Paean

             after H.D.’s “Heat”

Apple

blossoms

curl their

delicate

ends: make

fists in air. April, the minor

god, sets his wet throat on the orchard—

hurls his

ice and wind. After days ab...

The Chrysalis

                                                                  a folk tale

...

theater, I feel you heavy           as the night, fog

folding its hands into thick blankets placed over

the empty street—the cinema              spills across 

the concrete. Popcorn, candy, some han...

The lake crawled into my driveshaft and locked the axles.

Composure as mechanical frequency of I-beams, steel

railroad bridge. Its crescendo met with a rubber mallet

lover. Could I be drug across town tied to the rear axle

of a Bronco? Eyes strung from t...

“The Denby Sonnets”

[10]

Common sense to help out to think

of the work they do, the momentary

and mortal expression of beauty.

In spirit classic artists of the past

are present at a serious performance

and watch it with attention, affirming

the inner force c...

Yellow 

Some sort of goddess of some sort 

of season between summer and autumn.

Some bright heat through a dancing curtain 

onto our bed. An especially warm day in October. 

Not a muse—greater. A steady flow 

of song echoing from the wood-floored corr...

My Father Took Me Hunting 

because we had given up other ways to make music.
The white hummingbird of buckshot
is not melodic, but neither is silence.
What I recall I recall scarcely. Like a sostenuto
hanging so faint it may not be there at all,
I cou...

communion

in a 1940 photo my mother sports

a beret & snug pea-coat   

                           her face unlined 

& marvelous. 

                           she’s about to ligh...

"Nobody's Girl" by Sheila Black (Puerto del Sol 2005)