Tides

Tides

Tides of wonders

Wander up

They stride with blunders

Glide with hunger

But leave my eyes

and frozen lungs

In thoughts unwise

and songs unsung

Zaccaria

Bonding atoms
Washing tones
Blinding spirits
of a sunken pilot
Granite scratches fern
Zaccaria trucking
Paper, no paper
Steam, an eloquent dream
and a roar from a rush
of hourly traffic
The lift master dials
and walks me in

Gravity

Again I fall into your atmosphere

Not by thrill or painful cheer

Not by will or waning fear

Your gravity just pulls me in

Tugs at my limbs, my oxygen

And outside lost in orbit still,

The remnants of our connection, shrill

Redwood Foreigner

Too many grains with fibers bent

The splintered veins run without intent

Intersecting every corner

Collisions in this redwood foreigner

Each year the carving ripples bring

Loopy age in twisted rings

Until a slice of axe takes rage

And scrawls its life onto a page

Departure

You sit and watch the changing lights

I wake you from your static life

The carousel that took you far,

Only spun you 'neath the stars

Only sees your crimson car

Only floats on gravels of tar

The summer mist dissolved to dust

All these gates just wait to rust

Its time to leave this carnival

Leaves detach and beckon fall

The fair has gone, the joy has left

The clowns departed with their theft

While solitude calls to depart

An autumn home awaits your heart

And if you still don't choose to go,

I'll have no other friend I know.

Chances Missed

The glass comes empty, filled with air

Giving nothing but despair

The grapefruit pulp

Glued to the rim

Brings old memories

Lost within

Chances missed

Feelings dismissed

When at last a thought pours in

To reinvent this frowning grin

A foul odor rises up

And spills the air from out the cup

The Cedar Steps

I lick the grass with cedar steps

Teeth pulled back, all cracked and bent

The grimy taste of ashy soil

Climbs up my stairs, makes me recoil

My mortar skin and cracking bones

Painted bright un-earthy tones

I breathe these fumes of charcoal gas

And exhale clouds of chestnut dust

Ashtray

The ashtray lays just where you left it

The foggy glass, not entertaining

Disintegration from the fiery air

Collective coals, trapped and caged

Smoldered smoke that left, enraged

The ashtray rasps and spits its words

Tries to tell me your absurd

You never listen to the hiss

The end shriveling as it burns

Watching your life shrink to a butt

Stalactites

Stingy and grinning, ready for sinning

Try to resist but they cannot do bidding

Deep chestnut spirals that curl to a point

Eroding fibers that feed down to sand

Not ones to greet, they do more than annoy

They crunch through my shoes and strip them to strands

A stab to my foot like a spike in my vein

And I don't even feel the need to complain

Too Deep To Drown

The Leaves and the Clouds

But the leaves of the forest

All sprinkled with gold

Don't need to remember

The clouds that unfold

The clouds, they won't care

They won't even complain

They unfold so slowly

Just to stay insane

Too Deep To Drown

Innocence At Heart

Brushing past old endeavors

Stopping at the traffic lights

Gazing past education, once

longed for in isolation

Extending connections to

Stationary feelings

An innocence at heart

Beating ignorance from the start

Bleeding intellect, falling apart

The Return

A letter of desperation

With no signature of regret

Sitting on my step

Sitting on my step

Asking for my function, yet

Let me spin you back to memory

Set the clocks undo their gems

Fragrance lifted in the air

Anger drifts back into your hair

Too Deep To Drown

Walls and Weeping

Into the wall,

No chance of brakes, the impact calls

The heavy concrete of the base

Lays beside me as I weep

Grooves that spiral down the wall

Patterns there to make the calls

So sturdy as my inner base

A trace of guilt will help me weep

Imprints etched in to a wall

The phone rings but no one calls

From here I cannot see my base

Don't listen to my voice, for I weep

Too Deep To Drown

The Hissing Light II

A crunching knock above my roof

Stamps its print into my mood

A winding moat welcomes me home

And growling brings me to my castle

Finding clams beneath the dirt

I understand for what it's worth

Another oyster for each pearl

Another time to let them unfurl

Unwind the tether from the stake

Let the vultures make their escape

Free the monkey by its tail

Release the horses from their hooves

Stampede through forests under mounds

lift to the sky and feed the hounds

Say goodbye to lessons learned

So you won't be the one to get burned

Wrinkles in the sheet

Wrinkles in the sheet, I see

Spread across the silken surface

Pressed up into knotty veins

Squeezed too close, in binding strains

Fibers woven by all means

Making crossroads at the seams

The folding layers trap most heat

Glazing warmth that cradles dreams

And as the bedspread finds its pieces

the wrinkly sheet keeps its creases

Too Deep To Drown

Slopes

Gondolas climb up the mountain of snow

And tread through the gusts of pale ashy frost

The mass of the hill moves as slow

As a heap of landfill with meaning lost

The frosty smolder of the ground,

rising spirits off the mound

The slopes, trespassing to its edges

Bring curling falls right onto ledges

And when I slide I trickle off

Until I land on something soft

Too Deep To Drown

The Serpent's Tongue

Teeth clenched tight on this misty day

Hold my head low and I start to drift away

Slither to a cave, abandoned long before the elderly snored

Rustle through the grass past pale zig-zag antelope bones

The anguish of my venom as I shoot my tongue

The dart of my fangs and the luster of mud

Prongs that I cast out everyday

Puncture the ground and shake my face

The milky chalk of the dirt I taste

Quakes the earth of my soul

And eases my hate

Too deep to drown

Jake

I never thought I'd leave this place

I didn't think a trail would follow

But footsteps trace my every move,

A hollow path of paces skewed

It aches me through this dirty wreck

I kick up dust along my trek

The dust uplifted speck by speck

Won't settle near, but on my neck

For now I carry onward still

Hoping soon to end this hill

A patch of reason on my side

Tells me soon come crashing tides

The winding road I longed to see

Never came and will never be

The breath of life I hoped to share

Never filled my lungs with air

And so this path comes to an end,

But where I stop is no dead-end

I never thought my trail would reach

But now it brings me to the beach

Too Deep To Drown

Bedtime

I haven’t had the time to think
I need another minute to keep thinking
But soon I’ll start to settle in
And all these thoughts will start to fade translucent

Eyes quite closed and body hushed
The quiet blanket soft as mush
Daily burdens gone away

And dreams unpeel here as I lay

With each toss and turn i dodge
And try to block the things that smog
The darkness glows through eyelids clenched
The air, it rustles a windy stench

Unless i find a silent spot
or think of something i forgot
All the sleep that i desired
will not come unless I'm tired

Out Of Place

The twisting clown with lipstick smeared
Spoke dripping words for those he feared

He said “You come to watch me flop,
But here I stand upon this plot

Not wishing to receive a clap
With hissing sneers and roaring laughs”

And as a hymn rose from the ground
The surface shook without a sound

____________________________________

When the quake had ceased to shake
The clown’s reactions all seemed fake

He peeled off his polka-dot gloves
And out of place he released three doves

Eager to finish each of his tricks
He started to raise all his fingertips

And as a hymn began to rise
He quickly realized to his great surprise

What was keeping him down and had been aching for a while
Was the frown on his face he’d mistaken for a smile

Forest Flakes

Peel the bark and let it fall
Let it scatter off the trees
Peel it slowly from your door

Peel onto the forest floor
The forest flakes they glisten here
Snaps of maple scratch the ground
Crusted apples rot and smear
Stain the surface of the woods
Musty tree bark chips and flakes

A jigsaw wanting to be solved

Pieces press to be dissolved

Into larger forest flakes