Perseids Peaks

Parked on the edge of the Costco lot past midnight

under the hazy heaven of city lights and moon,

you point out the one star bright enough to see

and it is a planet.  One meteor streaks beyond neon.

We lean back on the windshield and drink soda,

like students in the cheap seats we wait for the

celestial shower to show what mid-August brings,

orbiting dust. We hold hands in astrological hush.

A Jet Blue heads for the airport while another

makes a steep ascent. Our vigil is spontaneous

otherwise we would be on some bluff miles

beyond the suburb. We have the radio and blues.

Trucks travel the interstate oblivious to the stars

as well as our car solitary in this vast black field.

We imagine we ride a raft over the ragged edge

of the world. We fall into a sky dizzy with breath.

Shadows move over us as a helicopter patrols

alleys and backyards. One streak explodes to six.

I squeeze you in my arms and hum satisfaction

as dawn pulls us back to earth and another day.

(After Poem of the Day: August 12 in the Nebraska

Sand Hills Watching the Perseids Meteor Shower

By Twyla Hansen) 

Noon

In hot

heft of brilliance

on a billowing blue lawn,

anesthetized by subtle breeze

we lunch.

View through Blinds

Long haired youth

strolls down the walk

in morning dew-light

He sports only nylon

basketball shorts

and his smart phone.

So much hair

his face is hidden.

Lean like an animal

in healthy wilderness,

he steps one white leg

after the other.

Ripples in the small

of his back as his

quadratus lumborum

flexes, he steps up

to the porch and in

the door, forever again.

Tough Tense Future

Full of same; feel of same, glory and good

Swirls of soft water, autumn and this blue feather,

I give you hunger. You give me savory food.

Spring, summer, one or the other, I did what I could.

I worked through years of bad to worse weather,

What we gave and got was well understood.

Real as rain, air and sky the same twist of road,

I walk in dust and mud to get us back together.

Your friends go out of their way to stay rude.

Fall and refrain, limp almost lame, broken toed,

Weeds flower in liquid particles and scatter.

Pain and passion, real or the same collude.

Autumn will be winter, same old same, wood

Ricks and racks like drunken steps stagger

Along the hem of our pasture, slippy fluid.

Same is winter flocks and flurries. Hot brewed

You draft ducks and bats, boil lace and leather.

Forget I said what I want to do. I’ll help load.

(A reflection on the Poem of the Day for August 9, 2017:

Not Pastoral Enough, By Veronica Forrest-Thompson

 homage to William Empson)

Snap

A photograph of what I once was

is more real than I am now,

more accurate for the lack of action.

You can see that nothing’s happening.

The shutter blinks in a diastolic stop.

The soul contracts, inhales the light.

The mind plays over each detail

weaving a recognizable impression.

The background is not ground but sky.

The light angles low and slightly

behind the hair. Reflections from a

white wall fill in some shadow, give

highlights under the eyebrow and

hint at something sinister in the smile.

The lips closed. Nothing to be said

that the picture does not say better.

Thursday April

We're gonna iron the dog,
cross the fence and
blonde my fries,
this day grows pnuematic
and doors bloom in the shade.

Take me lakeward and wet me
like a robot in thunderstorms,
I cannot interpret bar-b-que
or the ridge of your ribs.
Bring the possum water
and salt. Red arrows wing
like lightning into the sun.

I see it all as I step away:
Field mice skip and hum.
Hay will be made they pray.
But first, pass some time
and toss all that confetti.

Kites come with wine bottles
tied to their tails. Bottles ring.
We brought ghouda and jars.
A rugby team jaunts distant yards
as geese honk north over steeples.
Yellow lights strobe the beach.
It is so easy to lick your feet.

O organ in the woods
lift your reeds to the moon.
I am in need of seratonine
and a little piece of pie.
Wind, wind, wind, below.

The Heart of Crystal Bridges

 THE DREAM

IN    WHICH
WE    WALK
EVERY DAY

            for Joe Milazzo

You discover a Sherman tank in the attic

rumbling across rafters over acoustic tile,

electrical wire interweaves with blue steel

like the beginning of a stormy thought.

You name it “him,” so the swivel cannon

becomes a religious icon. In cord net

sweat shirt and canvas pants his skin

glows pink as a cat’s tongue and shiny.

Excuse this dream, it will not hurt

or protect you from sunburn or in-

sanity. How squeaky the treads mesh

over the trunks of forgotten letters,

heirlooms and old photos. Dust stirs.

Through multiple layers of bullet-

proof glass, you target the trapdoor

which lowers a ladder into a garage.

