Contents:

Excerpt from the Manual of Manipulation
First Kiss
For Winston
Graceful
Gravity Rides Again
Guess the Distress
Home
Lover's Gifts
Memory Is A Cliff
Practical
Phobia
Soul for a Pet
The Lacrymal
The Magpie's Penance
The Second Incarnation of Silence
The Stranger
To Want In Winter
Willfulness
Wishful Thinking

Excerpt from the Manual of Manipulation (back to top)

Smoke to draw fire
Steam to show heat

A sneer makes them small
A smile makes them tall
One of each, then ignore
They'll stand where they fall

Slam the door; shout your love
Lies are shovels; dig for truth

Mask surprise,
as they
walk away

First Kiss (back to top)

It ended when your lips left mine
Drawn from me on your slow smile
One long look
Mischief sparkled
Sparkling tingled on my tongue
Tingling glittered down my spine
Glittering glowed within my core
Glowing blushed bright on my skin
Circle turned - I looked away
Blushing caught breath in your throat
Catching trapped my heart as trinket
Trapping held your hand in mine
Until you thought to let it go

For Winston (back to top)

Close the tear
Fit the edges
Daub it over
In golden words
Mixed with bile

Praise the effort
Of the infant
Draw the beauty
From the stubborn,
Clumsy verse

Wiseman, Father
Warrior, Guide
Frankincense and Myrrh
Are wasted
Bring him peace

Graceful (back to top)

By length of limb
Or charm of whim
A woman's worth is measured

For flowing hair
And features fair
Are prizes always treasured

But wisdom knows
That wisdom grows
In soil and not in candy

So filthy mind
And mouth unkind
Can come, in need, quite handy

To cultivate
And separate
The clever from the rubble

So she can map
Each judging chap
For one that's worth the trouble

Gravity Rides Again (back to top)

The wait for weight is done
Soles brush pavement
Soul scrapes bone
Eyes drag open
Against a dream
Low is proper
High obscene

Life is fair, goddamnit
Isaac Newton was a bastard

Guess the Distress (back to top)

Ten for every year you're old
And two for every lie you've told
None for good deeds
Skeins for worry
Sprouts in ire
And fits of fury
Blue to brighten
Brown to hide
Brush the shocks of time aside
Platinum lining ginger clouds
Moonbeam threads in ebon shrouds

Rail at God and blame the brats
I think I'll take up wearing hats

Home (back to top)

A soft spot, a door
Threshold to cross
Bearing gifts

A soft spot, a bruise
Hinge and latch thrown
Too often

A soft spot, no more
Scraped tough, transformed
A door with

An eyelet

Welcome home.

Lover's Gifts (back to top)

A silver thrill
twists through me, twining
lightning in its wake.
Random words,
like churchbells echo,
warm and heavy in my mind.

Hours like minutes, and
hours like days;
The clock that tracks
your nearness tells.

And in your absence
an ache I would not
trade for diamonds; only
for your return.

These gifts I cannot
keep forever; absurd magic
spins fragile our cocoon of time,
counted in wishes for more

doomed and lucky to release
a sober pair who can
remember, yet not return
to gilded everything and everywhere

But if we will remember well,
The spell, it casts a brilliant shadow-
warm enough to bask in;
sometimes close enough to touch

Memory Is A Cliff (back to top)

An army of images
Retreats
As new ones
Fill the front lines
Sharp and vivid
Smiles, fights,
Little nothings the mind keeps
At the ready
To battle the spaces
Between the clockface numbers
Earmarked for nothing else

Today nudges yesterday
Inches, yards, miles
Yesterday tramples
The time before
And distance
Is the ether between us
And the time it takes
To remember
When your face
Presented over and over
To renew itself
And keep you close

The push of days
Brings the edge nearer
Your heels take the gap
Then the gap takes the rest
And my longest thoughts
Too frail a rope
To bring you back
So you remain
A watercolor blur
Far below
On the littered
Canyon floor

Practical (back to top)

If you would be spring
I could call myself rain
and excuse my fall
as all you needed
Absolved of wasted time
Well due the nod and praise
of the necessary

