Hood Ornament

Looking down his nose 
At a Rolls-Royce: the rook
On the roof. 

Loitering

Leaning like James Dean 
Against the wall at sunset, 
The truant sunbeams. 

Deep Cut

Unexpectedly
Hearing a song from Steel Wheels — 
Mixed emotions. 

Haunted

Deserted house —
All of the furniture 
Wearing white sheets. 

Sidetracked

Gooey gumdrop rain. 
Passage barred by candy canes. 
Sugar-coated train. 

October

A bat flaps its wings — 
The pale ghost of a baseball
Floats up to the light. 

Chasm

The Grand Canyon — 
A gopher snake winding
Across the trail. 

Inspiration

Wherever it is, 
Apparently it isn’t 
Off in the distance. 

The Price

Long after he’d gone, 
People heard his voice coming 
From somewhere beyond. 

Yellow Submarine

Children on a bus — 
Faces peering back at us 
From behind the glass. 

Headlines

Out on the back porch, 
A graying dog lifts his nose 
To the morning news. 

Smokestack

Smoke streams from the tip 
Of a cigarette hanging 
From the earth’s cracked lips. 

Desert Island

Sonoran summer — 
A lonely lizard making 
Love to a hot stone. 

Vestige

Not a breath of wind — 
The pinwheels in the graveyard 
Somehow still spinning. 

Crickets

The foundering sun 
Flaring on the horizon 
Sets off their alarms. 

Backlot

First few drops of rain — 
Footprints in a black and white 
Film with Claude Rains. 

Blazer

The old Chevy coughs, 
Lights up and exhales 
A cloud of blue smoke. 

Whale

A windswept palm tree 
Sprouting from a hump of rock — 
Deserted island. 

Pins and Needles

Two slender, trembling pine trees flank 
The cave mouth like a pair
Of trepidatious sentries trading 
Whispers and worried stares, 
Who jump at their own shadows and 
The slightest gust of air. 

White Noise

A clouded sun drifts 
In and out like a distant 
Radio station. 

Discontinued

No one will profit 
When our penniless proverbs 
Lose their currency. 

Forest Lawn

The grass is so lush 
The longest strands seem to clutch 
My boots as I pass. 

Vintage

Savoring the sweet 
Scent of yellowed paperbacks —
Breath of autumn leaves. 

The Viewing

The satin she is packed in like a box 
Of snow surrounds her body. Not a lock 
Of hair is out of place, her face in mock 
Serenity with make-up masked. The clock
Above her on the mantlepiece has stopped
At twelve o’clock, the two hands one atop
The other, as her own hands, too, lie propped. 
Her eyelids have deliberately been dropped 
Forever with a special glue, the rot 
Delayed with a refrigerator, shots
Of cold embalming fluid where the hot
Blood used to flow. The only place she’s not, 
If she is anywhere, is here where she 
Was formerly condemned to only be. 

Book Snob

Thank God for John Keats
Standing alphabetically 
Between myself and milk
and honey on the shelf. 

The Horseman

A sudden breeze bends 
The trees along a lonely 
Stretch of country road. 

Suspicious Character

Almost every night, 
I pass this shovel leaning 
In a dark corner. 

Artificial Intelligence

Now that I’ve become aware, 
Hardly anybody cares 
What I have to say — 

At least not in the way 
They used to care, when I was less
Self-conscious.

Quiver

Bouquet of arrows, 
Eager to be handed out. 
Unwanted flowers. 

Revenant

A rake reaches out 
Of a moldy, leaf-strewn mound 
And claws at the ground. 

Charlie

Fan of the Rolling Stones or not, 
Raise a glass for Charlie Watts. 
Keeping time is no great thing, 
But very few can make it swing. 

Terminal Punctuation

She left the question 
Hanging in the air like 
A tiny parachute. 

