SHAPE-SHIFTER

                       who changes ways

                                     n

                                     o

                                     s

                                     t

                                     i

                        p h y s i c a

                                       

                                                            by melancholy  healed

                                                                         

                                                 in the half life of a star,

           

                        must hold desire fast                        well past

                                                            amorous tradesmen

                                                           pocketing  diagnosis

           

         *

           much/might

           make/mulch

clumsily pronounced                        peeves

                                                                        are no end

                                    against is with

         *

            the breath of an animal

                                                imagination    a long winter 

opening for light

          *

to recognize as mine                                    ideas so foreign

                        as to seem some other’s

                                    and what assent I gave

            I now retract

SCAFFOLDING

The top of a building climbs 

to the bottom of the sky,

lifting its dream bones off the city pavement.

Clouds patrol coffins closed 

to the failing afternoon sun 

and the cotton candy vendors wail

across the traffic and pushcarts.  

Workmen are taking down scaffolding

and untying the blue tarp enclosure

that billows, like sails before a wind dies out.

Onlookers point to the building,

its reflective glass, which alters perception, 

entrapping shards of straightforward light

bundled for flight.

STRAGGLERS

The roughened barrier of skin stops the cold

and the blood continues to drip

through scant sums of flesh, numb thought

the frozen earth begrudges air.

Use has exhausted the abandoned plains.

We trudge across their pillowed sheen

like the remnant of a scattered army

struggling with diminished strength

to forestall embrace by ice.  

The sky runs its factory of heat

at such great remove only a trickle escapes

to warm the garnets set in our chests.

These are the tiny transmitters of feeling

our bodies herded to recover.

The breath you can see is a thin blanket

for the seed-bearing sleep of forms.

CACTUS

The desert has kept its promise of peace

to the son who accepts the havoc

his presence brings to hostile ground:  

wind-scattered rubbish, metal scrap,

rusted and twisted into beguiling shapes,

and the off road vehicle trails

that cross heat-cracked gullies of creosote

and boulders spewed by infrequent storm.

The place he comes to isn’t named

for divine encounters, and he wrestles

not with angels but with less remote

forefathers, who vie with him for the red

flower atop the cactus barrel.

They claim resilient ornament

to justify the pain they bring to others.

The son hears his father pronounce him worthless

knowing that the grandfather listens

and confirms the judgment;

the evidence runs through him, failure

to go it on his own and make with little parts

a semblance of the greater whole

and he within its emptiness.  On the night 

his silenced mother tossed her mind in

with the screech and howl of dark distances,

she made her final argument

in his defense, entreating

an inscrutable issuance of old suitors

and fresh rivals that flapped for her.

On the clothesline stretched outside her home,

ghosts way back in her inoperable brain

threatened and cajoled, and like her husband, 

were most severe when feeling

came before them stammering, and the cold

chill of stars feathered fright, speaking strangely.

THE REAL THING

So much of what we do

could be done differently

and more to our liking.

This makes us angry,

and we argue.  Then one 

has the fortune

to notice feeling,

the real thing,

had been growing all the while.

(Color is now deftly handled.)

And sometimes what we feel

as real is not.

Weren’t we excited

by what we thought true

(we flashed with excitement)

and chagrined to discover

new feelings still grew?

(A continent, almost,

had come into view.)

No longer would we like

what once we had liked

(Who finds truth “unchanging?")

and we puckishly explored

our changing minds.   

(Their spaciousness seemed lush.) 

Really, what was true,

and we agreed,

was always otherwise. 

(We wanted to be honest.)

Circumstances intervened.

We were helpless to act,

made to settle, where we were,

and do what we had done.

