Excerpts

It Takes a Window

Think of
each poem
as a ripe
ear
of Indian corn

hanging on a wooden peg
on the smokehouse
door:
just one
kernel
missing.

Through
that tiny
window

you
can spot
Einstein

grinning like
a ladybug
taking a lunch break.

Albert hangs
his candy striped
pogo stick
on a cooperating cloud

so he can play
a quick game of marbles
with his good friend,
Infinity.

Who will
win?

Push It All the Way:
Mountain Top or Nothing

Would you think of stopping
halfway during the huff
and puff process of afternoon
or anytime delight?

No!

So why would you, poet burning
brighter than the Sun
waking up with a hard-on,

stop
halfway on a poem?

Are you the one who just excused
yourself with a limp villanelle?

Have you ever been guilty
of sprung rhythm interruptus?

Are you still wasting all your good
energy on one night epics?

Take your poem and walk barefoot,
a Sun Circle on each soul print,
to the top of the nearest cooperating
mountain on a radiant day.

Shout your poem out! Listen to the echo.

If you use the right voice tone, you won’t scare the pikas.

Shout it out! Edit that echo tenderly
until your poem is ripe and eager
for the Sun’s warm embrace.

I love prehistoric rock painting: all kinds
of animals, hand prints totally out of hand,
a rock hot cave diva dancing a dream.
People tended to do so much better before
they tried to think.

Carbon Dating Can Be Pretty Sexy,
But Remember Forever Isn’t!

Long, long ago before people got stuck
in thoughts, giraffes galloped by, joyful

notes bouncing on the landscape. People
painted those giraffes on solid rock.

Rock loved the paintings, flatly refused to
give them up to the hot-tongued glissando winds

or the cold rain cloudbursts. I print poems,
heartscapes high up on a cliff. Rock Face

will cherish my words, hold them tight
till Earth grumbles “THANKS A LOT

FOR THE MEMORY!” and snorts
the last snort and explodes! What

will be left? … dust that’s been around
and countless space borne buttons still

on the card—dreaming of a good home on
a spider fingers hot jazz bass player’s vest.