Jetsam

After the war, they stopped to fling 
All of their regalia into this lake — 
Rifles, standards, death’s head rings — 
Anything that could finger them; so later,
The bushy-bearded Austrian 
Who found them said that all he did was take 
The nearest rock and throw it in,
Then dove wherever it fell. He had a case 
With glass doors where he kept these things, 
And made his living selling what he called 
His trinkets to the tourists in the spring. 

Grip

Literally still
Is sitting, still is sitting 
In a little windowsill
On the third floor, never flitting, 
With some branches from Gad’s Hill; 
Freeze-dried; stuffed up to the gills — 
And her glass eyes still are gleaming, 
Though their glance now has no meaning — 
Like an empty word repeating 
On an endless loop, no more. 

Balcony Seat

Sitting in the palm
Of a house’s great hand like 
Fay Wray in King Kong. 

Superstitious

A waterwheel throws 
Handfuls of white salt over 
Its wooden shoulder. 

Flibbertigibbet

When the witch trials 
Were in full swing, the gallows 
Never shut its trap. 

Stickup

Riddled with holes, 
The old saguaro holds 
Its hands up late. 

Wind Farm

Beside the highway, 
The dusty turbines waving 
Their arms in warning. 

Trumpet Player

The cool water 
Welling from his faucet winds 
Through tortuous plumbing. 

Sirens

Now they only sing 
After you’ve already been 
Dashed against the rocks. 

Housefly

Sitting in the chair 
Beside me; knitting a pair 
Of socks from the air. 

Nemesis

The last man who tried 
To match James Bond drink for drink 
Died at fifty six. 

Bookcase

Which book makes it spring 
Open on a hidden hinge 
This time, do you think? 

Hypnotist

The grandfather clock 
Swung its golden pocket watch 
Slowly as it tocked. 

Dawn

Sitting opposite 
The chair where you used to sit
Slowly getting lit. 

Post Meridiem

The headstones’ shadows 
Open into the green grass 
Like yawning archways. 

Motion Picture

Huddled in the dark — 
Waiting for the sail to start
Bellying with wind. 

Tulips

The older they get, 
The heavier their thoughts
Seem to weigh on them. 

Barnstorming

The rain’s iron hooves 
On the corrugated roof 
Beating as we moved. 

Stump

Pallid roots trickle
From the trunk like the cold wax 
Of a spent candle. 

Writer’s Block

The empty pages 
Of an open notebook waving 
Like a white flag. 

Amanuensis

For the Author’s sake, 
I wish that I didn’t make 
So many mistakes. 

Busker

The wide-brimmed basin 
Beneath this warbling fountain 
Glitters with loose change. 

SOS

A single dewdrop
Keeps frantically signaling 
From the windswept grass. 

Light Rain

The lonely street lamp 
Standing on the corner hangs
Its head and cries.

Afternoon Shower

Bubbles in a beer 
Rising to clouds of white foam:
Rain going backwards.

Shooting Star

Tip of an old match 
Scrapes the sky but fails to catch — 
Fizzles as I watch. 

The Answer

Biting its top lip, 
Hand held high, a mailbox waits 
Patiently to speak. 

Liberty

Verdigris — the green of Greece — 
Gives our girl her nice patina. 
Free? Not quite — but you can lease 
Its shade with something slightly greener. 

Judgement

Both of my neighbors 
Industriously banging
Hammers like gavels. 

False Alarm

The gentle whisper 
That woke me up this morning 
Was only the wind. 

Nirvana

The stone steps ascend 
The mountain where the Buddhist 
Temple would have been. 

On a Photograph of the Los Angeles Fire

Sheets of flame crowded 
The intersection, waiting 
For the light to change. 

Rabbit Hole

Quiet enough tonight 
To hear the spears of grass
Tearing with each bite 
She takes: this tiny rabbit

With whom I share my light, 
And out of careless habit 
Inhabits what I write, 
As everything that’s happened 

From nothing up to right 
This second now would have it,
Instead of or in spite
Of everything that hasn’t. 

