Cloud

A chalky streak on blue sky.

A vapor.  More imagination​

Than substance. 

Hamlet knew this, knowing dreams

Are ethereal.

Anniversary Poem

Winter Morning - New Mexico

 The water in the oak bucket
Unfroze this morning.

The poplar ladle floated up,

Still holding the silver

Of last night's winter moon.

***



Moment in Santa Fe

The fire in the kiva fireplace

Is cracking, mesquite exploding.

You come down the stairs at Las Brisas

Like laughter in the evening.

I in a chair by the front door sitting

Like a steward musing

About paper-bag existence,

About bitter-cold outside.

You smile.  In a firelight sanctuario

We are primitives, the night's farolito.

At The Checkout

At the checkout an old, thin woman argued.
She was being overcharged.  It was, maybe, fifty cents.
“Com’on” muttered another - impatient,
Carrying self-importance as much as groceries.
 

“Maybe she’s poor,” said a voice in defense.
“I’ll give her the money.  It’s just fifty cents.”
 

Maybe the old woman argued because once
When she was younger she held the world

With authority, with flesh, but was now reduced
To change, to the memory in her bony hands.

Struggling For Relevance

I woke from a vivid dream.
It had rattled my sleep and comfort.
I thought: To write, now,
After all of this.  And I cried,
Struggling to do it,
“It’s lost.  I can’t retrieve
It” – it already slipping
My fingers like a kite string –
“And nothing will be the same.”
Then you gave me your hand,
Replacing my emptiness with
A purpose to hold.

Age

Like sunshine, a dancing mark:
A stained heart-manufacture
Which requires structure -
But needs the wings of a lark.

Walking

When we were younger, a New York morning

Was laced with last night's memories

Like new shoes with remembered twine.

Now our older mornings are stitched anew

With new laces and yesterday's shoes.

Bukowski Blues Painting

Down a flight of sagging iron stairs
it slides
and fills the below-sidewalk dive.
When the black door opens
it and old sunlight come in.
And smoke fills the mind.


The Dugout Tavern -
Hopper's last stop is here.
Its yellow-and-green denizens
mumble in booths of darkness
or at the bar, burning
cigarette to cigarette, their
bodies blurred smeared blended
like the cheap booze poured
but never spilled, and
never seem to notice.

Liveliness In Words

Liveliness in words
Is not a god's fraction

Word's learned by time
Are pleasant company

Argue the implausible
And make it fiction

Continue the argument
And make it fact