the lion & the bird

i cared for it

nurtured, desired

hoping i helped

fearing i was selfish:




so i had the bird live outside of cages

knowing one day she will heal.

she sits outside the window, just there

but one slippered morning, seeds in hand




i’ll return inside

alone with grief

having won

having lost.

july 2023

the blank malaise

i found him sitting in a long drift stare

asked him the deep question with my eyes

huddled in his silence waiting on it

the fear, the longing, the warm summer dawn,

waiting on the answer to a panic scream.

i buy him McDonalds; we throw rocks in a stream

like little kids—only we don’t, i never speak

and we never move from that spot. he yearns.

he wants to know something. his eyes drift

wildly in the sky, seeing stars behind my head.

his hands are limp, palms up, in his lap.

one childhood afternoon, he took a shit

in the woods—such as there were, in suburbs—

then pale guilt cast a pallor over him for days.

it didn’t feel this way a couple years ago,

he thinks: he can’t remember; i’m looking away.

i’m pulling back; up; look, i am partially a star

and the pieces of me will be galaxies again

someday, you know; so then my focus drifts

away from things that happened, and will again

ad infinitum, miniature lives repeating without end.

it doesn’t help him, of course. we are still here

sitting in his blank malaise, gathering ourselves

for the inevitable march of life and time.

i’ll find him here again, i suppose: we’ll stand,

brushing off our pants with a knowing look

and proceed into the pallor of our days

leaving what we left silently behind.







june 2023

blue flame

I hold the blue flame in my open hand

A summer’s promise indomitably blooms

The balanced pebbles shiver as you take your seat

Nobody strike the table—now let us begin

Dark Luna casts her ambivalent gaze and fog

Deepens on the windows in a gathering dawn

I hold the blue flame in my open hand

Daring to believe the reach, the move, the risk, the light

Is all of it, and nothing, and all of it again

Billowing ghost of unformed meaning, speak

We are all children, heavily at play

We are the mornings after nights in living dream




june 2023

Jungle

oh! the jungle gloam of lateish spring
the brighty greens of urgent life proclaiming
“here i am anew!” and growing over everything
the murky, sullen clouds cast doomsy gloom
but Sol from somewhere in between
smiles afternooning whitish impish light
morning rains now surging up in plantish veins
i’ll sit a bit as if i lived upon the plains
with grass-made huts in clustered village frames
my soul absorbing deep this precious, fleeting scene

June 2023

the night walk

how dangerous she felt that night!

with her smokers and her miscreants
roaming her streets in the not-morning dark
arguing and laughing, idling in cars
watching us tentatively walking past—
how fearsome, unwholesome, alive.
her daytime soulless sidewalks bristled
threatening and adventurous: our paths
tumbled from our steps with glances back.
one bright walking bridge over nothing
ended in a lightless patio; the only sound
hip hop blasting from a parked SUV.
“i didn’t think wineries used vats like those,”
i commented stupidly, to hear my own voice;
and you peered at me with pensive beauty,
doe eyes over carefully pursed lips, watching.
our steps were never hurried, fears never named,
like in everything. a final balcony cigarette—
“do you want a shower?”—and then sleep
tucked into one of her many heights: safe, for now
and in the morning, with danger seeming far away
we comment lightly: “this looks familiar,”
but the light of our adventure in the night is fading
and we are left with only recollected fears nearby.
so it goes! i’d always rather take the midnight walk
in her seeming dangerous shadow time
than stay inside and shrug away our life.