Fire Cipher

It took wings
fever
soul
to get there
get it started
a kit
a call
from the street
winter river
the search
something other
than a lonely
mad tower
but just
as independent.

For me it began
with a tree
near Walla Walla
that trip
from Missoula
an everyday pine
or was it and where
was I but perched
dependent caught
with Mr. Neruda.

Born Phil Collins Late

Lightning but no thunder
moving across the open sea
In the mountains
(smoke fire molten
presence absence)
I liked the part where
a lot of surprises landscape
wet in a certain place
so they could plow 
what was ritual
There must
be some misunderstanding
there must be some kind of mistake
I waited in the rain for hours
you were late

The Harlequin Romance Of It All

Our estate
in Siberia where
he spent most of his time
managing the vineyards.
She worked as a teacher
arrogant yet humble.
His eyes were storm-colored.
Janet felt his silence.  Bands of steel.
His silence was sadistic.  She played the fool.
She drank a hot beverage
living on sips of wine all those years.
She found she was in love
with heat
after all.

Tarot cards were never featured
in the plots nor were
characters ever into the occult.
Mostly, they were ravished
even though they were uppity
to begin with.  The landscape
provided no answers.
The men turned into human beings.
Scarves were part of the ensemble.
Marriage a type of graduation.
Jealously came first it was very spicy.

Dots were not always connected
so easily oftentimes it was his brother
not Rouarke himself.  Vehicles
figure into the equation.
His side of the bed stank.  It was
high time for a trip to the Laundromat.
There was no internet to complicate
things further to speed things up
to the point of no return plus
who would take kindly to
Silhouette Editions.

My Other Tribe

Has spoken
each raindrop
a strange path
slant yes
just offshore

Willows

Parts of us left
evidence there later
what was missing
all wavy and blowsy
down by the river we weren't
supposed to go for very long
so swollen so icy just looking
we felt we were underneath
not where we were supposed to be
with the others watching the race
it was cool even then to pretend
not to care who was going to win
who would merely try to catch up
laughing not enough air in the wind
we lost that feeling I have it now

Went With Us

Nome cam dark
liquor store sign
Sledge Island
Anvil Mountain
it was Chicken Hill
we devoured all hours
domesticated name
wild cape town
if anything tipped over
anyone lost balance
they died another year
returned another summer
soggy tundra aching legs

Nome Nanooks

Her language was bird
the loose horse stared
into our windows awhile
shaggy waiting then back
the drifts horseshoes from
another century she cried
when we moved she wanted
her bed a dark walnut
we huddled outside together
against the others it was my
other house where I'd go
dream myself back inside
to brighter lights of that city

Nome Breakup

Nobody knew when to predict it
grey suddenly so much May sun
mulching the ice already gone
a desert you didn't know so well
you'd get so attached missing it.

Sideways Out

You can be snagged.  Even the smallest words, parts of lines catch your drifting,  fit for the rest of  time.  You hear the spell, you’ve got the map, the part you need.  The poet is sandwiched in between the greats, one of them.  One that startles, one we crave.  America is hungry for answers, swirling.

What happens is expansion.  It takes place in the wilderness.  Wild thoughts uncovered in the brush. This is what you enter when you read the poet.  The double wild light.

Light Sleep

The wild spots disorienting
not so easy to explain
but more important than
what words are telling
hearts beat deviant paths
turn into streets familiar
again turned strange
veins arteries bright maps
show you how to find out
what might be the way
to write up your review

Wildness of Now

dogs to a bone
wolves to the spot
out past the orchard
where trees grow
low to the ground

chalk bright moon
with a personality
twisting just a little
slim like in Fable Forest
lessons of yore
densely hidden
by instinct

Whale Season

I was in the parking lot
tired of swimming
the rope high tide squinting
trees towel rocks sky
glasses car blurry hangnails
world of my own
cuticles waterlogged

Parent Contact Log

Brackish additional
bloated January
the time and place
the time and place
whatever budget
handle the behavior
among us building up
the parent contact log
Lotus Notes questions
two staff reduced
any volunteers?

Deep Purple

Too much waiting
ironed out
loyal
I long for blue
but it changes.
Blue will change.
Not happy not sad.
Blue speaks a shape
of things.  Tries hard.
The impatience of blue
the waiting of blue.

Surrounded By The Present

It was the lingering there that everyone loved.
The Lake looked good a landscape of water
craggy peaks and rolling moraines berms
ancient people had their houses on stilts
and Lake Euxine across the mountains
did not look so far away on the map.

