Poetry

I dreamt of that man’s
body as a falling animal,
draped in heavy cloth.

       I knew, somewhere,
       that by reaching him I could
       be young, enough to live.

Between us were mountains,
thickets dotted
with lavender and rosehip.

       In the hillside, churches
       carved into earth so that
       even the spires fell

below the tallest grass,
each with ornate windows
drowned in shadow.

       I would call out to him,
       this man of sharp bone, but
       the sound arrived too late,

finding only the air
that held his shape, dropping
away with the sun.

Sitting on the edge of a summer scene
so my cigar smoke doesn’t bother anyone,
watching the kids flop in the bouncy house,
the invasion of uncles pulling their legs,
the aunts: an admiring seashell blocking the driveway,
and a council of grandparents
seated in beach chairs on the lawn.
Now that the sun is setting,
nobody has to take breaks inside,
though the AC is still on.

As the sun slips lower, the grandparents
will blink off, one by one—streetlights
showering their spots with shade.
Uncles and aunts alike will fizzle from sight,
ceasing their dreamy orbits like fireflies,
who do not know it’s night.
And then we will be the next to go
when the sun sets completely on this summer scene,
banding with the elders’ darkened glow,
making our presence felt with shadow.

from Moledro: A Suite for Lost Literary Magazines

Straightforward, the view from here,
to spirit’s tincture, a mixitini matrix,
the mad hatter’s melusine. At the corner club,
diverse voices grift uncut thick jam word gumbo –

intellectual refuge, for the sonorous;
for weekenders, the hellroaring review;
a soft cartel lost in thought,
untied shoelaces of the mind –

dialogual human noise,
a joyful acapella zoo.

She lived things I could only imagine; we were mad
about each other, mad in lust, mad angry. Mad. Period.
We made love in her car, wrecked mine, made out at
funerals, fucked against a bathroom wall in The Cove.
Never wanted anyone else and couldn’t live without
blowing it up; told her I’m a man without purpose
baby, a boy looking for a chance encounter; forever
confusing honesty with cruelty.
We played Russian Roulette with her father’s gun,
a former cop, ex-marine. I said sackcloth and ashes
would flatter her figure and she’d make a beautiful
train wreck for someone.
Last time we talked she said I’ll never let you go,
I knew it wasn’t true. She’s a liar, a sometime witch,
a damaged goods collector. Everything has its sell
-by-date; we cling to faith, pretend it will be enough.

heads of stone face the waves that rush / clapping against the body of the island
shallow lip of white / against the rising of earth / flowering in sharp green trunks of life
parabolic line of erosion / eruption etched into the rock / crags smoothed and jutting
upright before the deep blue / warm under a thundercloud / full-sail drifting
like a slow oncoming storm towards a nameless place, where people and gulls pass
wondering, staring, waiting as the land fades into sea and the sea into sky / all-beginning
forests drink up the alchemies of water and air / from the root of the wide Aegean shore

speaking of life in color / the palate of textures rough and dry under unforgiving sunlight
falling over spectrums of earth where the blue sea becomes green shore / whitened
crests lapping at the feet of dark brown stone / the few and far secluded beaches
until the stone of the nude island mount is shown / white rising in points and crumbling
the soil where trees grow softens under floorings / tufts of immaculate greenery
low atop its height / cut against the lightest blue / wisps of off-white clouds beyond
seen behind sail masts stretching out in the slight breeze / momentums to parallel coasts

waving from water to stone to air / eye level / the boat and a forest / above the sail
toward the sky / the land moves up for a tree / seeds flown in by the migrating birds
it descends with the erosion of roots / weather returning / from light to the deep
from blue to blue / the earth around plunges like an island submerged by silence
stilled to the following of the few who laugh and sing / read and see
listening for the ways of the land between sea and sky / feeling for the depths and heights
of blue, sea to sky / wandering without a hint of a map / not asking where or why
lost between blues and floating over the sea, by air / and on through the moveable forests

an island of earth indistinguishable from the continental drift / split by slow sea currents 
turquoise shallows / translucent blues shimmering / sparkled glints 
glimmering
light stardust touching over the seascapes churning / swelling / the peopled coast 
backdrop of heights / cliffs of textured mountain stone / bold mineral 
pigments 
diagonal swirls of rock vertical latitudes of visible Eurasian plates / opposing itself 
mega-rifts of warring earth clashing like the gods of our primal arboreal 
fears 
among the trees we built on stone / to pray / that they notice us in their 
power 
mightier we made them into symbols / for all that is seen / by an eye / hand or breath 

on either side of the watery course that makes inlets / coves and bays shine
with our earthly greed the dark wet stone dies against weather-beaten walls
made by the involuntary exhales of Poseidon / blue god of the West
rushing into the coastal rock like the moving sea / the verdant greens 
lone trees sprout to welcome worshippers of contemporary re-creation 
us who sacrifice ourselves to the bodies of fish and vegetables 

water itself on altars of wood cut and finished / floating and bobbing / over beatific depths  
coastline to mainland / tall trunks thin / stand alone behind a beach of washed red sand 
leafy tops adorning the horizon / where the mountains of Anatolia spring to 
life 
along the Aegean high / of orchards and vineyards / olives and grapes 
dotted brown earth surrounded / forests to the tree line / trampled by 
footsteps of Asia 
down over Europe, fumbling / only to reach the seaside shade / taste fruits 
of the West 

play in the shadows of the white-winged gulls / the black crows who steer
through the air from shore to shore / focusing through into the clear coastal seas 
lucid dreaming to the bottom / all for a starfish / an eel / a weed / a 
sponge