The Choice

A cloud chose not to rain,

and yellow tropic sun

reaches through, to touch

a coconut palm, and reflect

from the edge of wings

of great white birds

traveling the river gorge.

The Mountain appears,

veiled in a shawl of mist,

north, beyond acacia

and locust trees.

Faint perfumes,

frangipani, ginger,

and an exotic feeling,

float on an east bound breeze.

The Buddha  

sits serenely,

ants and creeping vines

crawl over his folded hands.

Does he want to move?

Isms

I heard you heard we all

heard music change

to an ism rhythm

isms bag us in plastic

throw us in landfill

applaud our shuttered imaginations

isms promise outer space and give us

laugh track sitcoms give us dead children give us

gods of war give us mirthless smiles give us faces

impaled on blue suits give us lapel pins carved

in bloody rivers running from a lake

of hope.

Isms teach mothers to wrap babes

in explosives teach children to buy

cock raisers and pussy wetters

isms free elderly from streams of piss

from excrement that death

is built-in obsolescence.

Isms invisible in mirrors

lick blood from all our highway gutters

all the broken windows all the shattered cities

isms feed furnaces of greed isms feed appetites

of wolves whose tongues lick angel words

from our headless corpses.

Swimming To Horizons

Swim to horizons

for there is no love on this shore.

That treasure beyond imagination,

lies deep, outside a shallow lagoon

far away from this protecting reef.

To see a future must we not look

past a veil of dense fog

eon mornings and unnamed stars?

Futures Once Seen Ahead

Futures once seen ahead,

appealing islands beyond

cracks of incidental doors,

orthographic possibilities

lost to this blood of survival.

Once continent, these veins

now spill life in furious gouts

into a desert never green,

from fragile limbs and organs

weakened in escape.

New Year Fog

New Year Fog,

         Outside Perfect Pour

                  closed against my need

                           for resurrection

                                    and a newer

caffeinated me,

dims street lights

         and clear visions

                  of a future

without hangovers.

Zapata's People

I do not think Zapata

would allow me

in his camp.

One look at this face

broken from an edge

of Western Europe,

unvagabondish,

and perhaps too delicate

for the art of war,

would wrinkle brows

and fingers itching

on hair triggers

might discover

new reason to move

toward Reconquista.

Who Sleeps In My Bed?

Who sleeps in my bed?

         It cannot be me,

for my dreams

         have never known

this ecstasy.

Who sings such valiant songs,

         that float over rooftops

to proclaim love everlasting?

         These sounds cannot be mine;

my voice cannot touch such joy

         overwhelming.

The sky must have fallen

         with the rain.

that river must have finally

         gone dry;

to sing such songs

         and dream such dreams

from such a malcontent

         as I.