the heart of a woman

is deeply rooted

like a wild violet

and to know

the way berries warm inside a

hand

to watch vines unfold a thousand

blossoms

see poppies spread wide

open

to know this

is the only wisdom

worth knowing

The world would have been flat
One long day without the night
If a rotating earth was not to be
Imagine the world-wide weariness

A day by a half, is laid to rest
When the sun sets in the west
Man, charmed by it, takes a respite
From the flurry, fanning the flames

His actions continue, but shifted
To the realities of the dreamland
Collapsing place, space and time
As he travels through his mind

by the time you think you're a poet
you've huddled with your sacred cows
and piddled your father's fortune away
and then you think you can rhyme yourself
into oblivion with nothing but a pocketful
of verse

They say these bones are ancient
which stand sheer, cleft and gray
remnants of forgotten Everests
now near gone, weathered away.

What did they look like way back then?
Did snow cap them throughout the year,
crests far above the tree line when
Luna orbited so very near?

Among those crags what fliers soared
and what creatures trod the flanks?
Were there flowers in the nooks
blooms on rushing water's banks?

Stunning and sloppy flowers concur
Where cherubim and seraphim wait
In the garden with the wafting wind
Along with flaming swords, watching
Over the children not to eat the fruit

A child’s play, deep in memory
With the other who sought for freedom
To treat as equal in the blooming estate
What were her virtues if not assayed?
A serpent lurked, enticed with a fruit

trace me into yourself
before your throbbing
subsides
let the skin of our skin
not separate with its
consuming desire

and
we will have turned to ash

but enter me with a handbook
of poems, take me like a
conquered land, just leave
me with enough sighs
to bask on the island
that separates
us for all eternity,

linger here, my love.

my poem was locked
and loaded
it was hijacked and
misconstrued
ill winds came to blow
it off course,
of course,
and now there's hell
to pay and
no one to pay it

everyone is fast asleep
in their own little sleepy heads
in their own little towns without pity

give me freedom of expression
or gag me with contempt
blindfold me
and bind my hands, cut out my
tongue, and break
the Statue of Liberty into a hundred-
thousand shards of verdigris

POKER HONTAS

I'm hopeless at poker and each time I play,
I end up by losing another week's pay.
But this time it's different, my bad luck just fades,
I look at my hand and I see I've five spades!

I win that hand easily, get myself steady,
My luck must be in, so for winning I'M READY.
Next hand is a beauty, four aces, one queen
But the game has been rigged, like a Hollywood scene.

He rises early as cockerel yields,
His rallying cry in blazing sky ,
over dewy fields.

And all of life is stirring,
and chatter with their song,
as honey bee in shrubbery,
is busy all day long.

A cup of water a morsel of bread,
while foul scurry, who not been fed,
in frenzied hurry, as their led.

He takes some wood to make a fire,
to fashion the instrument of His desire,
and stokes the embers still with heat,
and pumps the bellows with his feet.

kunning you said
thirsty for the darkness
rimmed like an ecliptic cool
I can see you gazing neath
the sculpted shadow show
streetlights emerge and you
in Totality as traffic thrusts past
its feeler headlamps
its hot ember tailights

you jangle your keys like spurs
the heels sharp
"They used to sacrfice under this rare
auspicious happening" you look
up scanning for a sign
The dragon with fire licking from its
red lips