Horse

Now

But Where Was I Before?

You are

Here now

Now you are

Now you are here

You are here

Now you

N S E W

You are here now

Maybe I should name these things

The Town

This site looks like the old Utne Cafe. Runs on Motet. Lots of the old regulars are there too! I am so glad to have found this place.

Staying in the Lines

Staying in the Lines

Red lights start to blink

in my rear view mirror and

I wonder

what if I could put blue

everywhere red now stands,

would it make a difference?

Color sneaks

into every meeting, presses

its significance. What if all the world

were a fresh coloring book--

white pages/ black lines

and nothing more?

I could grab a crayon, dress

that cop in a red clown suit--

far better too

if I could flip back a few pages

and, without overrunning the edges,

make the corpse bleed blue.

Turning

Turning

I don’t understand

the revolving door.

Moving, always moving

in one place.

There is comfort

in an open door,

a closed door--

knowing just where I stand,

one side or the other

of somewhere.

But here I turn

forgetting where I got in,

unsure when to exit.

Okay, I’m an idiot.

I find I’m transfixed

by the man two slots

ahead of me.

He is both fat and flimsy,

held together

by a bow tie, a ghost

between sheets of glass.

I can’t decide if I follow him

or if he is following me.

Without Instruments

Without Instruments

All that exists we imagine,

the great circle of the earth tilted

on magnetic lines,

minute organisms that dip and bob

in a glass of water-

all either too large or too small

to examine without instruments. Our fingers

can’t peel back mountains

to extract the molten peach pit

at the core nor charm bacteria

into a snake dance with the songs they drum.

We imagine

that we move along parallels,

tropics that never converge,

each believing

in its own symbolic power to inscribe

the surface of the earth with its existence.

We imagine

that we wind like thread around a spool,

strands of singularity, each

its own color and texture.

We imagine that it matters

what we think,

what we do,

what we say. We believe in ourselves

like geography, like science,

something written in a book--

too large

too small.

All of these began life as New Orleans sunrises.

Another one

Experimenting with layering different photos and art work. Got some interesting effects I think.

My brain cells are fried

What WAS the name of that lake in Canada on our 3rd poets' summit???

I wrote this one after that trip and dedicated it to Ernest, Pat, Sonja and Carol F.

Poets Should Not Wed Poets

In Santa Fe, all the downtown buildings

are pink adobe. Some two-story

geometrics with arched windows, some--

like the McDonald’s--

squat, rosy boxes beside logo-bearing signs.

It’s all very picturesque at first,

so visually poetic.

But I wonder do the buildings tire

of each other,

search in vain for steel and glass

or a tiny white cottage,

even a rusty mobile home?

Balance.

Balance beside a Canadian lake,

those who speak

and those who listen.

Moving waters

and the stone grottos they lap against.

Silent cedars

and the bears that prowl amongst them.

Milky moonlight

and the coffee-black sky that accepts it.

Poets should not wed poets,

should not struggle with metaphors

for garbage night.

Much better to tune ears to casual wisdom

and write it down

without fear of infringement.

New and old friends.

Just found Michael Snider on Facebook. Remember him from Utne? I also found my college roommate and an old friend from yahoo chat days who we once visited in Montana.

Anyone got suggestions for poetry and/or photography blogs? Have been cruising around a bit and find an occasional interesting site to comment on.

Another one

The flower boxes in French Quarter