Adano’s Bell in Syllables
A tired old jogger on beaten paths,
I scroll and stroll
through lists of words.
Letters melt lucidity,
wipe the sunscreen off my back.
Adano’s Bell in syllables
that celebrate why battles start
in search of art and backward darts.
They all end up ammonia honest
not unlike those old latrines
in campgrounds with dynamic dumps
that promise lotion languishing
in languages connected to, contorted by
the presence of dream’s rosaries.
My pen, a haunted house at times.
At others it’s a German tank,
reminding me it owns my soul.
Knuckles cup as apple dumplings
cooling on a countertop.
A graveyard for the shells of nuts,
broken shoe-lace independence,
foot paths of a ghost’s regatta
warming up for oceans crossed.
I order knowledge of myself
like rich desserts,
burning off time’s calories.
You won’t read a Pollyana treatise here.
Pain exists in cactus flowers
tucked between both swords and thorns.
You won’t see a war wrap up
and love the trash it rifles through.
Tons of warped old records stacked--
fond of notes they skid and skip.
Internal motion plays eternal.
Looking for lost jacket cause.
Scarlet Puddles
Another television war
surveyed from
our Lazy Boy’s.
Rifles filter
good and bad.
Bombs play pedals
with their tongues.
A briefcase is
a body bag
where imitation
leather rules.
We live among
unfathomed blood--
paint good layers over lies.
Cinderella’s slipper pinching
swollen feet of politics.
Macho mesmerized my blood
in harbors of a fantasy.
No one really, truly dies.
Leaves scarlet puddles crusting
on the velvet arms of richly
dreaming sitting rooms.
"Take a break"
means fetch a beer.
Where lives are lost
like corners of dry
cookie dough.
Tick-tock Talk
I tie down truth to sleeplessness--
wonder where the night has gone.
Concerts on an empty page
have ways of building orchestras.
Of growing into destiny--
trees that snap in brutal storms
taking root in troubled times.
Elements of writing’s wealth:
punching holes in metered rhyme;
staplers crushing paper clips;
added up to baked control.
Jumping bones of Jezebels that make
great sex you get to watch.
Islands gripped by insulin
that grow somehow familiar suns.
"I Have a Dream" I’ve somehow lost.
A pen is here to get it back.
Lush Agendas
Trappings of a writer’s desk:
Post-it notes and grocery lists
of love amiss containing war.
Needles act like quilting bees.
Basis never understood
until it scratches soft white snow.
Meat then muscles tighten up.
A miracle of realize:
twitches in a sonnet’s skin;
rattlesnakes with nerves alive
despite four bullets in small heads.
Learning lonesome islands shrink
by confrontation’s handiwork.
Chasing dark like flitting moths
through attics reminiscing bats
as if their wings serve Sunday mass.
A finger swears by evidence.
Page becomes a Noah’s Ark
that saves a species from defeat.
Rides the flood it renders moot.
Wet conceit removes the ‘k’;
concubines of inner screams
turn the letter to a ‘t.’
Earthworms wiggle--breaking silence.
Lush agendas floundering.
Hunting down a Venus arm--
a monarch flirts with tissue hands
on flower tips and poison leaves.
The Unrest Home
Brutal quiet
in long, long halls.
Tethered by rails.
We lie by
rolling rosaries--
as if our prayers
can save us
from bad accidents.
Old age lives
on rumble strips.
Emotion wears
a football helmet,
even to a Bingo game.
Flesh in grainy
crusts of cobbler
missing plump
empowered fruit.
Only swatted flies
get sleep.
Only guilty
chocolate melts.
Art is such
an onus presence.
Candles on
a birthday cake
with frosting
no one wants to eat.
Visitors are teeth
of pinecones
rubbing up against
dead shrubs.
The sweet mirage
of youth is gone.
The tinkle of time’s
Christmas lights
in bed pans
under frozen fish.