But you are unpoetic
Too far afield
of fields of flowers
and black soil
to be sung
Or scratched in ink
in lines
not fertile rows  

So I am left
in a winter mirror
More solid than water
but less useful
Sighs a cry
from pollen breezes
Knowing full well
There are chores
to be done

Phobia (back to top)

It is other.
Slender-waisted,
curvy-hipped alien.
sleek and shiny
What's mine for its own,
with a wave of grace and poison.
strut and hover
Entitled by indifference,
to keys of the black box of
unreasoned horror.
hum and shiver
Haughty, cold insistence
folds my resolve, I retreat.
flex and threaten
The price of non-compliance brandished low.
sharp and aloof
Nemesis.

Soul for a Pet (back to top)

Choices, a cage
Courage, the key
Control, the leash

Trueself on a lead
Take a stroll in the sun
For a time, let it run

Romp is over
Duty calls
Goodboy shrugs into its pen

Who is this master?

The Lacrymal (back to top)

The gift of grief, a bottle of tears
Never an eye did cry
That did not care
Care for loss
Care for lack
Care for joy of what went well

The lacrymal, the vessel
The flask of swan-necked glass
Corked in heavy thought
Capped too quiet
Capped too veiled
Capped to keep a peace unspoiled

The phial plain, the standard glass
The prize - the well of clear elixir
Infinite within a span
The urn is passed, the ewer filled
Pour the wine, my friend

The Magpie's Penance (back to top)

Enough is nothing
It shouldn't be,
But each need met
Turns loose an orphaned want
To whimper and wander
The streets of Peace

Mirage and fancy strung
On time unspoken-for -
A crown of leaden bells
Worn just inside the skull
To clack distraction
With each turning of the head

And who would reverse
The miracle of ease?
Smiling into a cup
Brimming with wine
When all you want is water

The Stranger (back to top)
(from AbsoluteWrite's 'Blue Rock' Collection)

Small town charm.
My wandering left foot.
And the right one too
for good measure.

Trudged in on the heels
of a helluva storm
seeking shelter
from more than just rain.

The last of the thunder
laughed hard in his face
as the screen door slapped shut
hard behind me.

At-your-service smile fell as
his face recalled mine.
A favor returned marked
the coin of this crossing.

I'd greased the way
back to safe, yokel hearth
when he'd tripped the line
out of league
out of water
out of common sense.

But well in his cups
and in far too deep
in a bar
in a city
far away from Blue Rock.

"If you ever need anything..."
damp upper lip,
best shirt dark at the pits,
fairly trembled his promise
as the fat, country smiles of his
dumpy wife and pudge kid
tucked back into his
too empty wallet.

And so here I am
and he's none too pleased
and I'm likely only to
get stranger and stranger
under false smiles,
in front of the whispers,

but he'll bail me out
as I once did for him,
or the grapevine
will strangle us both.

To Want In Winter (back to top)

How Human
To cull evergreen
Amid the barren boughs.
Brandish life
When all is wasted
And lay the feast and fire
As gauntlet down
To winds that gnaw and flay.

In vaulted nights
We plumb the basins
Of our breasts for ghosts
Like Marley's,
Moaning vows
To clank our chains
Once we've gone quiet
Beyond our choice.

And you in your anguish.
And I in my doubt
Refuse to mark our breaths
Between the too faint
Tickings of the clock,
Demanding meaning of the void
And for angelsong to fill
A Silent Night.

Willfulness (back to top)

If I were blind
my ears would see
this season turn in
trilling drips of dying ice

If I were deaf
my skin would thrum
to purring thunder,
waves of laughter, murmured love

If I were numb
my eyes would feel
the heat of nearness
brush of sighs; the slide of tears

If I were far
(and I am far)
I would find you still.

Wishful Thinking (back to top)

Crescent cradle holds
white light and dreams

Who tipped the moon
on her side for me?

An hourglass held prone
by dark hands
white sands sift still.

The sickle pricks tears
The wind waits

a trick of lamplight lies
to make the second hand retreat
a halting step, or two
or twenty.

Wish for thousands, fool.