GOOD FRIDAY

Death comes in many forms: I once saw a hawk
pluck a small dog from my neighbor's yard.

The Somme saw men huddled in trenches.
Nowadays its children buried under rubble.

I wonder if the river Styx is ever backed up due to traffic
or if heaven's gates ever get so full they forget to let the Christian in:

Surely on the cross, when God looked away,
the son found his mother and for a moment 

wished his life had gone the other way.  

THE BANDOLERO

Somewhere out west
an old bandolero
loads up his gun:
one bullet for two men,
in his head 
the math makes sense.
"No one's ever killed god,
though not for lack of trying,"
and looking down
the barrel of his gun
the old crook 
thinks he's got a shot.
Of course no one tells him
he's looking the wrong way round,
but then again,
maybe the old crook
knows something of the truth,
that the only god worth killing
hides behind the eyes—
his iris universe 
like shattered starlight.
All the meaning in the world
couldn't fill this empty sky. 

AN AFTERNOON IN POETRY

Sunlight like gold-dust
settles on the skyline.
How many men died
to lay the base of Babel?

***

Bitter lovers
make for better rivals.
She wears scorn 
like a death mask:
all tender beauty
and timid rage.

***

Halfway through a good book
the sunset takes its time.
On a winter day like this
one hardly misses spring.

***

In the distance,
the sound of passing cars—
headlights in the night
like prayers round her crown.

FIRESIDE WISDOM

Here's some advice:
a good book goes a long way.
Pens make for mighty swords.
The swallow never sings in winter
and summer grass makes a better bed.

When you fall in love,
remember, the heart can
only take so much.

Learn to breathe without thinking.

Better yet, don't breathe at all.
Sit quietly and wait for the end.

Honest men never say goodbye.

AFTER DEATH

When I go, don't cry.
Pack me in a wooden box
and lay me to rest
in the shade.

Take a small stone
and with a chisel 
inscribe:
     Hic jacet pulvis,
     cinis et nihil. 

Remember this:
good men die well
and parting is only bitter
when goodbye sounds like 
       hello.

NOSTALGIA

I still remember the world
before the towers fell.
Before the advent of AIM,
DMs and friend requests.
Before Trump and Gaza
and global warming.
Life was simpler then,
at least that's what 
     I remember,
but ask my father 
and he'll say he remembers
a world before
Color TV, Apollo 11,
the Cold War and Clinton.
     One day,
you will look at your son 
and say the same.
Now your world is small
but each year it widens
and every time it does
I'm forced to
watch your little 
face lengthen
and your chubby cheeks fade—
the simple world you know
an old man's masquerade

CAVE PAINTING

From the hallway
I watch my godson
take his favorite marker
and cover his father's white wall
in shades of iridescent pink.
Being the adult, I step in
and point out the flaw
in his prepubescent logic—
     his face falls
and whatever light was left
in his innocent hazel eyes
     flickers and disappears
     and standing there 
     arms crossed, 
     I feel like a fool.

He was only doing 
what any young boy should.
He saw a blank space
and filled it with beauty,
doing what humans have 
     always done—
scrawled on cave walls
because empty stone
was made for filling.

If I'd known better
I'd've sat by his side,
found my favorite green,
and drawn on the wall
all my favorite things.

LOOKING FOR THE MOON
To Li Po

Hard Pressed for words
I realize the truth:
these poems I write
are like reflections 
in a pool.

Best get up
and see the real thing.

VAGUE MEDITATIONS

I.
Trudging through the slush
with sneakers full of snow,
I regret not putting boots on:
convenience always pays its price.

II.
Like Bodhidharma's lidless stare
the headlights crest the hill.
Standing resolute, the stag
is the spitting image of Mu.

III.
White butterflies 
emerge from gray-capped cocoons—
winter's first real snow.

IV.
Wishing for summer
she dips her hand
in candle wax:

the things we do to feel alive.

V.
Santa tipped over
like a hungover drunk.
Christmas sticks around
like a thorn between your thumbs.

A WEEK IN POEMS

I. 

Like a dragon curled
inside a teacup
I sit at the mouth
of this spring
and watch the world
slip between 
my open palms—

dragons and rivers
refuse to suffer
the wiles of men
and human hands
can only grasp
the muddy clay
from which their made.

II. 

Like a loose thread
on a frayed sweater
I keep asking why,
pulling on that impossible
	question
until all I’m left with
is a pile of yarn.

I should’ve known
to leave it alone,
but that loose strand
was begging to be pulled—

it’s no small wonder 
why wise men hate the cold.

III.

We sit in a circle
with nothing but
fire light between us

	Lao Tau said, the Tao is but a name.

