Three Poems on Inspiration (hat-tip to River Poets)

Rendezvous with the Muse

No guardian angel, this one, no
hovering over your shoulder with an occasional
white feather floating down
before your eyes, proof
of the wonders of the invisible world.

No, this one is contrary,
more moody than malleable.
She won’t wait for you
on street corners, won’t take your calls.
Won’t meet you for dinner,
even when you offer to pay
using the currency of your devotion.

But she will come to you,
before dawn, to disrobe your dreams.
And sometimes she will sit at your kitchen table
in the pastel morning light, her hands
holding yours, with nothing between you
but flowers.

The Muse is Unaware of Her Power

when she opens her mouth a tongue of wet flame
is all men desire to see
she yawns and stretches like a cat
so men tell her of their flea-infested longing to scratch
the back of her head
        if she is single
        they want to slip a ring on her finger
        if she is married
        they want to slip it off
        either way jewelry is involved
when she walks across the screen of their fantasies
men close their eyes and levitate out of the theater
when she cuts through a line of impatient admirers
each one desperate for her to palm their poem-note love
she is embarrassed and wonders why
no one ever asks her what it is
she wants

Going to Meet the Monster

pack your cigarettes
a shout of single-malt
and something sheerly black
for her tastes are base
and her days are long though not near
as long as the night of her thighs

pack a pocket with petals of vers4e
bound by feathers and bone
and a length of red yarn
frayed and untwined as she
prefers vestigial to actual
in her objets d’art

be aware be prepared for her name spoken
in the sexualized chug and screak of machines
for her words to vault from the random page
become smoke drifting down your throat
remember all mirrors are the mouth
of her cave

Yikes

Look, when you’re setting the country on fire, it’s just so much easier to have everyone be on drugs. –Tammy Bruce

Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn. –Alfred Pennyworth (Micheal Caine) in The Dark Knight

But if Rome is burning at the command of Caesar, who can be sure that the population will not be slaughtered at his command also? –Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero

Poems for a Monsoon, a Lake, a Wayfarer

Monsoons

the rainclouds will come
like a ransom note
from unorganized kidnappers
small ragged clouds glued together
making one large dark thought
lurking like a sleeping snake
in your mailbox
no postage no return address no prints
no monetary amount mentioned
no victim
just the joy of the threat
the rise in your pulse rate
the urge to grab your child
and lock all the doors

Post-Monsoon Parking Lot Puddle

The Heart’s Lake Fills

with rain
with web-footed birds slinging water
silver flash of minnows muddy gleaming tadpoles
tremulous prickly kiss of mosquitoes
static dance of dragonflies quick slender snakes
water lilies flat and begging
lank blonde grasses languorous sweeping branches
occasional footprints sliding down the slope
in the water a cloud of silt
the diminishing echo of a wave
rippling into the memory of thunder on the Otherside
the old rumor of harsh weather moving in
with sure disregard for certain truths
found in almanacs and omens

Casa Malpais Monsoon

A Poem for The Wayfarer (You Know Who You Are)

The Geographer*

first he must remember what state
he blew in from        a feathered seed
spiraling along the highway
of a tireless wind
what mountains he surfed
what treetops he skipped across
like a flat stone over smooth water
what sands he skimmed
and now this imaginary landscape
with its exposed geological strata sexy
as a skirt sliding off the angular knee
of a reclining woman
what valleys in their green darkness hazy
as the secret spaces between lovers
what plains before him golden and honest shivering
in the wind that brought him here
to the place where he opens his sighing book
and begins to write

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*This poem first appeared in Erete’s Bloom, Summer 2000, No.1

Boots

Four Domestic Vignettes for Summer’s End

Poem 1

the gargoyle roosting on our wall
grins spellbound
as a queue of ants sojourn
across his green resin talon
in search of water

Poem 2

the truncated left arm
of our backyard
mesquite tree beckons
to woodpeckers, doves,
and flycatchers:
good eats good shade good home

Poem 3

a papier-mâché dia de los muertos
bone boy bobbles
his hollow head in agreement:
there is much to be done this morning

Poem 4

dogs sleep curled like crescents
warm and aromatic their paw pads
smell like popcorn

One Big Daddy . . .