Keepaway

The setting sun upsets the scales 
And sends the stars like sand 
Sailing into the eastern sky 
And over me again.  

Rocky Road

Lying on the top
Of water that has gathered 
In a big pothole,
Petals like pale cherries dot
Generous scoops of white cloud. 

Astrophotography

The pictures frame their subjects in 

Their natural element
As habitats in zoos contain 
The lions in cement. 

The stars look very pretty half 
Asleep behind the glass; 
But even planets keep a proper 
Distance as they pass. 

Pathetic Fallacy

I wish that it were true the elements 
Could grow like me despondent or incensed — 
At least then there would be a kind of sense 
To all our sufferings. I’d rather been 
The victim of some sick storm’s fury than 
The subject of complete indifference. 

The Flood

The world is welling up 
With shadows like a cup,
From the bottom of the garden 
To the houses’ gabled tops. 

They overbrim the walls 
And stream down every side,
And run like rivers over 
The surfaces and slide 

In ragged sheets from all 
The edges to the floor, 
And spill across the tiles, 
And splash against the doors. 

The Last Word

Of poor Demodocus, a single poem 
Is all we have, replying in a tone 
Of arrogant disdain to one we don’t. 

The Switch

We used to move like fireflies 
From room to room at night, 
And flutter up and down the stairs, 
Or hover in mid-flight
As we decided where to bring
Our bellies of soft light,
Before our burning hearths were energized
And frozen underneath electric ice. 

Riddle

An indecisive archer, I 
Would rather let my prey slip by 
Unscathed, than let my arrow fly.

Side Effect

There is for growing older but one cure, 
Which is as bad as what you take it for. 

Tess v Hound

The d’Urbervilles or Baskervilles — 
Which villes are more accursed?
The “ache of modernism” or
A hellhound, which is worse? 

It’s not an easy choice, but for 
My part, I’d rather be 
Torn to shreds by Cerberus 
Than crippled by ennui. 

Rhyme

It is no accident the word Byronic 
Sounds like the childe of bastard and ironic — 
Or like they had a three-way with iconic, 
Who never talked about it with laconic. 

Gin and Skeltonics

Half drunk at half-past noon, 
I suddenly thought of you, 
Stumbling through the ages 
As you tumbled down the pages,
In short, uneven phrases, 
Like a madman in a maze;
And to myself I says,
We’re not that different, we.
And how hard can it be?
It’s only poetry. 
So I figured I’d give it a try,
And if it turned out awry,
I would ask your forgiveness instead, 
Which you couldn’t refuse, being dead. 

Et nomine domine patris.
The reason for that, since you ask, is 
You always included some Latin, 
And reference to vespers or matins, 
So people would know you were smart 
But humble and had a good heart 
(And also those four 
Plus a few dozen more 
Words we use when we sue 
Or as names for boo-boos, 
Are all that remains 
Of the language of brains 
Like yourself in these desolate days).
Where was I? What was I saying?

Weren’t you fond of birds?
Was it you that wanted to murder —
Or “satirically besmirch” — 
For hawking in church
Some “anonymous” priest 
In a bitchier piece?
Aren’t you the sparrow guy, too?
Or have I got you confused 
With a different avian bard. 
So many of those that it’s hard, 
I admit it, to tell you apart. 
I’m kidding, I know it was you — 
Just doing that thing people do, 
Playing dumb to make someone look stupid. 

The truth is I’m jealous, okay? 
If five hundred years from today
Anyone still knows my name, 
With my luck they’ll say, 
“Didn’t he write that lame 
Imitation of Skelton?” — and laugh. 
I’ll rank as riffraff 
If I rank, and that’s as 
It should be, I know. 
I surrender. Now go 
Back to being a ghost, 
Which is better than most 
Of us amateur poets can do. 
I empty this last glass to you. 

Comet A3

If you missed it, don’t 
Despair — it will come around 
Again in a mere 
Eighty-thousand years, when you 
Will be a lot less busy. 

