Balm Of Gilead

 

You fall 

Asleep and sleep 

Forgets you were once 

 

Awake in a world where 

Everyone walks 

In their sleep.

 

 

 

Antediluvian Rites Of Greek Summer

 

Erotic lizards 

Play on hot tectonic rifts, 

 

Cyclamen flowers. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Procrastination As A Vehicle For Moving Beasts Of Burden

 

Bear with me,  

 

Comrades! 

What manner 

Speech to give before 

These shifting 

 

Mute masses, unable 

To mutter 

Vocables stable 

Enough to enable them 

 

To make 

Each new unbearable 

Moment more 

Bearable in the end? 

 

In the meantime, waiting 

For an answer to descend 

Like some Marxist-sent 

Deus ex machina, I move 

 

We vote quickly on a motion 

To table the motion again! 

 

 

 

Stoics In The Doldrums

 

What say we finally 

Snap out of it, chum— 

 

The wind that took us 

This way and that has nothing 

More to give us—it’s about time 

 

We live with that. 

 

 

 

Haiku: Save Your Breath

 

What does a poem have 

To say to someone who knows 

 

How not to listen? 

 

 

 

Word Of Mouth Sadomasochistic Poetics

 

The last time I heard, 

The voice of the muse 

 

I’d been listening to all 

These years had not 

 

Come clean with me as much 

As poetic decorum warranted— 

 

Clearly, what she’d wanted 

From me was consummate, 

 

Complete fealty masquerading 

As poetic licentiousness, 

 

And not by any twist 

Of a garbled imagination, 

 

A license to play down- 

Right dirty with my mind.

 

 

 

 

 

Cusp

 

yel- 

low 

 

little

sun- 

 

lit 

leaf 

 

hanging, twirling on 

a spider’s lone 

 

silver thread, how many 

twists and turns before you 

 

flutter 

in 

 

to 

the

 

twi- 

light 

just

 

ahead.