If any girl sticks her curls up you

will blow them out through the vent

into the bent night, the broken stars,

the sullen tree — on into the avenue

with its scatter of  tire treads and

chrome plated shards. Poof!

Like Counting Gulls

Foreign fighters flock

to the tune of a billion terrors.

The instruments, though digital,

still function as pre-medieval.

Sledge hammers do not erase

seven millennia of  stone history

so much as make virtual icons

of jackass perpetrators.

We down play perpetuation

as armies trek their annual

migrations across capital capitols.

All those domed spaces

seem to need the toll of bells

as they gleam under star fall.

We go strewn as shrapnel

and broken seashells

under the constant trickle

of time, the infinite ripple.

All pools at tidal edge.

Now you see the next combatant

lose all his downy feathers.

His hands no longer useful

for letters. Language lacks 

both permanence and perfection

no matter which prophet speaks.

Almost Buds

We were the winter trees

in chill mist and dank,

close as glass to drizzle.

I remember your hand

settling around the page

under the pillow

and between days.

We drank hot tea and talked.

Deep thoughts and serious,

we laughed at society

and our lack of place.

The equinox and new leaves

dot a weft of twigs and stems;

fringe the mist with promise.

How impossible

being this age

and never pledged.

Circumstances force us

to be the forest.

We come to a place

where memories rest.

A stone throat speaks

the heart’s silence.

Under Doll

The media eye rolls

over the female body.

This is not everybody.

I find myself in front

of the cutting edge.

Hold the honing steel.

The oval, the opal, the

range finder fastened

securely to the barrel.

More than Mississippi

nights flow through

grassy boundaries.

Could this be big fur?

I’ll take the baseball—

paint your face on it.

Could be my home run.

Actually

http://extext.tumblr.com/

eder castillo: .

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Nox

The night has big lips
and smiles with an overbite.
O Moon, she lets her
bright tits hang out.

I'm doing a donkey time
dancing on this one foot &
singing without any strings.

Old Lady Moon she makes
me swoon and bottles of
silver toots. I guzzle her wine
and she fills me fine like
ladles and goblets and boots.

Drip me your love, your
tears like pearls, and I'll
loll in your old blue gazebo.

Way Over

Way Over

On the way
we knew
it would be over
by the time
we got there
but we had to
get there
before
we could believe it.
We were
on the way.
There was no way
we would stop
now.
We didn't think
about it.
We couldn't.
We wouldn't
if we could.
It might have
be better
if we had,
but it still
wouldn't be good.
We didn't
let the mood
intrude.
By the time
we finally got there
there was
nothing left
but left overs.
We couldn't leave
on our own.
Our destination
was our destiny
but not our
history.
No Johnny
Come Lately
we were always
ahead of ourselves
even when
we were
behind the times.
Delay was
in the way.
Detour was
de rigueur.

Pre-Ocupado

Behind gold bars the saints of Sacks

and Goldman reign free as they will

ever be—solitary in their precious

minds. No need to prosecute the rule

writers. What use? What wrongs us?

Regulators play later like actors with

no heart. Oh, the fungible chains of

imperial favor, the up and dash to it,

the down at the Dow; Oh, legendary

ledgers, wages and wagers, Uroborus

consumer, Slice-O-Matic appliance

financers—toast me over easy as living.

Neon in Your Eyes



Here break brick
walls, work stopped,
blizzard blows snow

dunes along the walk.
Twilight at midnight,
fractals and stop lights,

sequins drift against
the doors as you
struggle out of sleep-

single cup of coffee.
Metal stockades, the
pit-bull drags a chain.

Amble out the door
and to an all night
market, someplace

open, bleak but near.
How holy the alley
under icy wires.

Squeeze around the
locked gate like half
a dream and stillness.

R.C. Cola Églogue
(after David Dodd Lee)


What he did went unmentioned
under the neon spine
of a motel sign.


The signature in the street
a paranoid scar.
The hawk


as feathered lightening
made her kill.
I will.

Unmade Beds


Little animals go
through the thicket,
by up turned pots
and on into the wild.

The broken hoe,
the rusty bucket,
the gardner rots
in his compost pile.

After  Ryan Stanford Smith's
"Stumbling On as the Light Fails"

It is either a bird in the hand
or a stick of yellow butter; heat seeks
to order the day, the hazy
creamlike spilling of eyes down cheeks.
Yes, what the bush says is true.

Artillery either blasts or laughs,
or points to monumental clouds; we're blaming
carrion, echos of royal trumpets on the hill.
Still we rub dark in our eyes, without evidence,
without reaching, and paint flame in blues.