My Water-Dreams

Those days have passed
when my sport was to be tossed upon the waves,
dark hair and weathered skin
and hand firm at the helm.
From the sand
your music takes a formless tone,
and your rhythm has lost meaning.
My weather-beaten boat
hops harbor to harbor no more.
Oh boundless water-dream,
you once spoke thunder.
Do you weep, too, for sailors
landlocked by blunder?

Lonesome Place

As I no more do see your face
at home or in my hills,
I'll sit here in the lonesome place
and soak this winter's chill,
amidst the trees and fleeting cloud
where you will never come,
and I don't look to see you now
for my time, it is done.

Your Messenger

From a distant time
my spirit feels your nearness,
your sun and stars
closer for caress,
the sweet-soft whisper
of your messenger calls
from within my own heart.

Whole

The sum of parts -
part me, part you -
defined a heart.
Yes. That's true.
The slender lash
that surgically cleaved
was not of ash
but aches that grieved.
Now, what is whole
when half remains?
When turned by role
to searing pains.

Well To Sea

The deafening surf's roar
submerges conscious thought,
echoes from a rocky shore
reminding of times I sought
solace, and peace in your arms,
held secure from all life's harms.


Treacherous green-sea pillows
alternate with lashes of foam
and dash themselves in thund'rous billows.
Beneath this cliff reverberates some
long-lost thought, another dimension
remembered now with apprehension.

Dreams sacrificed on an altar
of self-absorbed, putrid excess -
no dreams to guide causing falter,
the audience now a fathomless abyss.
I keep my mind now well to sea,
clear the rocks I wish to lee.

Untitled

A plagiarizing adulterer
felled by an assassin's gun;
forgiven by God? Likely.
But suitable for remembrance
with a national day of rest?

In Losing at Love

Having hiked a thousand miles
through forest, field and alpine valley,
and lived a life of forced smiles
while wasting time in fruitless dally,
this highway hoped to bring me home
yet no one's there to bid me, "Come."

This life seems so ill-fated now
and serves to keep my nerves at strain.
The chase that led me away, somehow
creates painful disorder of brain.
The wicked dreams became my master
then let me be to clean disaster.

How death-like it is to lose at love,
but I refuse to take his hand.
Emotions rise on wings like dove
and I walk boldly in this new land.
I've a rendezvous with death sometime
but not 'til done with life sublime.

For Nick, Frank and David

No moon tonight
But a collective four and sixty years
Of cycles since your moons
Broke from sickness' shackles.
These years of infinite love unwearying-
Not circling seasons but perennial spring!
Years of triumph trampling through defeat
the first being holy, this last made sweet
By this same love.

Gracious Memory

Though the hand of fate did force
Twixt soul and body a divorce,
It did not sever man and wife
For they both lived but one life.

A Farewell To Friends

Fair of face and warm hearted
I would ever have you be,
As you were when we last parted
Smiling soft and sad at me.
I have my leave, bid me farewell!
I bow to you and depart.
These keys I held for a spell
Made welcome music in my heart.

Theoretical Love

My thoughts often meander
from poetry to love to sex to God
seamlessly without punctuation
Unique theories lovers hold as their own
generate discourse about aches
of being with a love
and being alone

Hard Questions

They are called hard questions
not for being difficult to ask:
the answers are hard,
or hard to remember.

Recovery Verse 8

He abdicated life with relative ease,
dismissed friends, rejected loves,
and on return questions,
"Why no celebration?"

Recovery Verse 7

This passion of our kind
For the process of finding out
Is a fact one can hardly doubt,
But I would rejoice in it more
If I knew more clearly what
We wanted the knowledge for,
Felt certain still that the mind
Is free to know or not.

Absent Thought

Your absence
has a presence
a weighted vision
hangs each decision
by silken thread,
unstable of tread,
tempering thought
where it ought
not.

Not Available

The late-night freak show
that is public transit
forced a blank expression
reading "Out Of Service"
behind his well-placed paperback.

Free'd The Thought

No one should say "I Love"
until aware the resource
called for to overcome
without recourse.
For we are always in the wrong
in how we clumsily handle
being overly cautious, postponing delight
to prolong frustration through the night.
The bond of love is not an ought,
nor something taught,
and ever-so-much more
than fancied thought.
Our human nature must
come soon guileless
to that place of trust
and leaving us free to choose,
free'd the thought,
"Should I lose. . .?"

Point Of View

To the heart, there are
no dehumanized objects;
even viewed from afar
each has a given Name.
And in that place,
not of names but of personal pronouns,
where I converse with Me,
the recognition is manifest
That You and You
are also We.
And even those We think as They
still have a voice,
something to say.