MOTHS
Black in the dying
light
like obsolete moths
they flutter, fixed to night
and dreaded chimneys
that lead
to the hell of the
hearth.
Or is it a highway?
Are they men?
It's 4am and there's more
than a patch of snow to
blind them.
SINGAPORE
I bought a mango last night
from a native
in Singapore.
He winced
as the rind disappeared in my
mouth.
"Dermatis" he said.
Now my eye swollen from the
mango's rind
counts diamonds in the trees of
Singapore.
and my daughter, beautiful in the
Singapore sun
leans
from her balcony to watch movies
in the perfumed air.
PASSAGES
As passages
lead to
rooms, rooms lead
to windows.
This window,
open to the evening air,
catches the
quick shadows.
SPRINGER RIDGE
A confusion of briar spirals along
Springer Ridge tonight.
Earth and moon converse in patterned
light that shines through a new,
cold air.
The temperature drops
thirty seven degrees and
cattle collect
between patches of snow,
their blue and swirling breath
swept away to the trees.
The October moon,
luminous, cratered and
removed but for that
light
washes with white
all but the blacker
blacks that lie beneath trees.
Torrents of light on
asphalt,
on rooftops,
scattered
there is light.
ADDICTED TO THE TURNS
Addicted to the turns, weight
forward, enticed
by the Two o' Clock
run.
Miles from the
base, clouds envelop us as we
sweep under
the trees.
The storm plays
cat and mouse
with the
sun,
casting dark rumors
across the ridge.
STIFFNESS TROUT
Hanging in the riffled sunlight,
angelic upon alters of pastel stone,
and embedded in pools of impossibly clear liquor,
these recurring spirits of speed,
this streamlined evolution calls to
the source.
Always the source.
How it arises in our
dreams.
POMONA
Hold Pomona, tiny weather board town.
Hold against the cold December that
bleaches your back roads and
blankets your gardens in white.
.We feel what you have felt.
Overhead hillsides huddle, hoping for the heat
of your few precious chimneys.
Goats in the mountain side shed rock-hard tears
leaving milk-sweet breath for the loving mother.
We're waiting for the melt
Witches hang in your gardens
frozen to the stake
with onions, zero degrees.
We feel what you have felt.
OFFICE
In the office
an old woman
raises her wrinkled,
braceleted wrist to
wave hello to the thin negro
girl with the sad
desperate eyes.
After two weeks
the old woman
returns to her
desk to find
in a blue envelope
her paycheck
waiting for her like a
forgotten friend.
The black girl
in the yellow cotton
dress abandons her
lottery numbers to
eat the raison toast
in her pencil drawer.
When the subway train is late
I lean over the edge of
the platform and smell in the damp cement
the recurring panic
of rats.
Cyclists of Spain
As if fired by distant cannons
The riders in Spain flow
across the countryside
Like positively charged
particles they
bisect the lanes.
Silent and intransigent,
with the random geometry of asteroids,
they clump for drafting.
We are in their cross fire.
We are down range
as they pulse
through the placas
past the venerable stone
walls and towers
of old Spain.
From the sun to the shade
They approach, invisible,
courting collision.
Once my eyes have faced the sun
all shadows hold menace.
Out of nowhere
They appear
I look though them
unseeing.
They depart, a mirage
of fluorescent orange
and high-viz green,
with the reticent clicking
of chains caressing
derailleurs.
They are out there,
miles from their beds,
Miles from the end.
entangled in vast afternoons
of climbs and sprints.
In Spain, old and new, they
skirmish with mountain and sky,
Coursing like electrons through dusty lanes,
their tires silent and skinny wraiths.
Their hearts pound
Over the wind as they follow
the sun washed conduits
of ancient roads.
Tendons, ligaments, and muscle
propel their ballistic trajectory across the plain.
Wind and blood roar in their ears
They approach,
with insolent and constant
torque. Then
they slip away until nothing is left but
a faint glimmer of Day-Glo across the distant fields.
DROP OUT
Time narrows.
Edges carve into moguls with
soft bellies and boney backs
like snowy oxen.
They relent
Surly, they resent.
Skis stir sprays of
cold powder
The earth falls away
to the vast milieu
of the West.
Time stops.
Each crest links
the DNA of solitude.
Each turn summons tiny tears in tendons.
Ligaments strain
Nerves numb.
The tyrant of focus
crowds out doubt,
banishes thought.
Each turn, each tiny cut
folds time.
Demons chase us down
the fall line.
