

Have I changed the world in any way?

Have I stolen into someone’s mind?

I hope I left no evil behind to be dug up –
Not even my bones.

If only a fossil be found on a rock;
A thumbprint on a book;
Or a letter blowing past the shore,
Or out to sea – and destroyed by salt.

If the ocean blots out any memory of a wave
Of thought –
As pure as nothing left
But the wind alone.

No heart touched.
But no black mark left on any gleaming star.

Princess Diana

Born into the aristocracy of
Beauty –
With the bird of Misfortune
Perched on her crib.

Beauty courting heartache.
Doomed by the mind’s mysterious search for
Unrequited love.

A baby born damned.
But valiant.
Knowing the cursed.

Loving the unfortunate ones on earth.
Championing the ignored.

Despising tiny fame
And its surgeon.

She, not this gloomy sphere –
But a glorious undiscovered galaxy.

Take her pain into the hearts
Of everyone who loves her.
We will gladly bear anything
For her.

Heiress to isolation.
She is the signal to all the world
Of what is brave and lonely.

The melancholy behind the eyes:
Like the unexpected love
That comes too late.

An unlucky angel –
Fated to fly, alas,
In a raging world
Where there is no air.

Duel

Hold on dearly to your steely heart.
Let not one feeling start.

Beware of nobility.
It can pierce your life.

Close the compassionate eye.
One glance away in a duel
Can elicit a trickle of blood…
Or eternal red.

Victory – Almost

A cheer.

A sigh.

A tear.

Autobiography of a Ghost

The ghost floats towards me –
A fog of mist that tempts an earthling: ‘
Abandon the prison of the body.
Disappear and roll out to the open sea –
As obscure, dark green and gray as
A subconscious dream.
Desert the sun and its horror of
Illumination.  Light reveals all
That is meant to be unseen.
Come with me and drift through days,
Sleeping in a green ocean of mist
Where there are no vacant hours.
Sleeping, then racing to the shore at night:
All water and mist that drown the lonely
Dream.  No time.  Just water and mist
Crashing to the shore, ignoring the
Delusional egomania of the sun.
The jealousy of the sun, knowing
That earth could bloom without it.
Adventure:  The sun shining in a blank sky?
Or roaring to the shore with the freedom
Of one drop.  Racing and crashing day after
Day.  And the haunting at night.  Lurking
By the shore, and then insinuating into
Coastal towns, turning them into
Nightclubs of clouds.  Today, we will
Taunt the meteorologists and the pilots:
Will the planes fly? I roll in early.
Cancellations.  I roll out.  Planes
Roll onto the runway. I roll in.  Planes
Halt, engulfed by a ghost.  As invisible
As the ghosts in the city.’

A Saint

A saint is a great baby –
Who remains one.

The Answer is in Tears

We were born in salt water –
And we die in salt water.

Clouds of Proof

When clouds float through my head…
They remind me that I wish I were dead:
Dallying with the angels of the air,
Vanishing in a flash of alabaster glare.
I know it is true:
Living on glory instead of on glue.
This tiny blue planet is only a pool
Of pain in the heart, and a heart that is cruel.
That is why I forever look forward to death
And hope that the next is my very last breath.
For death is the most artistic escape
To the luminous world of glamour in state.
And I always reply, when they ask me for proof:
‘I prefer the truth of dreams to the dream of truth.’

Sleeping on the Moon

A night of speeding clouds
And riding on the moon…
Floating out of time, and
Gliding through the gloom.
And then to earth you dive
To make me feel alive.
To crush the silent scream –
And make the day a dream.

Ode to a Bridge

Curved back of a beautiful woman.
Wind web that traps the swift shark of a dream.
I breathe in that dream.
I fell from you –
And am still falling.
Lightning rod of Aphrodite.
Arrow of Diana, you fly.
Fingertips pointing to the sky,
You touch Heaven
And grace Hell
With the melody of your strings.
Oh, I would give my life
To be a goddess
So careless with such rhapsody.

Posthumous Living

Plunging off the bridge into dark waters,
I discovered posthumous living.
It is identical to life –
And just as unforgiving.

My body torn by the tides –
My head beating against rocks –
My face blanched with truth –
My brain reeling from shocks.

Ignored by destiny,
A cloud racing toward rainy oblivion:
It was my misfortune
That other minds were just as driven.

My unruly love, noble toward anonymity,
Could not last a mere half century.
On that windy bridge, poised on the brink:
My unknown heart – written in ink.

Birth

Clouds would float
In soft dark
Worlds deep inside.

Her hair is blowing
Out to sea. Woo the wind,
Drown her dream –
And beg her not to.

Curl the cord –
For cream is cold,
And kisses cannot keep you
Soft and dark.

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