Port and Voyage
The well with crumbled plywood lid
The webs thick underneath
Spiders scatter to creviced walls
Unseen bottom
Dropped stones splash
Dark ripples echo to daylight
Dear lilac
Centerpiece of home
Pedaling back from the lakes
Descending from the mountains
Calves knotted, lungs full
Purple and white blossoms
Flag us in windward calls
Your ambrosia welcome
Sailed our souls safely to sea
I woke to remembrance
Days my hands picked wild berries
Days barn swallows strafed the black cat
Fox in the field, minnows in a bucket
Plump grapes drooped the vine
When parents were solid and not dream
Moving about, creaking floorboards
Their weight entering and leaving rooms
Warm Gods, a well-lit harbor
Their presence large as a freighter
Heavy with cargo
Steaming across oceans
Too deep to fathom
Off the Rainbow
I drink your voice
Effervescent words refresh
Like a wellspring
I found as a child
In winter breaking woods
Brown musk leaves
From last year’s fall
Frame your mouth
Cling to slick stones
Chilled by receding snow
You have lived as I
Through decades of groundswell
Undulations of random seismic shifts
That whittled living joy
Undertowed lost loves
How I love your voice
Reminds me of youth’s wellspring
Before the push off the rainbow
The pot of gold merely vapor
All spectrums seep in dirt
Our dear psychedelic friends
Now earth toned with collared shirts
Seek colors from a million pills
In somber hues of Medicare
Your mountain runoff wisdom
Chimes a merry tune
Crystal sparkle laughter, sunlit eyes
Youth was not lost to you
Your voice
Redemptive like coins under a pillow
Compensation from parents
Disguised as fairies
Long, long gone
Who couldn’t stand their children
To lose a single tooth
Mountain Village
Razor edge rock face perch
Bright colored homes on stilts
Like sedentary circus clowns
Shops of art and whimsy
Haunted saloons, gift shop brothels
At its peak the first state hospital
Now a converted motel
West facing windows glow
Charred yellow from the sinking sun
As if orbs of history shine within
Cumulative miners, whores, artisans
Hollow trod in creaking rooms
Each historic day pried
Like a babies’ tooth
By the tongue conspirator
Time wiggles away
Wisdom rises, incisors tear
The red meat of dawn
Porcelain Cup
Drain the cup
Ponder the remains
Tea of little dreams
It’s potent leaves
Once contained
Their brew was sweet
Although not the same
Leaves that cling, bitter to taste
Try to decipher
The reason for waste
Sage or seer
Try to read
A future, a meaning
In nourishing leaves
Best to savor the life-giving bleed
My hands once held
This brew, this fuel
Enough sprung from a cup
To carve deep canyons long and true
A lifeline filled up
Cottonwood Suite
Iron Horse Inn
At the bar next door
The townie with caterpillar moustache
And deep-rooted drawl
Told me you were originally a whorehouse
Many narrow rooms for bigger returns
Built from head sized river rock and cement
Too costly to tear down
Now you are boutique, prim and clean
Like a cactus flower after spring rain
Narrow stairs to the second floor
Steep as Aztec ruins
Ascending the sacrificial alter
In my room wide enough for one bed
I received her text
Saying we were over
I stayed up keeping company
With daughters of joy orbs
Copper miner lustful spirits
Lost souls thin as parchment
Fatal Coffee at Red Rooster
With hurricane force
The fly was flung to my cup
Outdoor patio furious fans
Chopped humid air to pieces
Flinging the fly to morning coffee peril
Teaspoon rescue too late
It lay motionless on the placemat
Stained glass wings in stiff repose
Liquid cream and coffee casket
It died as rapidly as our romance
Leaving Cottonwood
I took a back street out of town
A charcoal cat traces across the road
Under quilt shadows of tall aspens
Bony hunched shoulders expect attack
Skirts to a tired house with sagging steps and porch
Slumped and worn from a century
Of comings and goings
Thanks to the fan, fly or act of God
I had a free cup for the drive home
Two nights before we made love
Then planned our future
Winter Breaks
You will never smile again
Mummy wrap joy
In death’s heavy winter coat
Dark breathing aches
Blinders mask eyes
No direction seen
Spring comes shy at first
Playgrounds ripple
With children’s laughter
From the long sleep
Colors poke out
Gaudy and rude
The burn of frostbite fades
Slow inward thaw
Learned loss left a seed
Nurtured by tears
Warmed by a sun
Relentless
As love after life
You consider a joke
It drops soft and bruised
Like fruit in a forgotten orchard
One smile from a stranger
Emits redeeming light
A tendril grin blossoms
Mothball your coat
Unbutton your flannel shirt
You know
In your pulsing heart
They would have wished you
To be happy