Watching embers drift
beyond the black 
	abyss,
I think I understand.

Sitting here, 
suchness comes easy—

the 10,000 things
like burning coals
and dying stars.

IV.

Take a brush, any brush:
fine, long, fat, short,
and with a gentle stroke
turn your wrist until
one inky end meets
	the other.

Then, without a moment
to think, name what 
	you see:

a flock of birds,
a dragon eating it’s tail,
petals ready to bloom,
death and birth and death
	again.

Then, step back,
picture your mind’s eye
and with all the courage
you can muster
look again. This time
say nothing,
let the picture speak.

When all is said 
	and done
take your brush
and paint again,
until every inch of
	canvas
is coated in cosmic black.

Then, walk away.
Your work here is done.
Saint John knew the dangers
of staring into the sun.

V.

Madness is like looking
in the mirror and
expecting to see
the person you were.
You never see
the same face twice.
The minute you look
	away
You're somebody new.

VI.

It’s one of those nights
when the wind batters
	the window
and the rain sounds like
a stampede of angry bison.

VII.

Sitting down to write poems
I realize I have nothing
	much to say.

From my window, I watch
a mother struggle with her stroller.

Oh, to be a kid again,
to look up at the sun
and mistake it for your mother.

THE VIRGIN

Overgrown chapel:
       stepping over
       dead light and wood scrap.
The sun, setting
over the ridge,
lingers on the 
       virgin,
just before the 
headless child
sleeping in her arms
slips between her fingers
and shatters 
on the empty altar
       below.

AFTER CHRISTMAS

Just two weeks after Christmas
and the pines are piled high.
Gaia's daughters hacked into
neat little knobs just wide enough
to fit in a New York apartment.
Like a cheap date she was
wined, dined, and dressed up fine.
But that was last week,
when her raiment was fresh
and her hair danced with starlight,
before she began to shed
and her boughs began to droop.
This week, she's naked on the curbside 
wondering where it all went wrong,
and hoping those men in jumpsuits
are kind enough to drive her home. 

A 2-STAR REVIW

Black and bitter,
she fills my cup
with liquid luck,
chancing a smile
at the grey haired 
loner slouching by the bar,
staring into his mug
like a kingfisher
watching a pond,
opportunity like
a six-inch trout,
slippery and elusive.

Here, in this 2-star diner,
hope is hard to come by,
and fate, like an empty plate,
is only a reminder 
of what could've been—

like wishing runny eggs
were a plate of T-bone steak.

ADVENTUS

Breath, like pipe smoke,
twists and turns
in the cold December air.
And while the moon
sets its will against the sun
I wait for that
sudden burst of joy,
liminal and illusive,
like the last steps
of a long hike
when you set down your pack
and marvel at
the miles moved.

****

Its the soft whine of the M
as it rumbles out of sight,
trudging across the skyline
like Apollo chasing the moon.
And just as it turns
to descend beneath the depths,
it sits quiet as if waiting, 
waiting for some fool 
to join its merry band 
as it tunnels under the sun.

***

Who knew a few feet
could feel like a mile
and the space between our lips
like a canyon chasm wide.

You filled these nooks and crannies
with the subtle scent of love—
lilac and juniper
and early morning mist.

***

Calling to no one,
the finch chirps away,
drowned out now
by the wail of sirens
and the deluge of voices
who call this city home.

THE COLD

I sit here, cold, just down the road
from that old gray stone where your name
goes unspoken, like a secret kept 
in earnest, as if the whole world
depended on it’s silence.
	Beyond my window a raven keeps watch,
a great black blotch on an otherwise 
perfect sky. Suddenly, tears
and I can’t help but wonder,
why now but not then—
	when I
stood over your body,
whispered my last goodbye,
and you, eager to leave us behind,
fell through the dirt like sunlight
through soil, ignoring the wails
that whispered your name—swallowed whole 
by that unforgiving earth.

CROSS LEGGED ATOP THE WORLD

Of course, 
sitting on your ass
is no way to work
but Master Dogen
thought different.

Here, cross-legged,
on a warm autumn noon
the world fades away:

Real life happens
when we have nothing 
left to say.

AN UNLIKELY MARTYR

The beauty of Autumn
is for the tree
a slow death,
stripped bare until all
that's left is her
naked frame.
Her bright auburn leaves
gathered into piles
as if to mock
her barren branches,
naked now
for the pleasure of men.
That is, until
the world is winter,
and her brown frame
is no longer appealing.
Cast aside until springtime,
when new buds bloom
and men, for all their
fickle taste, decide
she's beautiful again.