the large moon waits hidden ringed
in thin clouds bright as wishing
itself the sun, full hung gorged in
a reflection of fire not its own
that blots out all but the brightest
points in a multitude that must be

in weather beyond this shell of air
objects shoot down hard and fast to earth
while the dog rummages, seeking outside
bushes sniffing licks of ooo yum yum
my neck strains looking backward and up 

averting from that fat moon glaring
so bright constellations washed out to
a hazy gray from that not moon's light
and what point might twinkle through
is blocked by artificial orange glowing
in giant domes thrown up by streets

I have come now to think that quaint
nature is no longer a question that possibility
might find with the light of television
holding in what small chance might escape

just the din of things that cause this
to be understood working to keep
an elevation to the practically real
where stars no longer can be seen

thoughts never spoken lie
between the made sheets
pressed, folded and carried
out the door into Autumn's
pointed leaves that float down
silent in unassuming reds
landing in wet stacks that slip
sometimes under shoe soles
with a start, caught balance
    no one there to see
but the sidewalk, counted
with each known crack.

In Autumn's air the sidewalk
path crackles with each step
as the wild path of a singular
lingering bee sluggishly flies
    in Winter air abuzz
around the bend with promises
of ice lake vistas just up ahead
sleek, flat and slick reflections
hearing the sharp, deep split
clear down to the liquid

the moment's buzz clearing the kid
with mittens claps while snow flies
chill to the face and a laugh or start
shocked with cold all bundled up

ii.

fire, held in a ring of stones, smoke
and stars through burnt seen in air
sound, natural in the evergreen wood
a wandering that might be placed

iii.

teas, me's, my little crumpet how deliciously
vexed in sanguine armaments you left such
good notes behind in Easter baskets strewn
in corners of walls like land mines never
meaning what folly happened to spring in

oh, the hints of puzzles and board games
moving speech squashed flat on floors
tingled at the entrance of an exit flourished
with all the gifts sliced from wins

iv.

Excavations needing
    to be filled
with no artifacts
    found on blocks
sun-baked lake beds
    cracked hard clay
a symbol of the Moon
    wedged on a monolith
black as day
    that fell

v.

sing ye yor supper blue coat
the bandage on the noggin
and bayonets the beauty as
the whittlin' round the songs

dustin' off the britches lad
you'll ramble back those trenches
on the mornin' come for better on's
an' whack against the day.

vi.

Skeleton stilts tip-toeing clickety
in the meat rumbled on along
down the street and bludgeoned
cuts of beef tender, thick full juice
rumbled on along the street

vii.

stumbled in the thicket fresh with bells
that held the skull fast as lines move in
and back out to each pine needle zinging
in the ring of tatters with fresh green
bursting in currents of scent lit bright
ice lakes and sands blessed to the feet
where no thing moves yet dreamed

a private wheel that turned within
while wanders on the land, showing
fields with feet and grunting meat
and lines within the skulls and lines
within the ribs unfurled that blew along
the tides where fishes wept the seas
on high that broke against the eyes

that broke against the bows astern
to splash upon the bridge and pulled
the feet back toward the deep where
few but fishes live. In air, salt spray
face and skin remembers all the songs
in waves beneath the sparkled light
that catches through the breeze

great waves beneath the light
that catches on the breeze

viii.

sandwich, knife clinks in jar
chew in the stare of kitchens

small houses tucked tightly
together with flags, big trucks
    giving me a friendly hello
    as I walk past children
playing in tiny yards shared
with neighbor yards and dog
barks trotting to and fro

the handsome man and son
on stilts with tools erecting tall
wooden fences looks down saying
“how's it going?” seeing semper fi
stickers on cars, trucks and homes

“hi” I say moving past a broken boat
paint chipped and weathered time
a mom chasing the screaming pink
ribboned floppy head of curls dog
bark with cars jacked up in grease
garage music motivating beers, caps
gasoline smells on wind with ribs
cooking on fire and roar of an engine
blasting to life with guttural cheers.

I walked far down through the new
tall boxed houses and their nice big
SUV's to get here, back in time to
reach the working class of grunts
whose decks and garage doors I
knew familiar as countless childhood
walks and rides through this same space
familiar as each turn in each paved path
the familiar houses filled with new
flesh on each familiar path, to know
the structures where strangers now live
each day of semper fi and flags, cracked
paint, the uniform sitting on the gold
couch through a picture window, behind
the carpeted cat climbing tree and dinner
their home cooked hamburger smell
somehow hitting hard like love can root

    and cry?

