Spanish Moss

Live Oak draped
in Spanish Moss,
wilting with it
as if weeping
in the sweltering sun.

Autumn never comes here,
only peripatetic monsoons
which bring heavy, soggy freshness.
While through the rain, shivering still,
remains this mossy tree in a breeze
(like sultry girls shimmying
on bars late at night).

After the storm’s passing
the sun dies
an inexorable death, leaving a
saturnine penumbra of tropical magic.
Yet, there remains the dance of
this figure swaying to
quiet, secret music-
jape of the lives we live.

Places Too Close

There are places he’d rather not go,
closets where clothes are too tight,
pants with belt buckles which still latch
to the shortest length, but now
he can’t hold his breath that long
anymore. He wants to be padded with
Pillsbury dough, something to grab
when hands are available to grope
his half century folds of skin
dessicated and pinched from too much sin.
His big heart chokes the tight collar.
He feels safer in the puppet theater, where
the extra strings keep him from floating
away from so much hot air.
Watch him standing in the sun, waiting
alone for the train north, not willing
to make eye contact for long.
Smile and lift him without saying
a word.

I wrote this after seeing the movie ‘Into the Wild’ by Sean Penn. The poem is not so much about the movie as how I related to it. It’s about frustration with social artifice and the strictures of decorum, within which one wonders how much real love and spontaneous feeling is lost. It’s about feeling limited by discomfort in that system and also about wanting to just fit in and be one’s self.

The Answer

I want my last breath
to be the question
which my whole life answered,
to end with the sweetest, most open,
softest heart in all my years,
to smile as I spray across
the universe and collide with
starry friends and look back
over hearts still hoping
for an answer, or, perhaps,
a new kind of question.

I’ll be out of town for a day. See you then

Noël

Happy Winter Solstice!

technorati tags- Christmas poems, Winter Solstice poems, Noel, Winter garden poems

Gulp

Devoid of blues it flairs hot tubed, into cold wet, gritty mineral soaked tomb.
Probing deeper, the glacier slow nudges of strawberry blond, hairy nose
suck nutritious, mineral cool-aid in exchange for more room. Moleing
to China with remarkable strength, its sunny complexion disguises
such pluck. Vitamin vision guides these blind obelisks deep into
  loamy, unknown, dusk colored thoughts. Up above where we
live, green summer tassels now lie withered and tattered,
leaving invisible footer, crunchy treasure to be struck,
storehouse of energy invested for next years flower.

A dozen such creatures exhumed and washed clean
of dark dirt, glow un-naturally bright as a Malibu
sunset. Centrifugal power drains sweet, carotene
packed essence from these brawny tools.
Before I drink I behold this story of
hidden motion underfoot; lean
salubrious gilded towers
grow beneath, beacons
plugging strength
from within
quiet, rich
earth.

Gulp!

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