There is a tall loblolly pine
beside a gravel road I sometimes drive
beyond a weathered dead end sign.
It's years since it was last alive.

I first saw it with needles brown
at the start of leaf fall's season.
The tree stood straight from root to crown.
It died from no apparent reason.

And time passed on and time passed on
until the tree stood needle bare,
a thing wood peckers drummed upon.
I once saw a horned owl perch there.

Ascension the pitch dawn warriors
slivers and effervescence
remand to spoil and share
lee red beret rebels clarion

back into their night of days
centrifugal to partisan shadow
participle in the order of trends

winds and tame hunters oak
white wash as oyster shell
fate forced to far western-
eastern morn was mourn rebirth

four beer fur bier
for bear Appolyon shade
the crayon magazine ,
sung carrion Hades

primeval epitaph of hide and seek
no more sought for thin
gazers gloom glazier

drape me
in folds of night
sequined with
shimmering stars
in my hand place
a cosmos flower
on my head place
a nebula veil

let my coffin be
made of moon-dust
and my pillows
be rippling clouds
tear new holes
in the firmament
so that I can
see on down

tell the future
I could not wait
I have morphed
and moved ahead
when darkness
starts its breaking
celebrate life
for I am not dead

VEILS

No man can know the depths
of another man's pain.
The loss of another, The loss of oneself.
Life brings to each of us our own special moments
unique , unshared, unseen to the rest
covered in ritual veils, a broken heart
and a soul tottering on despair,

I refuse to bow to tyranny
even if it spells the death of me
Your king may have chained my body
but my spirit is free!

He burns the homes of peasants
and kill all of their men
then their children watched in silence
as his army raped the women

He is a coward who bullies the weak!
A man who hides behind his lackeys!
While they fight until they bleed,
his royal guards guarantee his safety

on cotton skinned
skiened transparent
cross-commas, dash
scattered funambulist
of who we are
clasping writ by trees sketched
before bud relinquish
foliage soul

Let me embrace you young one...
as I need warmth all over my face...
so let’s embrace...
warmth will flow from me to you...
as we curl up in embrace
and that’s no disgrace...

we love each other’s face
so we in public embrace
come on now gals and guys
face to face just to
E M B R A C E
and
see eye to
E Y E

nettles
this dust summer
is a fire
and you drawl your lithe moves
in sweet sweat and perfume
the sugar plume
dark tobacco
amber potency
thirsty against the screen

your eyes feasting beyond the
bushfields with their drooping
limbs full of heat

stirring in your weary
glass your rancinette
purse up your lips
about the pink straw
the lashes flickering
like the black mascara
line of a storm

too far to whet the
land in agony

Pure flower to show Winter is no more,
why, tell me why do you look at the floor?
The Earth still holds that stubborn cold,
from days when the sun was afraid to grow.

I shall wait a while for the sun to smile,
on the life that gives me a reason to be.
I will till the garden, making it weed free,
new growing times will be here in a while.

This year we found the new weathers sound,
a bellowing wind and sheets of cold rain.
Later saying that this has always been the same
Forgetting once more, how it was before.

I'm drawn to the glade side brook
which had eavesdropped
on our serenading nook,
when blades of grass
stroked intimate poems
on our skins.

I now cleanse all moss
on the stone washed bank
and scribble our duets
on paper boat quills
drifting on goose bumps
beneath my tweeds.

While the wind dies down
from my quickening breath
the paper boats drown
in my misty gaze,
before I retreat
to my lonesome glade.