The Heart Lies Only Once
I trust no more a promise made of words. Not for the many vows long-proven false, Not for the monkey's paw, its fingers crossed, Not for the apathies of old lang syne. There's not a one of us has had no need Of some dishonesties, just to...
Ragnarok - XXVII
Somewhere it was autumn. On the shore Wind-kissed and smelling of soft salt there stood But three alone. The sighing pines atop The dunes were the last trees to wear their leaves. Somewhere it was evening. Heavy clouds Were crimson painted...
Ragnarok - V
"Before the sun had crossed the pinnacle Of hours upon the sky's superior side And any nightward momentum had gained, The hall was emptying. The Old Man's words Reverberated still between hard stone Reproachful more the longer that we stayed. Our...
Ballade of Paternal Reminiscience
In olden days, our forefathers (there's four of us, you see Counting George, Itoma, and you, and also me) Would tarry by the power tools, the plumbing, and the paint, Where credit card constraining was the heart free of restraint. And we did...
A Far Green Country
How often have I dreamed of such a place? How often have I seen those emerald fields, And in that dream, forgotten that I dreamed, That I would wake, had woken, and my life Dissolved into a peaceful deja vu That cannot be remembered? I can...
Ghost Town Story
September came and ate up all the grass. He took his weapons down into the plain. The leaves fell round the farmhouse in the pass That stood here once. (The chimney bones remain.) Some say he pawned them, needing ready cash ...
The Starling Master
Amid the mid-air rushing the Starling Master stands Invisible to every eye not of his feathered kin. The starlings wheel around him to his soundless swift commands, Above, beneath, beside him they rush out and they rush in, In orbit all about him...
The Past is the Opposite Shallows
The past is the opposite shallows of a river at flood to the lip. And swift do the rapids swallow. And swift are the tides that rip. And that which the past generations have builded on seeming stone Is crumbled in deep desolations, and carried away...
The Cheshire Cat
The glint you glimpse may be the twilight sun Between the shadow trees, or on the lawn All unproportioned, where the wild winds run Grotesquely. Or it may be me, all gone. Beneath wide hedges, wider nothings yawn, And nothing's more nothing...
Ragnarok - IV
The day was long departed, and the night Was coming to adulthood. Outside slept The night breeze, snoring soft among the grass. Inside, the boxer felt the darkness close As if it were a change in temperature He had not noticed. "Hold on," he spoke...
Cold Front
Grey mountains march at the edge of the sky. Dark mountains glower through a narrowed eye. From shadowed mountain vales comes a breeze long blest And the wind rises silent from the dark northwest. It rushes as it rises like a half-remembered...
Ghost of the Western Cretaceous Sea
You look around you and you see the peaks. You see the pine heights and the softer trees That flower on the lower, lesser steeps. You see the little rivers, shire-wise, That gently carve the foothills. And the sweep At last of desert floor....