POETRY

2009-11-06T19:42:00.000-08:00

EMPTY BOAT TUGGING AT TOMORROW
after Boat and Clouds 1967, by Elmer Bischoff

the sky flexes a muscled light
a few stray clouds are flushed with blue---
hot flames in the cool mouth of evening
the sea still fuming puts on a face
the score is almost settled off shore
a boat has survived all this again

little boat full of emptiness---
longing lies down in that space
as Bischoff offers himself and us
a tomorrow quite as an old friend would
a day to confront the rest of your life---
sky smiles quietly now at twilight

in the reflection of a boat
(be quick then while there is light)
you find a dark a liquid void
a place for the heart to reach straight in
Monet chased it like a sorcerer
bottomless promises rippled apart

sky on water looks back at you as well
a boat lives on this sliding window
double vision into light and shadow
opaque and surreal conspire with logic
because bookends claim us... caution and flair
tame and wild in each holy trail

the boat not less a gift than the wheel
and sturdy crafts appear like wild flowerings
the ancient mathematics of prow and keel
seem as effortless as branch from tree
a wise smirk is little boat’s blue stripe
gnarled young old-timers wrestle the weather

fickle wind and tantrum lurk
in ocean’s ominous slap but seams
are caulked with spit and wanderlust they
have learned to borrow the fish to earn the sea
their desperation invented the boat
but the boat invented horizons

ECHO
after Echo, a painting by René Magritte

in spite of space/time and all that cutting edge vagueness
a tree and a sun dialogue
through a crack in the sky
it's a private conversation but you hear it

a nymph of sound mind and mythic determination
Echo in love with young Narcissus
pined away and pined away until (so it is said)
only her voice remained

we sometimes catch an echo from the future
as if a circle really exists
like a smile telegraphed from a child’s eerie wisdom
or a set of stubborn initials

blazed into the sincerity of a tree
because love is a scar a scented omen
of tears and laughter an echo half-requited
within this longing we call the present

and one day the way the day starts out
you sense the crash before it happens
tagging disaster in advance
it dogs you just out of reach

or the way a loved one’s memory
keeps looking back (keeps looking back)
over the shoulder of
what has not yet taken place

future and past want to finger the same dust
a table in the hall by a mirror
an inquisition like a border crossing
or a print in wet sand where you are about

…..to step

even on a train platform passing slow
strangers with eyes you have seen before
memory inside out receding repetitions
flexing the now and the never

THE SON OF MAN IN A NEAT RED TIE
Le Fils de l’homme by René Magritte

Magritte floats that green apple
where a face wants to be
it's always annoyed me

the Garden of Eden
has long legs
and bears the blame

titled Son of Man
he peeks out in North Sea light
in its wattage of reluctant disclosure

like a sly worm
on the horizon of apple
revealing just the tip of enigma

waiting to relish the gap
between obscure
and profound

apple leaves intact
like literary garnish
like a book jacket winking

with the venom of polite
and exacting premises
a myth in a neat red tie

this deacon this burgher
decked out in trim grim
an apple as absolute morality

the cost of knowledge
the loss of innocence

the coin of the realm is guilt

how to walk it
how to calibrate a life
with no wiggle room

Recent Digital Work

2009-11-01T10:29:00.001-08:00

CANE CHAIR WITH ELEPHANTS

EARTH MOTHER

BLACK HOLE

CHARRED POBLANOS

TAXI TACTICS

OTHER KINGDOMS

PHOENIX WAITING IN THE WINGS

LISTENING TO MAHLER UNDERWATER

LISTENING TO THE DARK

SEATED WOMAN

SQUARE ONE

SET SAIL

MADONNA WITH GREEN LEAVES

THE CONVERSATION

STUDY OF TURBULENCE

THE BIRTHDAY

MOUSE WITH INNER LIGHT

MOON MAP

ZERO GRAVITY

BEETHOVEN AFTER MOZART

THE ORGANICS OF A STRAIGHT LINE

CAT WITH GPS

GOING FOR THE GOLD

VOYAGER

IN THE BEGINNING

THE WAY WINTER WEARS ITS SILENCE

THE IMPORTANCE OF BROWN SILK

BASKET BALL AND THE IMPORTANCE OF PINK

FORTUNE COOKIE WITH WINTER MELON

SOMETHING PRECIOUS ON THE LOOSE

EVEN BATMAN GETS STONED

CIRCLE SMOKING (TWICE)

AT REST IN A WHEELBARROW

THE DRESSMAKER'S TABLE

PAST UR EYES

ahem!

LANDSCAPE ON THE RUN

DINNER GONG

COMPOSITION WITH NEW GRASS

THE ORIGIN OF SILK

SAMURAI

TULIP NODDING

AND THE WIND MAKES A NEST IN HIS BRANCHES

WOUNDED ABSTRACT

THE HEDGEHOG'S DISGUISE

THE LAMP

THE KISS

THE CROSS-EYED CLOWN

RIDING BACKWARDS ON A PIEBALD MOOSE WITH RED SQUARE

PEYOTERO

HOLY HORSE

FOLDED WINGS

PYROMANCY

WILL LANDIS

POETRY

Recent Digital Work