The Wheat Walking

stretched out
    in the little green 
        valley, I look up 

hoping to glimpse 
    some wayfaring space dart
        from intergalactic outer reaches

I squint to see another fluctuating sun
pile driving the simplest meteor into the field

ejecting grain and husk 
    into the fertile cosmos, I pen a little hymn
        to fertility because I was there 

a witness, wild and pale, watching 
as earth’s seeds dispersed, germinating

in the imagination of cataclysmic winds
yielding a perfect temperature 
    of crumb and consciousness 
        a toast, please

raise your glass 
    to the bread 
        living among us

a whole wheat unleavened stalk 
of extraterrestrial man, 
    the universe’s bastard child

walking on water
figure skating in the suds

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dVerse ~ Poets Pub: Waiting on Wheat

Foundation

I dress myself as a deck of cards

and sit in your pocket, patiently

and taking stock, until you to need

to remember an action, even a small

gesture that resonates in that moment

where a decision crouches in a synapse

pick a card, any card, maybe I did right 

maybe I did it wrong, what else

can a father do but slam the door

on his house of cards, and instead

walk with you along the rocks 

on which to build your temple, to let you 

wander the cascading earth and choose 

the most beautiful hill on which to die

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Weekly Scribblings #34: Foundation

Amplified

(ending with a line by Janis Joplin)

You know me, I’ve never been one 

to just stand, I am your

co-conspirator, your willing slave 

greedy for your voice, I’ve been 

in the thick of it, shaken

rattled, rolled, your cigarettes 

snuffed on my face, I’ve been stuffed 

down your pants, swung in frantic circles 

over screaming crowds, soaked in sweat and beer 

dangled from the stage while you stomped 

triumphantly out of the light, my abandoned cord 

splayed out on the stage like an 

exhausted EKG, a topographic 

map for your wild night  

faithfully, again, I am 

    here before you, ready 

        to be used, spit on

    

show me your teeth and slap me

against your thigh, tell me 

I’m ugly, I’m ready to swallow 

    screams for dinner 

I’m thirstier than your punctured vein, fill me up 

    come on, come on, 

        come on and take me 

pull me up to your mouth and break 

another piece of my heart now, baby

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Weekly Scribblings #33: “swallow screams for dinner”

Another Ode to Joy

“O friends, no more of these sounds!

Let us sing more cheerful songs”

O friends, with the might 

of your cheeks, snuggle in 

you’re all dolls

the good ones 

whose lips soften as your minds 

go blanket, this, you can take to the bank 

be it off the backboard, Deutsche, of America, or river 

a blanket check is better 

than a blank wish or a chill swish 

on any Elysian Field

a gentle fire-inspired force

fired point blanket 

into the chest, but what is sleep 

if not a putting green for death’s wide pasture 

what is an ode to joy if not a blanket canvas, a swaddle 

a kiss with a thread count, a yarny fringe to tickle 

out a blanket look on your cheerful face

draw a blanket up so wonderfully tight 

that “even the worm

can feel contentment,” call the others 

the cherubim, seraphim, principalities, and sleepless tweeters

phone your friends, sneak some fiends between the sheets 

the great commission compels you 

to go forth and make disciples 

of all nations until we fill 

in the blankets, let your love 

stare your enemies down with 

a blanket look, oooh

that quilted downy 

of angelic down, come hither 

into a blanket stare, let us stare 

into each others’ eyes and drift together

until our thoughts go blanket, no greater love 

that humans hath than we lay down blankets 

for friends and frenemies  

and open the expansive heart 

to all blankety blank blanks

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Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 535 Write a blanket poem

A Poem

the blood grew violent 

in the seeded pear, trillions of mysteries 

coalesced into form 

if there was a word 

that became flesh, it was shine or glory 

or let’s flower 

let’s generate power like magnolias 

blooming among the minefields 

and like that, a pencil 

worked under furious light, thoughts 

stirred in the cranial womb, vigilant

for the right milk, the exact pond 

feeding so many villagers already  

the air clung unnatural, and then 

there you were, among sassafras and existence

taking in the odors of ink and dust 

the sober architecture of stanzas stiffening

 

until we were strong enough 

to vandalize the night 

with a first read, a privilege  

to praise your exodus 

from this bag of electric salt

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Weekly Scribblings #32: I Am Explaining A Few Things

Sleepless

 At 2 am, the dog is forensically psychic

and incessant, her bite is fictitious, 

but her imagination is vicious, she barks

the unholy host of demons back down

into the pits, she barks the pandemonium

of javelina and roof rats into the abyss

her triggers are epically mundane, she suspects

that somewhere on this earth there is starlight

 

on an abandoned bride, I try to convince

her that this is not true, but she insists Jack Cooley 

is leaving the hospital in his underwear, she insists 

that an insomniac is about to post 

a poor translation of Li Po, she insists

a negligent motel is announcing a vacancy 

that is not there, somewhere in America 

an overburdened student is plagiarizing 

a paragraph on excessive use of force, 

a warehouse worker is attempting to lift a box 

without squatting, all her 2 am remonstrations

are warranted, and she will not stop

until Lady Macbeth’s damn spot is out

 

she will not stop 

while all these atoms spin, every 

whirling speck of 2 am dust needs a warning

she is convinced that all those roots of evils 

are winding up a wild pitch, and where they land 

may be a crapshoot, but should they 

land outside the window, she will be there 

on the precipice of the couch, growling 

at dangling air, that growl is real

 

and bottomless, she insists 

her concealed carry nip and gnash 

and canine vigilance keeps the devil

in the street, revving his engine

and readying a quick escape 

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Writer's Digest: Bottomless

Rolling in the R of Morning

slippers like rabbits 

rubbing their daybreak eyes 

a quick swipe of toothpaste 

across my teeth, coffee darker 

than the curling maw of mother universe 

guess who’s spinning La Vida 

Es Un Carnaval to stir 

the house, that’s me 

walking backwards 

through the kitchen, kicking 

out my hips, the early working 

before work, all the meds 

down in a one-gulp conga line 

if you’re at the fence line and squint,

you’ll see me catwalking to the chicken coop

if I stop, it’s because I’m thinking

of painting the gas tank trumpet gold

greedy for the moment, Midas-handed me 

grabs the first cool eggs, open-robed 

and unashamed, I turn to the moon, God help me 

the moon, reader forgive me

the moon, there’s nothing left 

to write about it, it’s just that 

old Celia Cruz moon 

going cha-cha-cha 

behind a shimmying curtain

_______________________________________

Weekly Scribblings #31: What Makes You Smile?

The Mend

how could I not be here, in this moment watching the other bank and seeing myself beside my ghost I could not miss this birth, a bubbling celebration as wide as geology space, I tell my ghost is spacious, it is not empty at all

just a thin water, where the two of us can wade in its mossy arteries casting a black gnat, waltzing the rod, mending our line we let our fingers read the buoyant forms, it’s the beauty of an esophagus, oxygen rolling rapids, the slow flow flagellating the smoothest stones I have a strange power, just lying there with my ghost, a perfect rainbow zipping my mud rigid muscles storm clouds stagger over the valley a final twitch sets the hook the catch in my valves flops from the net my ghost, grips it through my chest the filament unspools, our wilderness is at hand, I pass it off the water breaks over us my ghost is wet and new