"Dandelion"

You saw outside, in lawn half-mown,
the kitten's grave beneath a stone.

Well marked you once his mew & moan,
then, when he chased the rat & cone',

& claw in paw on wall he'd hone.
His coat was red & gold in tone,

his eyes like sun itself had shone,
but now, beneath, he lies alone,

with sluttish earth girt 'bout his bone.

"Say, what a sack for us is sewn,
by three damed Fate, each one a crone,

unless we're like the leaf, wind-blown,
that neither far nor high is flown.

We are yardwork, the rest's on loan,"
you think, then answer your cellphone.

"Cape Horn: Dire Straits III"

mmmAFTER ROARING fourty there's only God & Satan sailors tell
& after fifty there's no God--well...somewhere about fifty-five
you sight the horn right where expect him to be--with nothing working
the winds contrary the weather horrible your bearing badly off


but other men have made the claim:
they have pressed through the dragon's jaws
below the sharp incisors bristling
around the cleaving tongue of flame
& the crushing wide molars of pennisular ice
from the drowned Atlantis of their childhood
into the pacific dreamland of the starry clouds

they are entirely off their rocker
for here is no beatific star guiding through
the pall of flake foam & steam
as you are spun about between
his Scylla-gray pseudo-pods
his Charybdis-black canines


so what if--like Virgil & Co.
you pass through the gullet undigested
into a second realm of punishment?
you can't get around the world

even Magellan didn't sight port again
and he wasn't the sort of fellow
one would wish farewell & Godspeed
never will you--nor am I

[("The Trophy Wife of Tony Lucre")]

mmmALONE HE watched the site as he was told
she passed each evening in his limosine
he saw she--who was his--in wet & cold
while she convinced herself they'd never been

and who was he? he thought as through she'd pass
she thought the same--and why would he dare stare?
and heads home to a house of stock & gas
while he pretends he doesn't really care

if ever I did love her--I was sick!
if ever I could want him--that's not sane!
and so she's chauffered back to her rich prick
while he is still a watchman in the rain

[("Butterfly Effect")]

mmmPRECISE UNVARYING it all seems at times
because we in our conscience rise into our smallness
then we learn the pathetic radius of our ripples
upon an indifferent universe & that among infinite universes
then again no--the universe isn't infinite nor is the number of them
in their collegium--not without end but unimaginably massive
both in their absolute quanity and each in their individual scope

there was a film & the leading lady was pointing to the rings
on a slice of giant redwood then moving her finger oh
ever so slightly: here I was born she said & then
here I will die... but even the stage will be wiped clean even
the forgetting will be forgotten

"Little Redwing" (or "I sleep far from my Beloved")

I

NO ONE shares my tears
V & S you fucking liar
not for a second nor a thousand years
nobody will care...

II

NO ONE has any right to tell anyone
their pain is not unique
no one has any right
to tell the sufferer he isn't alone

III

WE ARE too weak
we are too slow
we are too selfish
we are too ignorant

look! (surprise surprise)
we're humans

IV

I AM a mere spectator
this is not me
where is my tea?

I should be dictator

V

OTHERS SOUGHT salvation in love
others sought salvation in compassion
others sought salvation in dreams
others still seek salvation in alchemy
no one now seeks salvation in verse
the ink molders with the printed page
and yet so many more eyes to read

VI

SHE DEMANDED a prayer over the wild baby rabbits
they caught but could never have saved & so her father said

God keep all we dumb little bunnies of the universe
in and from the hands of our self-appointed hare-brained caretakers

we who suffer among aliens & die alone

VII

AMEN