birch in spring

she is geisha

with paper white skin

and slender limbs

reaching to heaven

golden pendants

adorn every twig

swaying gracefully

in the wind

black bruises - crisp as type

on thin peeling skin

wait for the touch that lingers

(Wednesday, April 25, 2012)

a short commentary on depression

I Just Wrote to Say I’m Sorry (Friday, April 27, 2012)
(a short commentary on depression)

This is to say I am sorry
I didn’t clean my home
with a swish, swish, swish
of a broom, broom, broom.

I regret not dusting
my room, room, room
with the shush, shush, shush
of a dusting brush.

I am bugged by rugs
submerged in dust
but my ears won’t stand
the raurgh, raurgh, raurgh
of my grubby vacuum.

Because my mind
is numb, numb, numb
from the thrum, thrum, thrum,
of the dumb, dumb, hum
in my skull:

i-doh-wanna,
i-doh-wanna,
i-doh-wanna.

Crickets and Gold - redux

Original poem here.

Created using Tagxedo.

pole dancer

oh be careful little eyes what you see

it was as if
instead of hurling lies
in self-defense
he had flung paste
into her eyes
gluing fire to the retina
the image burned
and stayed, white
dancing steps arranged
on a black dance floor.

New: Stuttering Ink

Picking up my pen to write again
is like taking a picture on the brightest
day of the year when light is askew
and nothing is smooth.

Where he sits in the sun,
edges are too hard in sharp
changing black and white
that beats percussively against my eyes.

No lyrical movement of line directs
my sight to the hot highlights
which shine unseemly
on his chest, shoulders, thighs.

Shadows obscure the right eye
on the wrong side of his nose.

Vintage 2005 - In Between

Perhaps it was a laughable mistake

a cryogenics experiment inflicted

on poor Elizabeth against her will

but she lived and now scientists

know more. But I still wonder

if she was just in stasis

or if she truly moved beyond.

I wonder if her ability to hear the bells

of her own village was a self-deception

in order to save herself for the time

they pulled her out frozen body

out of the pond and left it

on the dining room table at the inn.

supposing her dead.

Imagine their surprise when they

returned to find her sitting before the fire

warming her hands, amazed

by her ability to wriggle her fingers.

I am not sure that all of her returned

that strange night because when I pass

her pond on winter evenings

gawmless fingers tug at my back

and twist a spot just behind my heart

causing it to struggle

weakly like a nearly frozen bird.

vintage 1995: a testimony of passing

the blurred track of feathers

along the sweep of a wing

as individual

as ridges on the thumb