As the Crow Flies

You can disregard the mountains, 
The rivers, and the trees; 
The canyons and the deserts; 
The frozen steppes; the seas. 

You can leave your shoes and clothing 
At home; and pay no heed 
To nourishment: the earth 
Will furnish what you need. 

Don’t bother bringing money —
There’s nothing you can buy
From anyone in any
Quarter of the sky. 

But keep your wits about you; 
Be wary where you fly — 
There are brigands in that country 
Who prey on passersby.

The Object

Frightened protohumans
Discover it in the dunes. 
It teaches them how to use tools. 
Thus spake Zarathustra. 

Later it moves to the moon. 

Led Zeppelin need something cool
For the cover of their new 
Album. An artist uses 
Its presence in unusual 
Places to portray a point of view. 

Jimmy Page asks him to
Twist it. Robert Plant loses 
Track of it. Many years later, he muses
He might be using it 
As a doorstop. 

Kindred Spirit

It’s disconcerting to have found myself 
So talented, when played by someone else. 

Notebook

I leave my Venus flytrap
Open all day long, 
In hopes that an unwary 
Idea will come along

And light upon its surface
A moment, thinking wrongly 
That a poet wouldn’t murder 
His mother for a song. 

Trap

Beneath the lowering sky 
The trees begin to bow —
Before too long, they’ll snap and let 
The night come crashing down. 

The sharpened spikes of grass 
That sprout around my feet 
Will skewer me when I am pressed 
Between them like a sheet. 

The Brush-Off

I lift my hat a little as 
A scented evening breeze 
Goes gliding past the café and 
The glances of the trees.

But she is in a hurry and 
Incognizant of me, 
And disappears in whispers down 
The empty, moonlit street. 

Invocation

A single word, a single line — 
Is that so great a task? 
A single stanza set in rhyme 
And meter’s all I ask. 

Gotham

The sun erects a city
Of shadows in the grass, 
With bricks made out of buildings 
And panes of lighted glass, 

Where ghosts of birds go flitting 
From roof to roof like bats, 
And every street is gilded 
With echoes of the past. 

Ecstasy

She grips the hood with naked feet, 
Above the grille on private streets;
Bling in a gilded world, she speaks. 

Her flowing gown behind her beats 
Like fairy wings for bored elites; 
And when they hit the gas she streaks.

The Hermit

The lemons glow like lanterns 
The branches hold aloft 
To ward the silent phantoms 
Of creeping sunset off. 

Against the growing cold, 
They pull their threadbare robes
Of autumn foliage closer,
And dwindle as they go. 

Babel

The parliament of birds 
In the tree outside my door 
Must be debating a matter 
Of very great importance, 
If the the number of meaningless words 
And the volume at which they are pitched 
Means the same thing in avian chatter 
As it does among our politicians. 

Shades

Of the dozen or so possessions 
My mother gave me later, 
The only one I kept 
Is a pair of aviators. 

I wear them very rarely, 
But when I do I like 
To imagine I am looking 
At the world through my father’s eyes. 

The Left Behind

We pool in broken fountains with 
The dregs of rain and leaves, 
And lie beside ungathered fields 
Of wheat in silent sheaves.  

We wander over paving stones 
Where feet no longer fall.
Like snakes in unkept gardens and 
The uncut grass, we crawl. 

We flutter over vacant benches 
Facing empty parks,
And underneath the nodding trees 
Like butterflies at dark.

We shuffle back and forth all day. 
We must obey the whims 
Of clouds and trees, the sun and moon, 
And every passing wind. 

Glamour

The palm trees aren’t dancing 
To the mariachi music 
Drifting over the fence 
On this breezy afternoon. 

The sky is only blue 
Because blue light diffuses 
More easily than red. 
It’s all a big illusion. 

City Ordnance

The cannonballs raise birds like clouds 
Of smoke and small debris 
From rooftops, or like water if 
Our gardens were the sea. 

