History

A telling of it is the making of it to form a history;
To create replacement for sweat (stink of reality),
That fell into silence, not to be recounted nor told.


The park-bench bound traveler sprawled dying;
Destitute upon the green hickory slats of wood,
Hobo to death, drink-dried of surfeit of alcohol,
Was common sight in that day, known to many.


Such sights; served my youth, my adolescence.

Wind

A tumble of the wind tears branches from trees, 
To swing and sway their twigs and silver leaves.


Midnight upon the waters and a moon in the sky;
Mirror to the mind, this sky reflecting sea makes
A melody: Tell me if you feel forgotten.  Tell me
If you feel alone. The stirring of the seas sends
Ripples to shore, long arcs of waves of memory;
Of terrible imagining, tripping over sand-dunes.


Then, after suppuration, slides out again to sea.

Days of Presence

Stretch yesterdays to erase tomorrow to shorten
Sorrow: Struggle to express contraction of days.


The thoughts of today obliterate the past. Should
Give to future some hope of a goal and a destiny,
Without regrets, in days of presence and delight.

A Thunder Upon the Hudson

Old pilings poke their ways to air through water,
Submerged, thrown away and abandoned; were
Proved all in vain, succumbed by seasonal tides:


Weathered gray piling poking to heaven. Then, a heavy rain;
The lightning spikes. Left under a thunder upon the Hudson:
Pier.

At the Terminal Bar

Lingering there, lingering there, at the terminal bar,
Lemon light and scarlet shadow, flair and form again;
Marry light with shadow on floors at the terminal bar.


Dancing in their solitude at the terminal bar.


Angels of the morning, turning to the rough
Religion of the night, dancing in that dream
That doesn't seem a dream at the terminal bar.


Dancing in their solitude at the terminal bar.


Layers of light shimmer there in smoke scented air
In the soft stillness of the night, at the terminal bar;
Shaken from the stun of sound from sax and drum.


And them dancing there, all clad in their sad solitude,
At the terminal bar.


Falling, fading, lights smoothing out the rubber
Faces of the dancers; dancing there, in their
Crimson-Yellow visions, all alone at the terminal bar.


Dancing in their solitude at the terminal bar.

Breeze

Long coolness-es prolong these late afternoons,
Giving yellow light to make mellow of evenings;
A softness and a song of the mists of memories.


What seemed but newly formed in blue mornings,
Love that spun to form a turning axle of the world
In a golden dawn, when we had nothing but time,
Our pockets empty, 'cept for talent and ambition;


They talk of it and they speak of it but they know
Nothing of it: The cause that carries us forward;
The breeze that sweeps into whirlwind of power.

Heat

The gabardine of sorrows was worn and frayed;
What shade there is was narrow and was spare,
Pruned to give solace in shadow of gray somber.


High window and a burning sill let a still light in;
Mote-filled spotlight falls an oblong on the floor,
Spilled there in twisting shaft of obscene white.


Under this heat men die beneath the same sun.

City-Scape

Clouds, dirty and blue, preview coming storms.


With hook on block high upon wide shoulders,
We have made of ourselves stevedores of art.


Raw egg and stout is good breakfast for the City,
Down with fifth of whiskey on a table for guests.


The romance of a yellow warming of the sun
On brick walls resounds strains in the street.


Rain comes unexpectantly and unannounced. 


A small pattering of drops smooths the heat
To smoke the pavements in hisses of steam.  


Life at best is but the briefest of enchantments,
Spaces filled between the cradle and the grave;


Empty of all reason, and savage within its boast
Of meaning and its many religions of conformity.


A hard rain washes away all traces of our sins.

Acquaintances

No more tomorrows; that time has past.
I'm become acquainted with the wind.
Wind has made acquaintance with me.


This is nation for passage of strangers,
Of nodding heads and no word spoken,
Of the sideways glance and the snicker:


The white wine of indifference is served
Cold and chill.

Red upon the Green

Crimson shadows creep across the face
Of an emerald sun, red upon the green,
As the apricot sky floats copper clouds
To sail over a planet of silver and gold:


Invasion!