FINGERS

FINGERS

forgive me
for running my
fingers down
your spine

to that
place of confluence
my tingling
meeting your
tingling

and talking of tingling
    (chimes brushed
by the wind being
what
   I am now thinking)

I am in and out
the habit

     of making connections

getting
    connected

loving every connection
I have ever loved to make

LOST

LOST

we have lost
poetry somewhere
down the line

no subtlety
to speak of
      no time
to let the word
find itself

relish the slow verbs
the ones
in whose nature
much inclination
to digress

and beauty
         what has happened
to beauty in all
its carbon copied, cloned,
photoshopped glory?

our
   idea of beauty
(very idea) is

ugliness
itself

SQUIZZ AT K2

SQUIZZ AT K2

I am digging through
rock and concrete
searching
    for secret gospels

in the ruins of a bombed
out city
    who can say there is not
a pitcher buried deep
or just
beneath
    the surface

as it was in ’45
    under the sand of Egypt

six feet
tall filled to the brim
      with the voice of God?

searching hard around the farm
maybe through the mine dumps

beneath the Colosseum,
Acropolis or
      great temple of Mars
   
failing which
      we should explore
the death zone mountains;
Annapurna, Everest,
       or tip it over
on its side and take
a squizz at K2

DIAMONDS


DIAMONDS

before I knew it
my life had
for better
  or for worse

gone
full mythological

Homer had
      fallen from the heavens
down on
my ten year old
                  head

and Aphrodite, my god,
how that goddess killed me
then
    thereafter
and every day since

if not in
divine form, then with
the active collusion
of her
   clones and copies
and would-be
avatars

each as gorgeous as
they were fake

but you
      were the one
she must have chosen
specially

      inner outer beauty
got in
hearts, diamonds, spades
(and so
    your namesake
did
   sing of diamonds)

time has passed on
but the poem
                      won’t
forget

AND THE LOVE

AND THE LOVE

I was listening
to Santana
and you
just walked on by

shouted out to you
but no words came out
was no sound
   or you elected
not to hear

or maybe
I just whispered
   all I had courage for
best I could
do
   all I could muster

truth is the heart of me
someone close
         an everyday someone
cut
   it out

and you were just
beauty’s archetype
by look
by name

a mirage, thing
off the silver screen, a
biblical queen

and me
       somewhere in the desert
all those years

where you
    called me, found me

shared
a word
       and left

I was listening to Santana
connecting the world
                            world
which will
            end

eternal it is however
                sadness, joy

and the love