Whatever You Do, Don't Let the Muse Pull the Wool over Your Eyes

Some things are better left unsaid—you know 
The dark ones that keep on coming back, 
Dragging her white-washed tales behind them. 

Composition

If the full moon were 

A poem, could anyone wait 
Another month for it 

To become marble again? 

Snow Job

Let go an avalanche 
Of words and people 
Who should know better think 
You’re a whirl-wind descending Parnassus— 

As soon as you 
Watch your white spaces, 
Right off they rightly sense 
A lull in the storm but 

Draw a blank as to why 
They’re still buried under sheets. 

Of Being Struck Dead

Corazon, lovesick old dog 
On your last legs, 
If only you could talk, 
You would tell us 
Whether the heart 
Shot through in youth 
By that piercing, fatal
Arrow still quivers
At the thought.

Capital Punishment

The Capital River’s burst 
Its banks, its topsy-turvy 
Tributaries overflowing 

Towards high ground, 
Headed for the safety 
Of the safe-deposit boxes 

Buried underground. 

Last Strand (Remembering Rachel Carson)

Let it be duly noted
In the margins—

On every grain of sand,
The edge of the sea

Remains elusive
And indefinable,

A boundary whose limits
We could not plumb.

The Miraculous Lemon Tree

Almost within reach, there 
Outside the window, 
The lemons hang 
In ones, twos and threes— 

Many an old demotic song 
Likens the twos to 
A maiden’s breasts— 
Firm, fragrant, rejuvenating. 

I bet even a dull old poet, 
Reeking of death, 
Could fall asleep here 
And wake up smelling 

Like a rose.