Short Poems 1984

And the robins sings of smashed mates
the feathered triumph of my VW
mercilessly breaking the bondage of robins

April 1984






DELUGE

Just as I was beginning to forget,
you arrived at my doorstep
and music burst from your eyes
even before I could hear the wings of Icarus
whisper danger from the sun.
Broken wheels in the desert are as useless
as the arms of a saguaro's embrace.
The yucca-pale dreams brought a deluge of rain
and I am drifting in the lake of your eye
once more.

 5/84



 GAMBLING ODDS

Seeing old lovers again
is like playing tic tac toe
with the moon.
Like with Jimmy the Greek
the odds are 100%
in the moon's favor.

1984?




JADED PRINCESSES' TALE

Oh, Lord
how many nights
shall I kiss a prince
and awaken
with a toad?

1984



MOUNTAIN FLOWERS

Under azure skies and robins
rosiated cyclamens
exude such exquisite warmth
that the sun is struck dumb
by comparison

1984




MOUTHS

too much speaking
too much eating
kissing, shouting—
all in that simple line
drawn against
folded flesh.

1/ 1984




NIGHT VISION

Caught in my headlights,
eyes of young bucks
not leaving the dead body
of their mother.

12/84




Primal

As Richard plays the piano late at night
Coastal fog drips from pine trees
a morose foghorn sounds in the distance
Do we respond to those notes
the sounds we heard as children
What makes us respond to music?
Certain chords touching off the coastal fog
dripping off Presidio Pines
and the forlorn cutting the fog

1984




When his hand grazes on my body
reality and memory cease
and all there is is the moment.
What I want to tell the fish
rolling in my bed at night
is that none of us can crawl back
to that place called home
no matter what coast we seek.





wish bad poems were more like clay pots
slumped at the wheel
Instead they're fired with air bubbles
trapped within the clay wall
and they explode in the kiln
or break with ease leaving us
to piece them back together,
our hands sticky with glue.

No date I'm guessing 1984