No Pollock emotions

No Pollock emotions

Ebbing like a Rothko

The pulling of the moon

And the slow letting go

Tender in dissections 

Discovering the new

And kindness to others 

On their own avenue

We are all grains of sand

We are all grains of sand
Beached by infinity
Consoling our wash-up
With false divinity

Paradise promises
Extra eternity
Grandiose glory for
Garbage atrocity

Acorns on maple trees

Acorns on maple trees
Tulips blooming on vines
Fascination for strange
Curvatures on straight lines

Exclamation points and
The bolder question mark
Oddities of nature
Simply become trademark

These words are not my voice

These words are not my voice
Which defies description
Forty-eight syllables
Are not my inscription

Life must be lived between
Each poignant graffiti
Many verbs and verbal
Unpoetically

Don’t toss my Renascence

Don’t toss my Renascence
Or mislay my Millay
My words are not Saintly
But Vincent every way

I’m not hearing echoes
Hand me down poetry
Indexed or referenced
Touted as scholarly

February 14th

February 14th
In a New York tower
With snow blowing upward
Like a Queen Anne flower

City that never sleeps
Merely taking a nap
While draped on its shoulders
A snowy cashmere wrap

No love for our garden

No love for our garden
Even daisies are flawed
No path to the future
The river never thawed

A symbol of pure joy
A juicy summer peach
Denied as if it were
A bloody sucking leech

Winter has no vengeance

Winter has no vengeance
It's nothing personal
It's not a response with
An icy arsenal

Cold weather by nature
Can put us in our place
But it takes permission
To surrender your grace

Finishing the puzzle

Finishing the puzzle
An incredible twist
Given there are pieces
Concealed within your fist

A simple equation
Two plus two equals four
But you had us thinking
A little less or more

This is not quantity

This is not quantity
Just a thought for the day
A daily record of
My internal brain wave

Or the pause of the heart
As it reaches conclusions
New and often diverse
A granular profusion

The past is just absence

The past is just absence
Vacancies without time
Empty conch shell echoes
Umbra shadows in mime

Letting go of others
Into the vast abyss
Continuing to bloom
Until the last dehisce

In the middle of blank

In the middle of blank
Without derivative
Void of influence or
Object initiative

Vocabulary lust
The conception of new
In spaces created
By thoughts becoming skew

Here, a busy corner

Here, a busy corner
That leads to streets and streets
Until we leave the town
And the next one repeats

And then to an ocean
A continent, an Earth
And a moon and some stars
And still it is a dearth

Days braiding as braids are

Days braiding as braids are
Unraveling undone
Sunrises becoming
Rays of a setting sun

Strong anticipation
Then slowly the descent
Once at the beginning
Looking back at what’s spent

This toothpick poetry

This toothpick poetry
Emotions caught in teeth
Remnants left behind by
Life currents underneath

Or fragments of fighting
And flapping sail cloth shreds
Of dreams billowed, broken
Some did's and some instead's

I thought of you today

I thought of you today
With great love and meaning
Validating actions
While we are careening

Our fates are forfeiting
The fortunes of future
Solid separation
Without stitch or suture

This injury is not

This injury is not
Mine, yet I feel the hurt
Full knowing that it is
Not me who lost their shirt

Emotions grow taller
At the end of a race
So many laps to go
Re-calibrate my pace

There's no more to be said

There's no more to be said
We are here, the past dead
The narcissist unfed
Our spoons empty and still

To turn our back and break
New directions to take
Happiness, piece of cake
On birthdays or at will

Putting myself in check

Putting myself in check
Self-imposed comeuppance
Stop polishing the coins
Worth only a tuppence

Getting back in line and
Finding an inner grace
The World keeps on spinning
As I stand in one place

This fighter takes punches

This fighter takes punches
Tidal wave, tornado
No calmness in the sea
Not a couch potato

Fighting battle fatigue
No want of surrender
Principles cannot be
Reduced to cold embers

Euphoric happiness

Euphoric happiness
Like breathing in thin air
Seeing mirages and
An oasis not there

Down off the mountain peak
A broken legged goat
Back in the village in
The reality moat

Bruising my own ego

Bruising my own ego
Leaking dirigible
Accepting errors my
Anger is terrible

Eating my words sandwiched
Between slices of irk
Trying to right a wrong
But just being a jerk

Effortless happiness

Effortless happiness
Growing wildly in fields
Spreading strawberries with
Over abundant yields

With grasshoppers hopping
And butterflies flying
Happiness is sprouting
Without even trying

I dream of these moments

I dream of these moments
As far apart as stars
Wishing they were notes played
In three quarter time bars

Feeling the ebb of grace
That departs in a bolt
A car honk, a question
A new thought, a leg jolt

In the smallest of small

In the smallest of small
Where echoes end their call
Where generations fall
There is a mark in time

All of us together
No matter the whether
With or without tether
In the height of our prime

The future always waits

The future always waits
Beginnings have to start
To finish the purpose
Complete or al la carte

The inevitable
A New Years’ rotation
A question to answer
A sure invitation