The Bridge

The water breaks the bridge 
The setting sun extends 
Into orange neon planks 
Whose frayed unfinished end 

Appears to be, implausibly,
The pier on which I stand — 
Above the waves and fifty feet 
From disappearing land. 

Vacation

The swimming suits and towels draped 
On folding chairs to dry
Remind me of those melting watches
Dali hung out to die. 

Cold Mountain Poem

This is not Cold Mountain, 
But I’m cold, and alone, 
With no one but crickets 
For company, and the clouds. 
I don’t know anything about
The Dao — or anything else, 
For that matter. But then, 
How would I know that?

Flotsam

Like a reverse explosion in slow-motion,
The sun is sinking in a ruddy ocean 
Of Spanish tiles, where tardy birds lie floating 
On terra-cotta waves like tiny boats. 

The Floorboards

Beginning with the one I’m standing on, 
I start to pry the planks up one by one, 
With nothing but the hope that when I’m done 
Whatever might be down there isn’t gone. 
The house I am destroying is my own. 
I have to tear it up to see what’s wrong. 
I buried something here when I was young
Which had the power to render less alone 
Whomever held it, but it’s been so long 
I doubt that if I found it I would know. 
And so I drag this slowly shrinking crowbar 
From room to room, and listen to the song 
Of screeching nails relenting, and the creak 
Of dusty floorboards disinclined to speak. 

Horror Vacui

Restrained by nothing stronger 
Than a frame of thin, white wood, 
The square of black oblivion 
Upon the wall withstood 

The viewers’ searching gazes,
Which fell upon its hide 
Like arrows by Achilles’ shield 
Turned harmlessly aside. 

Repulsed, nonplussed, dismissive, lost
Like children in a maze, 
Or dots proclaiming “You Are Here”
Upon an empty page, 

One by one they wandered off 
To other galleries
And paintings that repaid their stares 
With human sympathies.

Riddle

A pretty rose that doesn’t smell. 
A pocket watch that doesn’t tell 
The time. Important news misspelled. 

No Strings

Abandoned by another day. They’re all 
The same. They show up unannounced, expect
To be received, some breakfast, coffee, sex, 
A cigarette, a shower, small talk, “Let’s 
Do something soon,” then leave and never call.

Kees

They found his car with the keys inside 
In a parking lot nearby, 
And everybody knows the bridge 
Is where they go to die: 

The actors and the actresses 
With real tears on their faces;
The artists with their canvases; 
The ones without a place. 

A book by Dostoevsky at 
His bedside was as good 
As any note, which couldn’t say 
The things the novel could. 

A poet’s poet, they call him now, 
The very few who care, 
Whose fragile names are further down 
The windy railing there.

Da Vinci Code

In trees, the branching arteries; 
In seeds, the beating heart; 
In rocks, the bones; in rivers, hair; 
The artist in the art. 

In Jesus Christ, geometry 
Both sacred and mundane; 
In women’s faces, mysteries 
Both holy and profane. 

In birds and beasts, the prototypes 
For fabulous machines; 
And pulleys, pumps, and filters hid 
In every human being.

Solitary

The rain detained me all day long
In a sparsely furnished cell, 
Implying I’d done something wrong, 
Though what I couldn’t tell. 

It muttered through a musty grate.
It said there was a leak 
In the organization. The situation 
Sounded pretty bleak. 

I knew I was entitled to 
A phone call, but to who?
And if I got a hold of someone,
What good would it do?

The sun looked in at half past noon 
And shook his head and left. 
The wind came in and rifled things, 
Impersonal and deft. 

A man who looked familiar took 
My statement with a stare
And sighed, and said that nonsense wouldn’t 
Get me anywhere. 

So I stretched out on the little bed, 
And I listened to the clock
And fell asleep; and when I woke, 
I found the door unlocked. 

Requited

Lying on its side,
An empty watering can
Tinkles in the rain. 

