It's All

starting to make sense now.
Just watch how starlight bends
close to the sun, showing
space’s voluptuous curve.
No absolute truths anymore –
time, space, religion,
morality -  all rejected.
It’s only how you take me
into your fractal pointless
prattle that matters now.
And breath becomes absurd -
like imagination itself.
What’s happened to life?
What's happened to the
twist of my tangled tongue?

Response to Oriah

what do you mean…

IF  I AM

a wisher

a liar

and a

magic bean buyer?

Haven’t I been at your fire

for all these many years 

reciting while playing

an ancient shell lyre?

Didn’t I play games

of finding rune stones,

painting fish bones, and

giving the faeries names?

And what of the moon cakes

I made - heavy and sweet -

for the spirit owls that flew

to our dream covered feet

on those mystical mornings

when the spiders’ webs

adorned our heads like

silver and diamond tiaras?

I know we have tales to spin.

That’s why I have come in;

to sit with you awhile -

to be with you again.

How It Is

I live anonymously
between breath and hum
and the erratic flights of crows,
their wings a rustle of taffeta
through which I strain
my Pu-erh tea and dreams –
reaching, breathing, ascending…


I’m mostly behind the trees now -
their branches growing
so close to me, I can’t
see my own arms anymore.


But, at night, I do see
the slow drift of stars
and can’t help thinking
that Astraeus must be tired
of keeping all those fires burning.

N.C.'s Studio

In your studio,
I want to wrest you
from the cerulean blue
and the viridian green
of your inscribed palette.


Or - if I cannot pull
you, body and spirit,
out of the dried paint -
won’t you at least
come down from
one of your canvases
to stand on the worn
floorboards again
like a giant
among your props;
costumes, guns,
swords, pipes, jars,
bones and busts?


Standing alone
in the north light
of the studio,
I am much aware
of your technique –
of you.


With no more
than brushes
and oil paints,
you showed us
both dazzling light
and deep shadows -
and how the contrast
of the two could
heighten tensions
that alluded to the
dangers in life.

Thawing Out

I’m being
unfaithful
to nature –

coming out of
dormancy early,
splitting into
two halves,
and sending
up flowers…

The sun says
I can live forever,
even if the crows
around me fall
to the earth
in silent
ambivalence.

Quinta Essentia

The smell of oak moss and lichens
from the corner of your bungalow,
lingers on my skin like balsam and
sanctifies me in this winter light -
allowing me to respire ancient air
from a distant and temperate wood.

The universe holds nothing more that can heal me;
clary sage, lavender, cedar bark, resin of myrrh -
not even the holiest of chrisms could offer more.