1.11.05

great flock of orange moths took to flight all at once.
before they wakened and flew id not noticed them,
their bright orange blent in with the brown of the canyon.
when i looked round i noticed several such flocks
little orange mouths pursed and waiting for
a single one of them to alight. they all will.

1.11.15

can anyone take full credit for their boat?

just sail best you can without steering,
take accountability for the boat, leave
the rest to mapreaders.

1.11.15

o its gonna rain

a good thing to remember when you break down
is its all the same when you break it down.
she laughed, i’ll write you off like a rich man
writes off his taxes. she carried a bottle
into the bed. her diction and mine
meant the same anyway, we were finding.
she was teaching me the ways of
Southern Ladies.
i cleaned the tub all over which red hairs climbed.
i noticed thru the window a rattle of seeds,
i breathed.
the pods dangling wind strangled twixt
and tween frogs or bugs lullaby—sucking me in
to thin wine. and i never know if it is frogs or bugs singing.
the day i gave up i wrote a poem to God who i dont know
or care to, just one coconspirator to another,
cursing him for the damn bugs wont show their faces!
you goddamned crickets! i cursed.
show your fucking selves.
and so resigned i was, at that.
went to an Al-Anon meeting with Rosemary
later. sat away from her in the back.
Just For Today they all said.
went round the room, everyone taking a turn
saying just for today i will be relaxed in traffic.
just for today i am grateful for my children.
my turn, i said just for today i am done with it.
the room waited, so i clarified, ‘all of it.’
later i stood outside by a bush smoking.
i was lost in the traffic of my thots.
i looked down at the bush and
                        here was a cricket!
i thot it was a cricket-----it looked like i thot
                            one would,
but still i second-guessed it.
my pulse worked extraordinarily a woman
comes out. fellow smoker, thankfully.
excuse me ma’am, i begged, is that bug right

there a cricket?
yes, she gazed at it.
you sure?
she looked at me. okay, okay, i told her.
thank you, and i know it is. we smoked in silence.
i got home and he had written me.
he wrote that for some time now
hed had the suspicion there were crickets actually inside
his house. hed felt sure of this, but now he had his proof----
he found a cricket in his kitchen
it was going
to be raining.

1.11.05

Divining Rod
i am at the beck and call of no man.
and shld i be?
theres not a woman on this earth knows more
bout me than me,
only the universe can, and rightly say one word
about it
the universe can since its as many songs by
verse and flows all about me as within me
i rise.

to the occasional:
thru poetry alone i survive.
flood warning bridge may ice before i do melt
my words decide way before i do.
poetry wooed and plagued me her sultry ways
killen the whole time i turned into her
like a chair leg
into the knee of affable
affinity
the old ineffible my divinity. i did not pardon
myself. i was that much obliged.