Selected poems

THE VALLEY

I’ve seen the valley stretching out
a sea of green in embedded anthracite foothills
into hazy dawning summer evenings
seeping drunken blood orange skies
silhouetting trees silhouetting mind,
spewing sunset screaming humming reaching
out to me on my seat on rocky green ridged peak
beside green edged trees speaking to me,
moving with me, dancing with me
arms wide open entwined in wavering winds
beneath immense supernova moonleaking eye
slowly glowing luminescent scapes of rolling May tides

I’ve seen the valley shrinking
into long inky darkness billowing faded navy oblivions
escaping along empty cosmos highways of the great beyond,
far past the eternal feminine curve
of unending hills drooling over one another
like summer honey dripping into warm mystic horizons,
the curves like hips on my soulmate’s golden body,
the curves like bossa nova soundwaves and sprouting brain wavelengths
tied to canopied dirt trails weaving
winding a spine from shady blue creek stream
up sunset-beaten green tree waterfall faces
smiling up at stony footsewn 8 o’clock peaks,
where I bear witness to yellowing white-dotted lights
emerging from the darkness like sunflowers
painting the valley tucked into refrigerated riverside bed
by waxing white dust cratered moon,
by boundless hills cold covers’ covering spiraling sun
slipping sending wishes westbound
across the great endless plains to sand-covered coast
in midday shadow of jagged rocky mountain grey swaying summits

I’ve seen the valley in all of its paintings,
stretching folding growing bowing
with immeasurable lengths of time,
stoned on bare naked winter nights
and harvested autumn sunset breezes
and rainy new spring mornings
and indescribable hazy summer days
cemented forever in black soot and coal
beneath those infinite hills
rolling spilling dancing dreaming
endlessly encompassing the weight of my being

WILD SUSQUEHANNA

Oh, Wild Susquehanna keep running
over bends of breakneck hillslopes
catapulting sunstruck guardian angels
of redtail hawks into yr dizzy skies
growing indigo and silent like dreams
of lost lovers who long left east
and die every night in starswarm west
to remember yr slow thrills forever

OCTOBER COMES

October comes, we go chasing
after sunspots under murky skies
and hide away in heated rooms
under lamplight in evenings
screaming out open windows
into lost void of a new black
emptiness
the likes you have not seen
since February doldrums
gripped you and drowned me
and lifted gently its icicle veil
into March’s crooked staircase

October comes, our amber sorrows
deepen in chasms of river valleys
plummeting down loose nail railways
sewn to river’s bend leaking dreams
into some strange new blue body
bent by waves of a withering belief

October comes, the end is an ashy cross
slobbered on our foreheads’n bemarked
by long beaked birds flying south
into indigo auroras of spangled night
where gunfire teeths and spills over
backyard hills wrought with old joy
and ghosts of shadows beat alleyways
leafless and swallow them whole

Go hold your mother, find your father
October comes and the only place to run
is home.

WALK YOUR WORDS

Do you walk with your words?
Do you have an old red leash
for them and every few days
do they get fussy and come up
and bite you on the chin?

I’m asking because
I walk with my words
I walk them constantly
I walk them for miles
in yawning shadows
of morning when dogs nap
with their snoots hanging off
warm couches and old grandpas
eat greasy breakfasts in nooks
with blue jays and cardinals

I walk them in the rain
with a slick black jacket
crumpled over my ears
keen to hear droplets
hit my shoulders and ball up
on the tops of my shoes

I walk them in the sun
to remind them that all
is not lost, not even freckles
faded from pale faces stuck
in the wind or fiery glow
of red brick sharing long looks
with light leaving space

I walk them even when I
wish I didn’t have to put
on clothes, paste contacts
in my eyes, feel fresh air
paint portraits of happy lungs
on the walls of my interior

I walk them on snowdays
in late afternoon when all
is blue, I watch them build
huge castles and throw snowballs
at trees from their gateways
before they get cold and crabby
and climb back into home

I walk them under moonlight
to show them they’re just like
the moon, sometimes full
but always changing
with days slipping by

I walk them best of all
on Sunday evenings
when clouds are away
nursing bad hangovers
and Mother Sun is taking care
of me with a shine in her eye
and two oceans in mine

I walk with my words constantly
otherwise they run circles
like trackstars around
the Jupiter rings of my mind
If I stopped, who knows
what would happen?
Would they be angry?
Would they go quiet?