from long years’ slumber
I awake to intone a
litany of lists
***
idling reflections –
mirrors forged between our smiles
of weeping haiku
***
sullen years – into
the darkness receding, my
carriage’s clip-clop
***
your soul is a globe
in a dimly lit room, put
to Heaven’s rudder
***
you heeded the blaze
while I struck camp – one of us
must surely perish
***
turbulent ocean –
phantoms tossed up from its depths –
you at the shoreline
***
shorn and shaved, he placed
them at her feet – consigned to
serve her, flock and fleet
***
a lifetime exhumed –
every word an epic told,
each breath a landscape
***
the forgotten forms –
occupation, repose – in
perfect equipoise
***
burning coal aglow –
the worth of words devalued
in ridges hidden
***
tempt the vernal hours –
they come falling from the sky
like shattered clockwork
***
perhaps you were young –
with salt on your tongue you turned
and ran to the bay
***
sunset’s foliage
unfurling the West – boldly,
you took the saddle
***
into the evening
your silhouette, the dusky
marrow a’straddle
***
wrapped in morning folds –
our whispered nocturnes, left to
an abandoned dew
***
bedrock indwelling –
iron and serenity –
earth and artifice –
***
each cleansing wink – such
flickering sleep it affords
this keen recorder
***
in parables of
blood and wine afloat, this host
most celebrated
***
every new form was
a wedding, a peasant’s gown
in outline flowing