habitat

lichen, pond scum and decay
the bog, smelling musty, grotesque, marvelous
belonging wholly to the realm of the Earth

what are we to make
of a habitat of corrupt human beings?

it is just a landscape, a microcosm of the cosmic mind

knowing it as this
a monument of stink
who would place blame?
who would judge or concern themselves?

as nature moves through us
cleansing our putrid wounds
as all things must pass
not even despair can last

unto herself (for everybody's Jerusalem)

the sounds of blue and black and yellow
the sun wearing its masks
me, you, Jew, Christian, Muslim, concerned bystander
spits her rays at fate
lays down upon setting
no mask to hide her becoming
what she has dreamt
an urgency through the night to wake,
to arise to light her own path through the sky

what I learned and what I unlearned

what I learned

and what I unlearned

through a covering of sparse nettles

I was so close to breathing

to the ghost of freedom



lay your hands at your sides

the fur inside your throat

you wheeze and claw

but no succor comes


lay down

in the path of the storm

it will assault your soul

and then will pass,

your brilliant compassion,

sparkling with fresh light,

left raw to the coming dawn

three’s a Tuesday morning

a cane
with the doorknob
as a hook

an old couple
and a third wheel
drink coffee
eat pastry

the third, a talker he is
leads or commands
the conversation

demands their attention
in exchange
for a Tuesday morning's
diversion

from thoughts of
aches and operations
from children
and grand- and greatgrandchildren
with smaller worries

haiku -- snow

snow like a superhero
dives in, shrewd and self-assured
to warm our chafes and wounds

inner and outer

as inner and outer are linked,
don't let your worse inclinations
leak into manifestation

Spatchcocking (or, what we learned from Rachel Ray during Thanksgiving)

the idea is simple
take a Thanksgiving turkey
cut out its spine
and flatten it in the roaster
for a cooking time of two hours
whereas white and dark meats
cook evenly, at the same rate

the truth of it is
you have to come very close
to bruising your atrophied bass guitar fingers
cutting away at the spine with small scissors,
remove a long slug of meat that does somehow
resemble, shall we say, a spatchcock

then you place the 15 pound fowl
on the kitchen floor
on top of a garbage bag
and stomp the crap out of it
through another bag on top
until the breastbone breaks
with a sickening WHAP!

best freaking TG turkey, though,
EVER!!!!!

swept away

the portion of clay
we receive for having come to this place
the writ of ownership, forged on flash paper
the family members who are failing
the core of the incomparable Self we must ferret out
the questions we ask, the answers we evade
that something that nothing can erase
the friends we make in dreams
we tell them we will meet again
a promise we do not know how to keep
we are swept away in eddies of creation
here, now, nowhere
the fact of our very existence has no place
to lay its head