down in the flood

Revelation

Rejoice in Rainbows the Revival Preacher

Crooned, ring teeth suit Sales

Incentives from God,

a solemn promise He made to

                Us hapless Sodden Souls Adrift

                on eddies, weather eyes wary  

Never Again destroy the Earth

                this fragile sliding layer

                cake left to melt in the rain

In a Mighty Flood; setting us up, waiting a beat

                to deliver the grinning punch line,

                a Cat with God-given comedic timing

in a roomful of downy canaries-  

Next Time My Friends,

Next Time, eyes teeth watch agleam

He’ll skip the Deluge and Rain

Down Fire and Brimstone

to wipe the slate clean Once

And For All, a toasty fresh start, a gag that sailed

way over my head, a kid with a

crew in a pew on a Sunday night,

too dim to see the beauty in the bargain:

fire vs. rain

ebb tide vs. ash cloud,

choking with laughter many years later when I

                finally got the joke, the one He

                stole from Us, the one We

never get tired of hearing, the one about the

Cleansing Power of Fire

Of Purification by Flame;

Scorched Earth always good for a laugh here

                Standing waist deep

in the Big Muddy

This eternally messy, roiling river.

               

       

               

                 

               

life as drawing

Editing

A slender stick of soft willow charcoal

Held loosely, pulled in quick fluid strokes

at arms-length all from the shoulder

across a featureless white void,

tilting blindly into the teeth

of the storm, trails a line that renders

us smudged, essential features

captured briskly; form and space

loom large, set to against the other

for purchase in the composition,

ever amusing push and pull read

as gospel when the real story is

the sharp busy eraser wielded

by a tireless quick deft hand set

to wipe away our messy masterpiece.

good advice

Secret Of Walking Dogless

Go east on Sixth.  Keep the clip brisk, a trick

dear to dogless walkers; hands that long for

Snapping twanging leashes bereft, empty,

Retreat to deep jacket pockets searching

for the missing Milkbone, clenching themselves

into dormant balls.  Fetch! Retrieve them, set

them swinging in brash arcs, fingers popping

keeping time to something upbeat, punchy

lodged in your head.  North now on Wilson Street

through old growth neighborhoods sprouting new buds

Here and there; tear downs hauled away, fresh sod

unrolled, wending your way at last to the

gates of Oak View where you can drop the act

at last and stroll among the squat graven

slabs away from prying eyes, safe among

friends, hand extended in exult charade.

informed by television

What I Know About Nobility In The Face Of Heroic Futility I Learned From I Spy

It is a purely inspired scene written,

I want to believe, under the gun;

the writers trapped, sweating in a

windowless room of their own design,

a too neat and tidy trope worn thin

by overuse, the hour late, the coffee

stale, paper cups half full, crushed, sodden 
butts afloat, a bowl of tired fruit

adrift on a crumpled sea of

water-marked onion skin,

Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott

hapless victims of yet another

petty Third World tyrant, Fernando Lamas

perhaps, no less so by a hackneyed script

that lands them reliably week in and week out

in some locked room

in some strange exotic city

in some blistering equatorial country

waiting for the specter of impending

deadline to spur the narrative forward,

setting them free, ushering in

another Chevy commercial;

an implausible pyramid of

citrus their ticket out in this  

particular episode, cracking wise,

impossibly cool while they stacked each and

every orange, layer upon layer to

the edge of the high narrow window that

framed one coconut palm, the writers

expectant, hopeful even, in the

moments before they send Alexander

Scott scurrying to the top in a heroic

but futile bid for freedom, the Cos’

sprawled, mugging, oranges rolling, juice

seeping everywhere, the writers, spying

an out, having escaped amid the carnage. 

homage

All La Glory

These guys never plug in before midnight

keeping unholy hours, playing without

a break until someone notices the

tanged rim of the sun through the mist rising

from Overlook Mountain, washes of chords

from the Sacred Harp cascade down rounded

ancient shoulders, blue runoff in rills, brooks,

streams, a river returning to the source

Eternal nightly gig, a trio now,

smoking, swapping japes as they unpack trunks

of old harmonies, flat and creased after

all these years, the long wait for a rhythm

section finally over, The Weight from

the top now, count off those four flat bass drum

thumps, smoking, swapping verses, time to kill

before the night winds wail and the others

stroll in, short trip back to the big pink house. 

Invisible man

A Ruinous Thirst

Arvi’s black mutt-his misdirected bark,

gaze off target, vague, somewhere to my right

was the first clue, one of only two mind

you, there’d been no need for a third even

at my age, too old to feel so light on

my feet, young enough to notice I no

longer cast a shadow on the sidewalk;

Troublesome? sure, but I shake it off and

press on down the leafy street side-stepping

a meteor shower of furtive black

squirrels Un-Dog-Like, unable to detect

my presence not unlike the approaching

runner, a young woman, jaw set in sheer

determination her mouth turned down at

the corners left eyebrow arched ever so

slightly; vivid details I would have missed

had I not paced her for a block or two,

our four feet slapping in unison if

only for a moment, long enough to

Understand this new found transparency

did nothing to extend my flagging verve

leaving me bent and planted in the street

gulping great lung-fulls, hands on knees, awash

suddenly with ennui, come to grips with

the foolishness of impunity:  filched

candy bars, levitated hats, eavesdropped

private conversations, aware at last

of a ruinous thirst that leads me to

a garden hose attached to a nearby

house noticing too late the boys on bikes

agape at the long green charmed snake bubbling

in the driveway, marching wet prints in quick

succession trailing off down the street round

the corner to the front door that appears

to swing open of its own volition

up the stairs to the bathroom where I stand

for hours before the mirror, blue toothbrush

flitting to and fro like a furious

sparrow, awaiting my reappearance.

recollection

Memento Mori

Here is a version of what happened, mine, 

teased from the wiry vacant bird’s 

nest that once cradled a brace of fine blue 

eggs, hatched now, certainty and faith long

since flown, tufts of truth, a few jagged bits 

of thin shell all that remain leaving 

plenty of room for sparrows and wrens, 

busy squatters flitting in and out, 

relining with fragile gauzy fiction, 
sitting on a new brood at once strange 

and familiar; take Cherokee Hill for 

instance, the setting of which I’m certain,

less so about the curious

application here of Red as motif:

sudden code-red wail of sirens

mad dash to Red Bank Baptist Church

dozens of strobing red lights

accordioned red Beetle

touches of red repeated on scattered Bud cans

pools of dark blood spreading out 

a distinction that would have gone 

unnoticed that hot afternoon, my aunt 

flushed from the short furious drive, three 

shirtless barefoot children ferried to their 

first brutal brush with certainty, at least 

one, perhaps, trying to imagine 

the light touch of the white sheet drawn 

gently over his astonished cooling face.