re: fowl (2020)
ornithologist told me
the moon is flooded,
lunar soils awash.
anorthosite said farewell
to breccia, and breccia
left a note for basalt.
as if i can translate
musings of lunar soil
as if being mostly water,
makes me anything more
than an ornithologist.
weft (2020)
three cars distance
from a tumbleweed.
dime size crater branching
rivers on the windshield.
years to get the eggs right.
white bird in the tub.
found a cyprus in an alleyway,
two prayers in the bark.
coil, coddle, flush,
martyr’s zippo like an artifact.
fair weather keepsake,
palm bowl full of holy dirt.
don’t it look like rain?
pawned the loom
for some medicine.
milk water bath,
blue bird in the tub.
years to get the eggs right.
cetacean stranding (2020)
name the kitchen window,
dust fly cadillac,
tether hill songbird,
flux visit rendezvous.
smoker’s lung folk song,
patchwork diving bell,
blood clots rent free,
a vagabond’s graceland.
fold once, unfold,
top corners inward.
fold, unfold,
noble brevity.
murmurs form the vessel,
pour honey on the cricket.
gaunt serrations call from harbor,
deaf sirens speak in tongues.
peridot beacon, peridot beacon,
a vagabond’s graceland.
four kitchens in a season,
pull the carcass from the road.
glass belly chaplain,
cleaning hymns for a sacrament.
name the second whale,
i lost the second whale.
apparent wind (2020)
such a storm
strands the vessel,
that it now resides
in canopy.
such a
nother
storm returning,
dislodges
the
vessel.
such a faith
akin to counting,
suns setting
asthmatically.
haylard (2020)
negotiating a thread pulled,
door to door,
to door.
nylon coffers taught for warmth
coarse assured with rook illusions.
bosom full of mercury,
obols for merry internment.
“ornithophobic insomniac
waiting for the cere,
some damned cetacean
semblance of a cheer.”
all aboard the cauliflower,
“I reckon, reckon am.”
back and fill (2020)
ornithologist’s prescription:
grounded liver-measure beans.
impressionistic soot from
twin toppled campfires.
prism lacquered mechanisms
of worn rhombus plexi.
inverted suspensions
while pantomiming anchors,
mimicking a cetacean waltz.
whistles (2020)
average implies polarity,
but there are no
normal horizons.
perhaps doubt is the sea,
and not the anchor.
perhaps better is not a harbor,
but the equity of the crew.
perhaps
we are an axis
of potentiality.
but surely,
better
than this.
anaerobic (2020)
oh to be
orcinus guillemots.
such ready plumage.
birthmark hindsight.
nestless and hungry
:
oh but we
ephemeral fowl.
nested and starved.
we repotted ivy
in coffee cans.
ferryman’s guest (2024)
driftwood woven membrane,
resting in the smoke
above charred waters,
beneath splintered knees.
“how long will I remember?”
a question for the ferryman.
it doesn’t rain here in the middle,
between the breathing and the walk.
“the walk,
the walk”
coughed the ferryman.
I thought I’d hear their voices,
warnings from the restless,
the blind, stilled, and feeling.
but like the sea of space,
the stars in black waters,
we cannot move our voices
from there to here,
to there.
and the ferryman can’t hear me.
why do we float,
float out,
out until we can’t see land?
Cutting words into the grain,
red charcoal,
with teeth
felled from my mouth.
how else can one communicate
with a cerecloth silhouette,
the guide from here to there?
there where we walk,
walk, walk,
out until we can’t see land.
Photographs: Royalty-Free Images from American Red Cross - Life Saving and Water Safety, 1974 and US Library of Congress.