American Dream Work

He got angry if he thought
we were bruising
the Golden Delicious--
Herrgottsacrament
there was nothing
we could do
to convince him
we had picked carefully
into the wicker Brocktaeschle
pretending they were eggs 
over to the Kiste
others tumbled them
but it was the Amis
at fault clumsy not 
careful not seeming to care.

He worked like a horse
all of his life.  I'm not sure why.

In my dream I send
a rainbow I can't quite manage
then call it back call it something else.

The Search For Users

The teachers grip anything
they can during the meeting--

upended dollies, stacked tables
their own knees--

Many
wear
animal prints
some (me) prison stripes
flowers, solids
one or two color blocks
a gingham
jacket
fleece

Funny Bone

Foggy Calgon branches
Keys stolen the second time
Horizon a Mona Lisa
I wanted to say his smile
Looked the same in the photo
I am still on a time-out after all

Book of Gravy

Gravity falls free from options
upside down the ground too firm
in a nutshell along the byway
foggy roads attract cold showers
simple choices complicated answers
taste better with gravy especially
if everything's been mashed.

Yesteryear: January

I appreciated that he told his story
to the white tree.  Even though things
were static.  I took them to be positive.
The point was made in order to merge.
To keep him in mind, I simply thought
of an airplane with a song--it tells me
to do another thing be another person.
The travel writer was usually positive
wistful brawling in Nature and out--
all different names except Henry Miller--
gentleness a contradiction documented
exposed an ambassador to the next
generation that had no Embassy
no high walls & security
against the multitudes, exuberance cool,
even slightly melted, crusted over as if disappointed
in its telling.  The old tree with a tough bark,
snappy and bug-eaten.  I wonder now about the
stately mission quest to find a shocking certain real.

Yesteryear's Sea

I will know Hawaii he wrote
at the edge of the salty soup
French guy who thought five years
a long time measured in beats
casualty of post-war field trips.

The people say have a happy
new year new resolution
as long as it is realistic.

Foam is made of oily bubbles.

The hitchhikers of yesteryear
jog before meetings say
cayenne is good against colds.

I get dropped off at the school
think about the lessons sure
the back burner is completely
shut off before I go to work.

Yesteryear: Dark Island

Green pockets swallow imagination
imagination wrestles night.
It is wet my hands are people.
I watch a spy they're spied upon.
You want to keep your eyes closed
make it darker still.  It won't last.
There will be yellow.  It will tell
you all you need to know.  Too
careful with poems.  Think:
the master's eye is upon you.  Wear it.
It is others who will see it, not you
in the everyday of the yesteryear.

Yesteryear: Picture Window

Lamp screen hummingbird feeder
large slip reeling minty fog
Glen Campbell Christmas
The Percy Sledge Way and Cream
small stars on the ceiling tiles
where dad put his foot through
the crawl space wrestling insulation
or was it isolation in the future
I  am the heiress of that kingdom
log trucks millions of dandelions
what else grows so well the world
a watercolor never quite dry
trees blossoming a visible idea.

Packages

She got an extra vitamin bar
because of her lungs blood
you didn't eat many of those
she was sent without shoes
to the other side of town
carrying them it was cold
supposed to be saved
kept clean for church
fall leaves stuck to her feet
it only left her without love 
I wish I could give her words
to put everything right 
zero will do the change
the wait well worth it.

Sun Bath, Moon Shade

One candle is shorter than the other
this could be about my neck the crick
Andrea at yoga asked why his silence
I had no answer made up mumblings
lavender helped but really it will be time
no favors but I like to do them to get hair
cut stare into candles roam around books
stay out of their way ohne Dich makes me
nervous uptight up close the abstract
is even more exciting than the whole
watch it with the lower case however
I've loved you all my life just remember
can I tell you any more in each corner
red fish beside the small craft or is it
diamonds cut into colors that change
near far with a California confidence
vines flowers then their planted fruit.

Blind Twin

It gets hard to read their writing
old words too alive lively just now
paper ghosts that insist on love
kids with sugar cooped up
when they should be quietly
watered down
reading the newspaper of today
instead of using them for yet
more wrappings more bindings.

Lather, Rinse

The sky curtain folds dusty stars
a breeze not new but frozen

building blocks too heavy to lift
the cider clean tasting did I drink it?
Now I can remember nothing else
but the shrugged journey

when I pushed aside addiction
a dragon waiting hiding the gold
they say doesn't really exist.