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Eleven Eleven Volume Seven is avaiable! Featuring yours truely...
http://www.elevenelevenjournal.com/

I Dream of Apples

I made this little "Vide-Oem" for the Cache Creek Poetry Workshop. The assignment was to take "poetry off the page".

I Dream of Apples

Eve sashays by Johnny’s orchard,
wishing she could cast off her high heels
and run barefoot in the meadow again.

A nameless Frenchman
in a bowler hat exclaims
“Cela n’est pas une pomme!”

The princess turns icy pale
remembering the red delicious
once lodged in her throat.

The doctor stays away.

Little Billy walks tall and
straight past the picket fence,
eager to tell his hero’s tale.

And Isaac ambles,
seeing starlight and possibility
in each and every orb.

Sac News & Review

One more poem in the Sacramento News & Review - just a little sweet thing..
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=869909

Meadows such as this

There will come a day when meadows such as this will be locked behind pre-cast concrete walls. Only sanctioned artists and licensed poets will be allowed to wander - quickly though. “Please be quick” the uniformed guard will say as the others pass through the barbed wire gates. “Please, get your inspiration and leave – quickly - before anyone takes notice.”
No time to waste. No time to linger, lollygag or dawdle. No time to hum the sibilant symphony of birds and insects. Nor nibble sour grass and bramble berries. No time to watch the trees sway and notice how the leaves sparkle like a disco ball as the sun bounces off ever changing surfaces. Nor admire, with ardent intensity, the structure of Queen Anne’s lace. No time to lie on the grass and float with clouds and sparrows until the backs of knees begin to itch. No time to crush aromatic leaves between the fingers and sprinkle them like breadcrumbs on the path.
No, absolutely no time for nothingness! There are charts to compose, time lines to be drawn, assignments to be written. And this poem is due at the Ministry of Humanity in precisely 18 minutes.

Vesica Piscis

The smallest stone falls – –

Into the silent river,

Into the Sacred River.

And so the ripple begins.

A dragonfly, wings aflame,

A flute aloft, a flutter,

A seraphim, a whirlwind

That bends the reverent Reeds.

Where the circles commingle,

Grassy ring, water ripple,

Two creates One, Earth Spirit

Flesh – Vesica Piscis.

Poet Fish bubbling babbling

Overflowing water words

Tongue struggling tail thrashing

Inhale! – his invocation:

O River Voices resound

From Stone and Bubble and Wing!

Our – smallest – action

- Changes – every thing.

The Transverberation of Saint Theresa

Barefoot on a balcony she sang
I am!
And the amber meadows sang
I Am!
And the purple mountains sang
I AM!
And the sky (as if waking from an etherized dream) sang
I AM YOU TOO!
Baptized in Infinite Singularity,
Now she knew.

…
But tell me, Saint Theresa,
When it’s time to wash the sheets,
When ecstasy turns to laundry,
And your “Now” is just another spin cycle,
Do you still hear the singing sky?
…

There are times, Mr Prufrock,
When ragged claws scuttle me (gasping) to the seabed.
There, in the lullaby of the seaweed dances,
Downy drowsy drowny death
Washes over me.

In those times, Mr Prufrock,
I am a heartbroken Ophelia,
Unheard, still here.
Looking up through the watery lens,
Unheard, still here.
Searching the sky,
Unheard, still here.
Dim and distant,
For just a glimmer,
Unheard, still here.
Unheard, still here.
The urgency of my beating heart
Transverberates my ears
And I remember.

In those times, Mr Prufrock,
I have a choice to make:
To suffer slings and arrows,
Or to face my stuttering fears
(No, no, not now!)
And rise above my sea of troubles.
And I remember now…
I once squeezed the universe into a ball.
I am Lazarus come from the dead.
Rising in a flurry of bubbles to the surface,
I am not drowned - I know NOW!

Sunflowers on Road 98

once
a field of little suns
each a joyful
reflection
of their God
with verdant
arms raised
(Lord praised!)
happy little holy men
seeking the light.

late
august and
heavy headed monks
clutch certainties
in bloated misshapen eyes
cowled brown
bowed down
withered
impotent
they wait for harvest.