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.