Ridiculous in the vicinity of faithful
like a breeze, raising the dead, in the center
of a nursery rhyme keg party where automatic
children, grown and raised on new heights
slide down, along the arms of a proud embrace

And me, in a crumbly dome, watching memory
through the sharp point of lives grabbed on
the stumbling grasps of what might be in
each house on these Suncrest streets, raised
in the odd manner which consumes itself
    little suns devoid of day
little suns in the yard that might not drop
to land upon the rails, driven east to claim
their fill: semper fidelis res mercatoris!

the simple flag unfurled the mind
and held it one by one, contented
flesh with a heart stopped strong
in the West, while setting, along

all the day I walked on mounds remembering
how this was, and is. and loved the box on
every plot save one where nothing lives
surmountable I called it, with a tricycle
by my side, and colored ribbons flashing
down besides the cement skies. surmountable
I called it on the breeze the dog breathed in
and fell in deeper wells of grief and loved
more than I lived. and loved the truck
with growing moss and grass astride its wheels,
the house of blue on brown-lined streets
    and the tall tree hung with mirrors
    flashing light that no one broke

You houses, you man in there, you woman
who come what may – you history! dream
and sullen stance alit along your way, bend
your ground to reigning winds and gather up
your days and give them all to flags and pens
then wish the night away. then wish your children
tall and strong to tower o're the world with
God to judge the righteous might instilled
in one by one. in one, by one, the ribbons fall
in colors round each sight while quiet still
the war inside, with little left to kill

protect me not from what is there but save me
from within; for love with grief grows bitter claws
that shred from outside in. and outside here
the wars begin before a shot is fired, poised
as uranium, balanced like books, on a ledge
between words and what is.

how I know
  what you feel
standing, talking
  to me standing
firm in the dreams we all share
but never a word driving back
to the world with innocent
truths revealed. but flags,
blowing on ways up top
wherever the foodpads may land
explains the silence you felt just then
when all I could do was stand

a smile not from a perch more tall
nor a bothersome way to move on,
but a gift that heard what you could not say
as your wondrous face blathered on.
a gift of nothing to have or hold,
like the mist of a spirit once known
    which called from afar, behind
    unremarked
in the grandeur of all that is small

The voice that says the same thing
wraps from all points convincingly
tying my forehead to clothes lines
sent out and along creaking pulleys
to flutter and bend in the wind
where cats leap with claws to climb
and a bird lands too late to see

The throngs of bees hidden inside
drawn briefly by garment scents
flitter and fleet briefly, then away

And all that was Heaven became
a dangling white T, flittering and
fleeting hanging by a clothes pin
like an icon in the yard adjacent to
the stained floor garage where
the voice cooed I just love
how your home smells like you.

The full fields of dandelions popped in ripples
as a breeze moves along strings producing
sounds vibrating as a single drone affixed
within the multitude of green blades each
one holding up a petaled face, round and
yellow centers with white light streams
flowing out in brief stubs for want, of trying
to reach what burns intimately far, away
past the chill, what was thought, was night
but merely turning; a flung axis caught
within the bend of actuality by gas and stone.

Fields affixed and flung of dandelions, each
vibrating in the blade of drones holding up
the yellow, stunted stubs in white briefs
trying intimately to reach past night the chill
of thought caught bending like strings in
streams of burning actuality turning upon
mere centers of stone that pop with sound
when ripples round the petals caught.

while above, flying over this ghost
the shriek of prey in line
topples the erstwhile scenery

And the bean maker arrived with cast
iron gills rummaging under his cowboy
hat around the train of wagon wheels
that cut and creaked in tracks, made
from the many settlers gone before now
dead along the plots in buried thickets
of bramble and mounds with little white
nameplates crossed as signs.

Spit on the ground the sizzle of beans
jeans stinking and adjust the crotch
technicians marveled the curious site
while collecting on their pay, the priests
in shambles foreclosed the night and bundled
up the day as magicians coiled the brandy sticks
while trotting amid their way. And beans smell
in the field reached out to gather up the ghosts
who passing through the cast iron clutched
nothing more to fill, above flying over
the prey lined sight, his hackles stirred
while fed the bean maker grizzled another
pump then headed off to bed. A thin spread
on blades beneath what never came to mind,
but did from bardic songs released in air
which wafted through his head, that wafted
under the frying pan he held for all
his worth and held his bedroll tighter still
within his turning world.

Dawn rose swift the priests might say
from what was turned away yet foreclosed
still in yellow pills the blood remained at bay
yet rising up from mounds of verse the cackles
and the sprigs, the forsworn gift of falling leaves
to point inside the dead, and dead not only
as coin rusts on to fill the hearts of men but dead
as voice in memories brings a life to all that's said
in memory of the gleaming fields that stumbled
from our chest and bitter deeds that made the day
when glory stooped to rest.