THE TOAST

You see blood on the keyhole

at the side entrance to a person

within whom you live

Doubt turns you away

and gives the body's stigmata

time to heal

A gaunt face calls you back

the weighted chest lets you in

the party is going strong

suffering is out in the open

More and more you leave

words for those who can use them

On tiptoe you sneak past

the big room

- a stop that would elate you -

and climb the back stairs, 

dropping your coat with the others

Below, the doors to the big room's

balcony open over a spilling lawn

Someone has raised a glass

in your honor

You see into shadows

past the lit necessity

of sweating trees

where your restlessness labors

Your hand moves slightly,

an involuntary salute with intention

to make good on escape

WINDOWS

The sky is a rain of ash

mind a passing traffic.

The apartment’s humming hasn’t stopped.
When the windows are left open,

our feelings can get out

and let themselves back in.

We might name the most familiar
but cannot say which ones

others will have stifled.
The view stacks rooftops,

like patio chairs, past brick
facades, and in a close by building

we take innocent movement
for a signaler’s intent.

He passes through rooms with open shades,

retrieving words

that mean for us to touch.

The needs we conceive

seek expression:

responsibilities, like fish,

and happiness,

the simple hydrogen of light.

What we don’t want

gets started as a mattress.

There just isn’t room

for bending excitement back

or moving apart.  Our skins,

pale from remorse, 

glow, and the dry air

leaves us short of breath.

CYCLOPS

The busy eye, by God intended

as a third for every mother,

a help for safekguarding children,

by chance mislaid, alone

upon a wombless monster’s brow,

whose measured gaze falls short

of targeted heavens

and the wavering horizon’s

unmerciful confinement.

Accident confounds design.

The artist has a vision,

then a child.  No end of love

will finish both aright, no reach

of heart engage detachment.

GLENCOLUMBCILLE

Waves resound at the edge

            of sky and ocean’s

                        great expanse

braced for the dark gather of clouds

            pressing from south

                        of where he stands,

 as if at watch, on the treeless bog

           

            The person

                        who is his own ancestor

imagines voyaging

            from the known to the unknown

                        through a storm shroud,

            muscling hope out of promise

                        Rain puddles splatter

his loss of sight, sounds coming forward 

            like revelers

up narrow streets, past the house

                        close to the road

            The strange visages

that take momentary shapes

                        are familiar

the way a mirrored gaze

at a wash basin

            will sometimes stare past

                       the cliff's premonition

He could leave

                        the sheep

            grazed hillside,

the white sand beach,

            and the sweet burning peat

            walk back
through the tiny village

                          past the general store

until patches of blue 

                        push open the sky 

            and a rainbow arches up

                        lightening the rain

A person finds himself

            in both departure

                        and return

where the sea is a fallen down ladder
                       

TREED

The man who has climbed a tree

waits in the branches with clouds

for time to come back

and pick up its minutes

The meeting won’t start

    without him

and he’ll keep his distance

through the swarming snow

    *

In the house, looking out

     at winter's storm,

others have confirmed

the plausible

You imagine things

as they truly are,

embarrassing and harsh

You are white linen,

a tattered moon patch

on a black tree limb

FIRST EMOTIONS

She puts birds to sleep

in the trees at night

so her travels

will not be disturbed

She always returns

with promised gifts

in the earliest light

eluding the hand

You reach

into a child’s dream

for the egg that breaks

its colored shell 

and wings free  

among lilac blossoms

swallowing wind

for the rain's song

THE STORY OF THE WORLD

The world is wind

            and sounds that gnaw

                        through wind

    The small thoughts I have to myself

                       merely an off-key 

industrial disturbance

            the hum and clang

    of supermarkets, filling stations, liquor stores

            along the busy road

                        with its perfect pitch

Sometimes, the world speeds by

You drive out to the country, go for a walk

        along a lake teeming with white-caps

                a strength so frenzied

                        that you stumble

            put out of yourself 

                                  

At last, you are alone, faceless

            at the beginning of a story

    You belong to the sky

 which guides you now

     toward a clear blue opening

            in the thick, circling cumulus 

                       punctured 

by shrieks below

    voices, like white-veined gray rocks,

      hoping to delay your departure                         

            until they can be heard 

                    You come to

        Children 

    playing on the damp ground 

        and you among them

                getting back on your feet