Cliff Notes Photo

There’s a cliff someplace
Where the wind’s not too strong, nor too bracing
Where the edge is hardly edgy
Where the drop is in a full bucket
Where the view is–
Where the shot is tight/wide open
We will take it
Where from we stand unsteady and
Search from this perilous perch
for a shot at a sight/wide open.



for Richard Thompson,Richard Melvin, Son Of Man

flying things instinctively know
to dry out their wings, first,
to try out their wings, & go.

surfacing a splendid splash,
surviving a fearful fall and crash,
take time off to dry off &
shake off the surprise of failure.
wake up and walk off what,
and where you are
before you forget to prepare for it
all to dare
the first time, again.

B L O G

jazzing low the box before I go to sleepmode.
letting go.
falling so, near foreigners
for our modern science,
more our freshest poetry.

boardering
the plane
that I said just now has sent us,
led, and just now lent us
home some

pray, tell
There’s a pretty way to spell out
my long sentence.
If random luck holds out perhaps
The power, like lightening
stabbing down my stance,
I’ll light up dark dancing
X rayed in a cartoon.
Man, I’ll be lit up like a mantle
in a lantern soon.
Windfall clarity should scare me.
If I should flinch when I have by chance
An unscrambled avalanche
Doled out again as an hour old
Soulful pillow rain, I’ll miss when
The words come,
Spilling the spaces.
I ain’t nervous of naked undersurfaces.

1 DAWN

The fog fills & fits the branches lit by sunrise,
Cushioning, not drowning out
The birds unbound birdsong.
The mists, on & against objects, their lines
take shape in shifting light.
Like night, the wet air
fades & folds away,
blankets back into my chest.

Stoicism is a prison
Though I break out
Though I break down
Through the pull of a merciful act
Then I’m old and too weak to hold back


I can imagine a troubled
Panicicked angel tangled double;
One cat caught in a grate
A girl unfair in a wheelchair
Nears and dares her balance, her endurance, her tolerance
Strains all of her weight
Shows the pain that she’s used to on her face

Then relief, and they’re both free
She and the cat both refuse to
Cry more,
Like those that might see

Blind Pilgrim (Bound to Be)

…but from here; boxed baggage bin,
whatever vessel burning
Point on into blank, frigid forths.
Andever vexed in yearning.

Blind Pilgrims; taxed temporal thing
Kinshipbourne, trapped as my fathers.
Captive on this course, bound to be,
Forlorn, for treks on farther.




from years ago, for my Daddy

Breathing Exercises

She won’t roll away & not watch me.
Y’see, I won’t seem to take,
When I dream (or wake).
to take another breath before
The scene fades, before
lights go up
then down to more of a zoom.
She waits in our bedroom for me to resume.

II.
We went to go to a yoga class.
Where a barefooted, hairpleated group leader;
beautiful, and calmer than a
merciful last coma,
She insisted that our deep breath is
the gist of all of it (within, & out).
We rearrange the short & tall of it.
The Gist to change the depth, see,
of our sea of possibillity.
When we inhale
we rememorize our own gods.

We exhale our hell. barefoot. on a mat.
Whew. To that.

III.
When I get to go to the Gulf of Mexico
I’ll try out the drink, 1st thing.
I’ll try not to think when I try to let go
& sink when I deadman’s float all day,
into what I think of as a spiritual drift, in a way.
I’ll hold onto my breath,
face down,
head down.



from a sweeping turntable, 40 years ago, in the dark
“Breathe Deep
The gathering gloom
Watchlights fade from every room..”