Moonlighter

Following the money 
Moonlit snail leaves 

Winding silver tracks 
Trail behind it.

What The Eye Fails To Take In, The Heart Will

—for Ans and Peter, inveterate birders par excellence 


Not the green limb trembling 
In the still air but the departed 

Beating of wings 
The branch was home to 

No longer there. 

Haiku: Good Investment

What is a word worth 
Spending your morning watching 
Bees gather pollen. 

In God We Trust

Trust me— 

When you said you would 
Try harder the next time, 

Nobody believed you, not 
Even your best friend, 

Your lying self 
To the bitter end. 

Epitaph For A Spaced-Out Astronomer

Love, don’t you be like me 
When the stars got in my eyes, 

I looked for the nearest 
Black hole. 

Ambivalence

Suffering’s well hidden, 
Festering in Everyman’s heart, 

And everyone wants it 
Ripped out 

Without hurting the heart. 

Shall We Or Shall We Not?

Uproot the poem which dares 
Rear its head out of season 

Lest that bizarre beauty develop 
A mind of its own 

And bewitch us. 

How Poets End Up Getting The Reader's Goat

Remember leading that nag 
To water to no avail? Well, 
Your exasperating poetic

Manner reminds me of a nanny
Goat that gives us a milk can 
Full to the brim, then 

Straightaway kicks it 
Over before we can fully 
Take all that wholesomeness in. 

Haiku: Artisan's Well-Wrought Urn Embellishing Mantelpiece

Ashes to ashes. . . . . 


No bones about it— 
Dedicated to an art 
Finely worked to death. 

Quasi-Cartesian Contemplation

Where I can 
Stand, I choose 

To do so, other- 
Wise, I sit. 

No Trespassing--This Means You!

This abandoned derelict has nothing left to say 
Of what went on inside it, years of pent-up anger 
Keep it shut away. 

A Poem Should Be (17)

Finely spun as a spider’s 
Web poised deceptively 
In the morning sun, 

And you an ephemeral 
Struggling captive soon 
To be undone. 

Rub A Dub Tub

More than likely,
The perfect poem is never 
Going to be there when
You need it, even if
 
You’ve just cut your veins 
And are waiting patiently 
For divine inspiration to save you 
From a fate worse than death.