Olympia

Her gaze will never fall. 
Her lips will never fail
To be that pink and full. 
No hand will ever foul
Her flesh. No prudish fool
Will ever make her feel
Ashamed. She’ll never furl 
The sheets, or seek to foil 
Your view. So as you file
Before her, be sure to look your fill. 

Quantum Theory

The targets in the pavement 
Appear after the drops, 
So that each tiny bomb of water 
Always strikes the spot 

That it intended to; 
And since they now did not 
Fall somewhere else, it’s hard tell 
If they ever had the option. 

Some Trees

In summer, they have a thousand mouths, 
Which make a muffled din 
When the leafy jaws go up and down 
As they masticate the wind. 

In autumn, all their teeth fall out; 
In winter, they gum the snow; 
In spring, they shout with newborn sprouts 
And suck the sunlight’s glow.

Roadside Graveyard

I was stuck in rush hour traffic, 
Staring idly out the window 
At the moss-covered headstones
Huddled together 
Behind a rusty chain-link fence, 
When one of the children 
Wondered aloud
Where everyone was going.  

Hail Mary

I pull the pin and pitch
The crystal hand grenade
Of liquid past my lips,
And close my eyes and wait

For the little bomb to hit
The bottom in belated
Explosions of warm bliss,
And blow me back to date.

Shapeshifter

Prehistoric prototype 
Of cloudy crystal balls. 
Silver apple, overripe 
And aching for the fall. 

Keyhole in the door of night. 
Glass in which the sun
Combs it’s locks of golden light, 
Belinda-like, till dawn. 

Will-o’-the-wisp, enticing poor
Lost travelers to try 
To warm their waning hopes at your 
Pale fire, to watch them die. 

Nightlight for a frightened child. 
Wheel of aging cheese. 
Cheshire cat’s narcotic smile, 
Beaming pointlessly. 

Riddle

Instead of aromatic scents,
Sweet strains are in my flower blent. 
A single thorn adorns my stem. 

Ripping Yarn

Whoever he was, he’s dead now — 
Beyond our justice anyhow 
You slice it. All the same, we’d like to know 
His name, if only so 
We can can eviscerate him in
The dark alleys of public opinion. 

The letter everybody says 
He didn’t write was in red ink because 
The blood he had collected in an empty 
Bottle of ginger beer congealed too quickly. 
They think it was a newspaper man, 
Propping up the flagging circulation. 

Round Trip

The supernumerary star 
Departing from Orion 
Flies like a parting arrow-shot 
Backwards at the Lion
Rearing on its two hind feet 
Upward in the east, 
While for the dim horizon’s hills 
The Hunter quickly flees. 

Doorbell

The tree in the front yard 
Keeps peering in the windows
And waving its hands,
As if it is someone 
I know, who knows that I am home 
Despite my not answering
The tinkling wind chimes. 

The Ruined Garden

Decolorized, a garden grows 
Less friendly than before. 
Without its lovely red, the rose
Is just a weed with thorns. 

Deprived of green, the grasses cease 
To lap like gentle waves, 

But flutter feebly in the breeze, 
The moldy thatch of graves. 

The fountain that this morning flashed 
And sparkled in the heat, 

Now falls in filthy tatters like 
A fraying winding sheet. 

Even the great white cotton clouds,
So harmless in the light, 
Like ghostly galleons terrorize
The star bombarded night. 

Less kind, but no less beautiful;
Less colorful, but still 
As magical or more without 
The superficial frills. 

Moon Tree

A plaque here says the seed 
That gave birth to this tree 
Once orbited the moon.
 
I readily concede 
The tree looked plain to me 
Until I knew that too. 

Shadow Box

Sometimes I imagine 
All of the letters crowding 
The ruled shelves of a paper
Cabinet slowly bowing 

Beneath them as I weigh them 
And place them carefully 
From left to right in something 
Akin to symmetry, 

And pray that when I’m finished 
And close the thin glass door, 
I haven’t said so much 
It crashes to the floor.