art has left a hole in me

art has left
a hole in me

separated from
my God
from this tree
from the
infinite

inward, a demon
dines on the
dirty relics
of childhood

i was raised in
Suburbia but weened
in the mountains.

isolation became my friend
and the loneliness of March
winds a sure confidant.

what is it that strikes me?

the art of the vein in the leaf

the whispers of slave Ghosts
among purple blooms of
mountain laurel

the silent dying of
of everything in the forest
always and every where

with every breath, a last of sorts

the leman

a well kept gigolo
lives down the street

he saunters by
on dazzling haunches

the lazy fawners wait for
him to pass

with his wide smiles
and white teeth

the pungent smells of
sandalwood and patchouli
are his bellowing harbingers

and

into the shadows he slips

and is soon forgotten.

admission

if i ain’t
writin’

i ain’t
fuckin’

up

which craft?

tides rise &
fall in her eyes

she’ll see through you
she’ll she past you

to those greener
pastures

past them oceans

oceans in her eyes

past them boys
with fumbling fingers

to the man

enough of this boyish shit
there’s a spell with my
name on it
& i mean to
succumb
to it

circumventing the inevitable

round and round
down cattails
between pillows
tossed into piles

i avoid
the very subject
of breathing

and regret everything
i’ve ever done and
still, regret nothing

what is regret? it is doubt
in the fantasy that there’s
no automatic consequence
to my sin

what is sin? it is the absence
of God, and where is that?
where can you go to escape
that shadow? Mars most likely.

we are there now,
popping snapshots
of ancient riverbeds and
mountains and valleys
in an asphyxiated atmosphere

perhaps Everyone makes mistakes.

them thar critix

they say she
leaks moonbeam blood

but i saw the space within
i saw a new ocean
unnamed, uncharted

lying dormant in the
green of her eyes

they say they’ll
conquer Heaven and earth

without love
there’s only war

but war is why we fuck
so the fighting never
ceases.

comet ison

the year fades tiresome
like a pendulum that sweeps
circular patterns
in someone’s Zen sand box

days creep shorter, now
slowly, and longer they’ll
linger as our

tautly stretched
shadows inch
back to their
summer lengths

life has completed another
orbit around whatever and
we will be slung, once
again, by the sun into
outer darkness

and somewhere, millions and billions
of miles away, a disturbance has
heaved a frozen rock towards us

and it hurdles its way sun-ward,
like us, unaware and unable
to deviate from it’s chosen path

a comet rises in the east
“brighter than the moon,” they say

perhaps, as Earth thaws us,
our tails will also
illuminate the skies with
something different than before.

funeral for a friend

November beams
like crystal cobwebs
snatch shadows
from the ground

in leafless chunks
jigsaw puzzles
lay scattered
among the grasses

brown with dread.
summer is dead
and with hope
we’ve prepared his burial.

the fallen

get up
dirty knees
and brush off
those dirty things

dawn has come

time to sing

no one falls
beneath the ground

He put it there

to save your sound

Straight Up for Ms. Paula

That Paula rawks.

birth pangs

in woe we reckon
that it’s good enough
to survive Summer’s
birth pangs, bearing
both tribulation and
the stillborn cool
of Autumn’s morning

ah she, betrays the sky

her beauty
is in the shape
of night

hips and cosmos
bend around the
light of stars

burning sentinels,
bearing this bridegroom
to her, unblemished.

Serenade

Now that summer’s
Moon has turned away

And left her
Desolate

She bids farewell,
With a quip
And a song
And a blissful
Moment of
Love gone wrong.

Sing to me ladies
Sing to me pure
With voices low
‘n a brazen lure

And I’ll succumb
To your summer moon
Your summer swelt
Your summer gloom

When riverbanks flood
And fat stoves sink
And old ladies pray
And old ladies pray

The desolate shall rise.

love diet

there are days when
the love eats me
alive

when storms do not
buffet my charity

when arrows do not
split me apart

there are days when
the beauty of love, indeed
eats me alive

& yet others when we both
starve

Drunk Poetry

Like sex
Is sloppy
In execution

And honored
By fuzzy
Images remembered
Over coffee

Or daytime
T. V.

It collapses
On itself

Forming
Enchanted

Ruins of regret

“Why, Harris,
Why did I
Write that?”

“It’s no more
Poetry than
It is
Fucking.”

kiss

it was
years in
the making

fastened
together
with awkward
backseat
fumbling

&

late night
darkened
corridors

hewn without
care or cause
save to
adorn
your face
one day

with it’s
gentle
pressure
and moist
surprises

some nights
i kiss you
with my
eyes opened

& remember.

Oblivion

the battle outside
my window under
smokey July
moon smirkin

crickets n katydids
drown the night
in buzzy chorus
comfort, sweet whiskey
hummus of midnight
marks on it’s otherwise
empty parchment
of silence

in all the noise
i doubt you’ll
even notice
if i die

carnal knowledge and stealing sunsets

it was a
passionate
display.

ribald
convolutions
etched in
the shadowy
midnight
atmosphere
of the room.

images stained
against comely
walls, penumbras
that Time
won’t soon
forget.

and arrested
by your apt
attention, i’ll
lie in a sordid
solitude

for.
unlawful.
carnal.
knowledge.

Quick Love

i ain’t some
psychopathic
Cambodian warlord.

i’m just a
pair o’ boots
lookin’ to
slide a little
closer to a
pair o’ pumps.

Praline princess

cross-eyed and
barefoot,
she had the
sexiest sway
in them daisy
dukes this
side o’
the corner mart.