top of page

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

bottom of page