Violet
Hear that wind, son?
That is the breath of your father
As he blows in your ear.
Come off to bed, hold on to my hand while you can,
And pajama romp to the pillow queen.
My boy, let me dress your round feet in slipping ram horn shoes
And lion’s mane socks.
If any uncertain shadows come creeping across the sheets
Burn them with your dragon scale tongue
And never forget about me
Humming in Our Sleep
Walk with me
Skimming out feet on the old street wood
Turn a heel and let the pale current sweep you away
Past blue towers of ice, spun by a spoon in space
Impressionist cascades, and angels in the blue out
Shining mischievously like of far off city lights
Reflected on the surface of the water
Or like our souls
Glint and danced about in semi-circles
And new step dancing in the moon
And blurbirds, too.
Orange Lozenge:
I was flung
Into rhymes,
And I lunged
At the seemingly unspeakable sponge,
All grungy and grimed like a door hinge
In line for the scavengers to dine on
Then pick beneath their teeth,
To explunge all the grime and the grunge
From their tongues,
Then suck an orange flavored Lozenge
While squaking: that was hardly a challenge.
(I would like to announce to the world
the Orange
is no longer alone.)
Jack-In-The-Box
Tell me, is the jack-in-the-box shy;
Is he lonely in his wooden cage?
For when I visit on rainy days,
He comes out smiling and singing praise.
Tell me, is the jack-in-the-box cold;
Does he shiver his inhuman can?
For his face is ice to summer hands,
And he shakes, on his wobbling stand.
Tell me, does the jack-in-the-box cry
While he is crammed in his splintered home?
For:– I cry,– when I’m all alone,
Those freezing nights, with my freezing bones.
Somewhat the Porch Rose
My red petals wilting inward upon a shivering filament,
The garnishing lavender sticking in my stigma like thorny twigs,
I lie depressed on the cement,
Shrinking sepal pressing in on me, denting my color.
Each stamen sways and flails in the milky frosted gale.
I am somewhat the porch rose
Left alone to the north wind’s cold.
Yet, it is not in me to limp home
Where palling pain subsides to warmth.
No, I will rest here outside your window,
Soul exposed to the cold of hypothermia
Because living outside your Fahrenheit
Would lead me to more sudden cotton nose and perniosis.
So I risk my skin tissue’s soft destruction
And utter mumbled pleas of my red heart’s devotion
Until the sharp tail of Jack comes upon my pistil
And stills me with the milky frosted gale.
Mallard’s Dream Song
I have been twice aboard the quivering dock
Made of wicker and twine:
Where time is set free of clock’s steady ticking.
I twice saw the quacking green mallard
Washing in quaggy water with the lily flowers.
And my second visit there, since coming whole,
Having come alone: (wearing no fair company but my own)
I asked this poor fowl:
From where he had come
And what he had known.
Of course, the wave of the wind was wet and blunt
And the fond aura of a waning moon was dull and broken
Where it shown below the surface pond.
I had of late wished to keep her long company
Where the mold and soft moss could cover my eyes as gauze.
I admit, that night the goddess’s mermaid glow
Was as pleasing as shadows on autumn’s snow.
