christmas lights

since summer i've waited
for christmastime
since we planned our trip
to see dear old daddyo
now i sit
and smoke
and wait
for nightfall
when you'll come home
like you burst in
this morning
asking for an egg sandwich
instantly
enabling a poem
one i can't
tell you about
look
in the windows
across the street
someone has strung some christmas lights

* * *
the dusk reflected
in the windows
across the way
pink and gray
like the shell
you dropped
into my lap
last july
has given way
to christmas lights

A New Love

I have seen your eyes look away from mine
Your brown eyes

I am made quiet
By your unquiet eyes

Your quiet eyes
Have made me unquiet

If only I could capture
The darkness of your eyes

Your eyes drive me wild

Aubade

Patterns in God's mind
I love to see

Do you want some orange juice?

No coffee today.

Off you go...

Wanna know what I think you're doing?

Nothing. A blanket of snow.

I think you're dancing

Sunray’s prism ripples
Salvaged from yesterday's dawn

T. S. Eliot

Tomcat, you
Teaching me to sit still
Like a tomcat can
Full of peace:
A poem for Tom

A Chant

fly in from odd angles!

Fly in angles --
Angles --
Odd angles:
From odd angles fly in!

From odd, angles fly in!
Odd angles fly in!
From odd,
Angles fly in!

fly in from odd angles!

Wedding Vows

O Bride my Bride
Falling flowers all around us

Husband my Husband
Strong in all things

Birthday Wishes

These many years,
full of long forgotten
worries and dreams,
I have thought of you
as a city or town
where I could live
undisturbed,
as a free citizen.
But today I feel
you are only a man --
one man
who lives
in his own vicinity
himself
looking for a dreamscape
where he might dwell
forever.

Nightwinds of Michigan

Sing of the moon to me
O moaning heart
Why is your face so gray?

Sing of the trees to me ever so blue
My one, my one, my one
I feel I have seen your mind

We have met twice
Your body a huge, fighting angel's

Willy my darling my ever so new
My tired angel
Sing me to sleep too true

Morning Bird

Moving over waters,
Sailing, to Byzantium,
Scratch, scratch my soul
And sing to me:
Lover hovering over my face
Delicious feeder
(I shudder, like a cat)
Abreast of the sea
And tall, slim,
Bursting with joy,
And wearing a baseball cap:
It's you --

SCRABBLE

when i felt that
i went away
my friends still
could see me
one fine april morning
after i had been
a live wire all night
i felt as if i were
shrunken into nothingness
having considered
the river as an end
but i stayed home
locked in
near my sleeping beauty
it would hurt him if i died
all my friends came round
to hold me here
Willy listened
to the horrors
attacking my mind
and said
he loves me no matter what
Mark said
he would be wicked sad if i died
and i played scrabble
with Sarah, his wife
i broke the rules
and told her
my letters spelled "LIAR"
a message from the cosmos?
ha! that’s what
they’d like
you to think!
those witches!
fairest of them all! ha!
letters
picked up randomly
planted there
by slime
then i got some words
to describe THEM
"BAD" and "LEWD"
but above all
it was Sarah's laughter
loud and true
that saved me
and i went home
to Willy

The Makings of a Poem

a wooden table
a legal pad
a cup
of chamomile tea
a view
of some rooftops
a cloudy sky
some birds flying
some at rest
beneath
the eaves
and a memory
i can't control
a memory
of a mother

Friday's Vigil

today the table is marble
and the summer sky a haze
like skim milk
if i could give you more
than yesterday
i would
but still the poem
sticks in my throat
like ice cream
swallowed too fast
lodged there
like a fairy tale
with no ending
beyond the maze
of your touch
a jewel
that speaks
of tomorrows

Moonroses

Lakes of blue, blue far blue,
All bluebell, bluebird colored.
Singing, dancing trees --
Lacy whitecaps on the lakes
Slow and swank as a river.
Wisconsin rivulets, small and frail

But in Georgia, home of my father,
Stand the moonroses, high and deep.

But what is a moonrose? It blooms only at night:
Plant it in the moonlight,
Watch it glow.
(During the day it sleeps with its arms full.)
Moons of yellow, yellow, yellow
All knowing moonrose --

Fighting through forests of green and red
Here, powerfully, stand the moonroses.

Indian Summer

Mother Mother
The leaves are turning
Mustard colored fronds
Above the old sea of green
But the air is balmy
You said in New England
This is called Indian Summer
When the leaves are colored
Like the Indian Paintbrushes,
Wildflowers I saw first in Wisconsin
Mother Mother
Do you see the colors too

January 1, 1998

the new year begins,
not as a clean slate.

autumnal pods hang frozen
on the stripped locust
where still some leaves
arch in the cold.

no totally bare tree
announces the new season,
the new day, the new year.

Similes and Difference

Writing: newly winter in New York,
Leaves scudding over the sidewalks like waterbugs,
Pedestrians huddling like pigeons under the eaves
Against the plunging breezes...
What am I trying to say?
I remember how you looked this morning
When you first woke up.
You said you were cold
And you held your robe together
Like a baby clutching its mother’s breast...

Mark's Poem

Look into your heart, you said:
You will see love, and beauty;
But no, I see need,
I hear my heart calling out need.
I see my friends in my heart
But I don't think they know of my need.
I never tell them, in so many words;
But then they don't tell me either.
So that's what I see in my heart --
A drama starring friends in need,
And my need, hollering help.
Then I see my friends answering, they're there:
Then my heart cracks open --
I am here.