ONCE,TWICE

The calabash broken broken two times

Once was a reason twice never reasoned

Both the partition and quartered a spine

I stop to think and wonder what I’ve done

To bother to stop thinking twice again

Cracked like a body, horse driven carriage

Medieval and omnipresent carnage.

What cease to let up what manner conduct

Ensnared as a lesion ghost of despair

Provoked, absconded, retired from care

Which purpose was abhorrent behavior

The behavior of power to torture

As it clutches for innocence broken

Once for a reason twice never reasoned.

the birds in the trees sing so lovingly

the birds in the trees sing so lovingly

as perfect as perfection while playing

while decorating the flowers with spring

so kind and so merciful as it pines

for lost innocence is a melody

while beautiful and nameless it is time

equal to its unwritten timelessness

as sense is to silence and silent reeds

the birds in the trees sing so beautifully

songs of a promise that birds always keep

sing in the morning at noon and sunset

sing to the sun in its climb over earth

be its voice when it reaches for its heart

be its lullaby and its morning song.

Just Sonnet

I think and thought about a thousand things.

And each with its full table of contents

as complete as each one to existence

how they came to be and are and still ring

with a growing permanence as certain

as memory will not make omissions

and fate is just a starting point of rhyme

when sound and sense combine and separate.

I think of what to do for the sonnet

that is to say I try to fulfill it

though it be unedited and written

by formula, I hope it is unique

I hope that it will be blessed as it is.

Unedited and unrevised justice.

Songbird Sonnet

The Songbirds are Singing their Lovely Notes.

Their Song is heard while these words are SIlent.

They pause and allow one Bird the Moment.

It chirps in descending volume then Ends

For a brief millisecond Disappears

Or, rather, grows Inaudible Slowly.

First the image subtracting from the Flock

Pairs duo then continue, a trio

Emerges before a Quartet Begins

Carefully everything is bent on Sound

Enjoying its fulcrum against the Air

Wind, reed, and fascicle, the Orchestra

Plays as it Would for a Rich Occasion

Dedicates its desire for the Noon.

BUTTERFLY WISE BEAUTY

The butterfly with its wisdom-wrought wings

the panels that display their symmetry

align with full destiny when flying

and place a flag of beauty in the sky.

Dyed with artful details, woven silk,

spread across one canvas two pains framing

that gather from the world its smallest inks

and dipped in that same inkwell is its felt.

An eye appears as though that it could see

to look on it is beauty seeing sight

as all of it is mystical it shines

delicate limbed tiny poultice tincture

To watch as beauty flies on beauty’s wings

or waits at most a moment in the leaves.

QUAINT MCCAIN

Iran Contragate Two and the Vanguard

Which Ascertains itself Capable of Art

So to War is to each his own Forces

And Bloodshed the Power of Authorship

Consigned to a Mish Mash of Grim Motives

The ANswer to Everyman’s Aggression

The Plunder of Nothing for Certainsomes

Beyond in the Parchment Suppression Bomb

Purgatorial Offers Particle Sense

To Not Think at all is a Leisure Plan

Without limitation of Medium

One for One is a Common Equation

The Shoes that Rest on the Desk Crossed Ankle.

Diagonal like the X from the Y Key.

DANCE OF LIFE

 Tonight the evening placid and pleasing

so peaceful and so full of mystery

time expands and ignites smiles or weeps

as time, space, distance revolve as it sings

If life is just one thing life is a dance

it wraps itself round centrifugal force

of intersecting circles of movements

as the evening is passing of a torch

The ground absorbing darkness as it warms

from under the floor or out on the street

under the brush outside of my window

earth, stone, root, soil, and mineral pour

the content of energy and time stored

all of its travels and every tour.