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....
Ballade on Leavetaking
I saw a hilltop, years ago Half-toppled with continuous gust, And every time that breeze would blow- This is not boring you, I trust- The grass reached up in wanderlust For where the wind and I would track. My shoes still smell of that...
Ballade Against Cheesemongery
The grocer's, for $6.95 per pound Harvarti sells, in blocks of creamy beige Bespeckled with unthinkables (well ground Or crushed) like nuts, or wine, or sage And rosemary. At this I briefly rage Then pass it o'er for cheap varieties My...
Colony Collapse Disorder
I hunted with the children of the sun Who hunt the liquid gold. I saw them turn, Like furnace sparks made flesh, to rise and run As swift as their sun's rays that ever burn, To take pursuit again. I saw their stores Stuffed but to bursting...
Evensong for Flock and Pack
Save me a place by the fireside, love, For nightfall's outrun me again. There's miles upon miles I must walk somehow, There's burdens on burdens I'm carrying now, And when I come home--which I will, I vow-- I'll be needing that fireside then. For...
Curse on a Deserving Land
Dark clouds gather at the edge of the sky. We have one last reckoning, you and I. And you've never met me, you don't know my name, But you are my murderer just the same. In the dust was my living. Unto dust I return. And when have you shown the...
Ragnarok - XIV
Varr broke the silence first. "You saw him, then. Our lord is yet alive. I had not dared To think the question, lest I should answer. But the Old Man lives yet. So lives our strength." Shane muttered quietly "Not he alone." And when they looked at...
Ragnarok - XXVI
The Sulfur Carrier had dug its claws Into the cliff face, on either side of The shallow crevice where the Old Man stood At bay. The rock walls were collapsing in. When he had thrust his spear into the breach To wedge it open, it had buckled and...
Ragnarok - XIX
Somewhere, it was winter. Stars were lost Above the mottled, slate-hard clouds. The streets Were glazed with colorless lamplight. The air Was weary cold, and smelled of apathy. Somewhere it was January, or Some time that felt like it. Beside the...