Perfect Canvas

Long...

Gray...

Walls...

Like an eternity of potential.

Like a sting stretched till meaningless.

Like thoughts too bland,

Uninfluential

And

Seedless.

Like going somewhere,

But paused in the going.

Like a photograph left here

Without even knowing

What was in it or why.

Like a brown-yellow dye.

Like a firefly in daylight

Like a black bear at midnight.

Like what you like

But not how you like it.

Like being lost in an ice cave

Without your fleece blanket.

An empty art gallery

Is like the loss in your mind

When you see familiarly

A face; smiling, kind...

And the name's on the tip

Of the pad of your tongue...

Something won't let you say it.

The suspense feels hung.

An empty art gallery

With long, gray walls

Where silence arises

And swells and then falls

Into the carpets--

They're red but they're dull--

And you walk slow at midnight

And hesitantly mull

Over the things

From which during the day

You felt unworried

And felt far away.

And now all the worries

And irrational fears

Arrayed on blank walls

Are invisible tears.

Contained in a Breath

History so vast

It became an entity

Then faded so fast

From the realm of the real

That we walk right by it,

Right through it, inside it,

And inside of us

In our lungs and our will.

What ages this air has existed!

It has not been fresh

Since universes resisted

The shells of their eggs.

Wood Post With Rusty Staples

It is a mockery of its former growth.

It was deeply rooted in the earth

And it sang to summer winds

And sang above two roadways' ends

In a voice like distant crowds.

Deeply rooted in red earth still

It is a mockery; it has no will

To live, to grow, to bend, or throw

Its leaves up like hands

Flipping green hair out of its face.

Its leaves are long forgotten now.

Its leaves are stained printer paper now.

It is a dead thing, a dried-up dead thing;

It can not feel. Only for me is it a mockery

When I hear the others around it sing

And it appears to believe it is planted here

Where two roads' endings meet.

I feel irony whispering in my ear.

Does it think it is still a tree

Like the others that tower above it?

Ingenue

Sometimes she tiptoes and dances

Lightly down the garden path at dawn.

And blows kisses to birds as she glances

Upward into the sweetly brightening sky

That unfolds like peach silk curtains

For the soft-hearted sun to waken by.

Sometimes she smiles imperceptibly

At the corners of her rose-colored lips

When white rose petals detach ceremonially

And in faith surrender to gravity's call.

Sometimes she hovers over ivory keys

Like a gypsy pensive before her crystal ball.

And the future is music, the kind that frees

The soul from the body like the leaves that fall.

Sometimes monsters wear masks.

A heart divided can only beat against itself.

Inspiratory System

It breathed a thought into my ear.

Inward a spire was built sharply,

Silver like glass and vertigo fear and

Smoke, cold smoke, twisting like liquid.

A whisper was all that was needed,

Barely a thread of the shadow of the spirit

Or soul of the wind, and I heeded.

I can't see the surface below, but I fear it.

It is chasing me, and I stand still.

Lying on empty, resting but not,

What is this lack of earth I feel?

Oblivion. It is my mind, it is thought.

Holding together the fragile fiber

Of pretend universes falling

Into the simulacrum of Tiber.

Half-made, half-extreme, fully my beloved children:

Dying in life because never living

They are.

Lost before found or born.

Far.

It is unknown. And more familiar to me

Than the skin that has enfolded me

In its warm embrace, not roomy

And not snug until after meals;

But no matter, this.

It is It, is all. The soul has undrawn pages

At the back of its atlas.

It is enough to feel the wind.

Palindrome

Dry.

I am a cracked painting, brushed with grief.

Between my eyes there's a frown.

My retinas feel ready to crack open.

What have I done?

What have I seen?

There's nowhere left to lean

And no strength left to run.

At the edge of the crevasse, I tossed every rope in.

And with no direction left but down,

To fall would be relief.

Cry.

Credulity

The sun never sets.

The earth turns between it

And our eyes.

Perception never gets

The ability to glean it--

The story behind our lies.

If we have any regrets

It's that we've never seen it--

The world, too vast to size.

Dust Bowl

When the river comes

There will be water.

The fields will grow green

Though the sun may grow hotter.

We'll have rich, brunette soil

When the river comes.

The cracks in the desert

Will disappear like phantoms.

These bare crags will become

Soft, rolling, grassy hills--

When the river comes

They'll be bright with daffodils.

My mother sings this song

To the relentless dust storms.

We'll cross over and be happy

When the river comes.

Dog

Trot two miles silhouetted.

Golden day's-end-shine:

Burnishment above a black hill.

Slender knives of grass,

Black too,

Brushing past.

Eyes brown

Deep like nothing ever seen.

(Soil is brown and deep...

Maybe the incarnate spirit of soil,

Of earth and home.)

Hairs that belong to that sky.

Breath warm like friendship.

Trust radiates off

And mingles with the light.

Love is here, yes,

But it's a different kind of love.

Keymistress

Down through the tunnel, twisting and flaring,

Lightwaves and darkwaves and losing your bearings:

That is the path to the end of the spiral.

The adventure is thrilling; the obsession is viral.

Down through the space-time continuum's question.

Out of the universe, into the next one:

That is the path to the new realm of sorrow.

Loneliness, memories, distrust of tomorrow.

Bad Black and Good White in their long laughing war

Give you the feeling you've been here before.

Monsters won't kill you, or maybe they will

It all depends on your level of skill.

There's always someone, out there in space,

Who hates, for some reason, the whole human race.

Hate and love, black and white,

The fifth of all nature continues the fight.

Planets collide and nebulas glow,

civilizations fall and grow,

Time ticks away, in a line or a ball,

Time ends someday.... Cracks open and all...

And over the vast reach of Every Existing Thing,

A Keymistress watches and jangles her ring.

Joseph

Follow a thread through the weave of a coat.

Over and under like waves and a boat.

Red waves are lapping the top of each cuff

Blue waves zig-zagging, the sea's getting rough

Along the hem edge where it drags in the dust.

White and gold sash holds it up off the crust

Of the earth, which lends its light browns, grays and greens

To the collar above which the coat wearer preens

For a father who paid in good silver and stock

To dress prudent son like a lovely peacock.

Each stitch as articulate as nature allows,

Each color as bright as his eyes 'neath his brows,

The patterns and stripes follow predestined memes:

Bear pattern to hold tight, Bird pattern for dreams

Star pattern for solace, Tree pattern for strength,

Heart pattern for health and a life of great length.

Black for fathomless promise as far

As the stretching, unseen, black beyond every star,

Crimson like fire, flames reaching to grasp

Like hope, something there, just outside their clasp.

Gray rain is falling down back and both sides,

Brown wheat is growing from roots the seam hides.

Depictions of sheep, and cows chewing their cud,

Not intended to soak up a scapegoat's warm blood.

Maybe vanity, love-blindness, foolish mistake.

The catalyst for a lifetime, the clothes weavers make.

Blue Silk Songs

Silk is a voice

With blue undertones.

Music is a choice

For all the left-alones:

All the orphaned babies

The girls with no close friends

The dogs with chronic rabies

Men on roads with no ends.

A rose is a thorn

With alluring bait set;

The same disguise worn

By snakes out to get

The lost little children

And the souls who weep

Over bones that were killed when

The mountains were still steep.

Blue is a poem.

And Blue is a song

And a color to show 'em

Where they went wrong.