Meditation on Form (poem)

                                            --for Caitlin Thomas

So you would have us boom, then, the word
Inarticulate, and howl the moon--indeed,
Whisper magic, hymn the song most inward
To the cliff-limned voicings of this morning's sea;
But sons of man amid the ceaseless churning
Of these ever-becoming tides, you'd yet have us write
The notes of time's tuneless turning,
Inscribe the stops that play out our light.

But outside, through rain-soiled panes, I see
Her poised, her diver's plumbed touch cleave the wind,
And find tongue stopped as I strain to read
Her outflung form with sun and sea contend.

The light belied, mute black signs encrypt the dawn;
The night denied, frail white hands shape this song.

The Lovers (poem)

Nude, she leads him to her garden green,
Her upturned face, her eyes, sustaining lights
Where fiery fruits are born incarnadine.

What matters that flesh should act the libertine,
Its ephemeral grasp so graspingly infinite?
Nude, she leads him to her garden green.

For our play is but passion's purple, amaranthine,
Is but a green, green dance of mortal delight
Where fiery fruits are born incarnadine.

So let us play our hearts' tamborine
And thrum the limbs' strings far into the night:
Nude, she leads him to her garden green.

For when sybarites sate into epicenes,
Then comes the genesis of some second sight
Where fiery fruits are born incarnadine,

So you will take my hand, and your sybilline
Touch feel out our soul, the hermaphrodite:
Nude she leads him to her garden green
Where fiery fruits are born incarnadine.

Danse Macabre (poem)

We were an unlikely pair:  you, quite declasse
   In your faded and dingy red sweatsuit;
Me, hardly more upright, it being a Friday.
   But owing to some noblesse oblige,
   Perhaps a fawning desire to please
Yourself, it could be--no matter, by streetlight
You asked me in silence to a most private soiree.
   Imagine my shock, feelings of dis-ease,
Imagine my face bathed in a surreal light:
   But insist you did sous la lune.

"Gimme all yo' money," is what you said.
   "What?" I answered most civilly.
"Gimme yo' fuckin' money," now angrily.
    "What??" I can't believe I said.

"This is a motherfuckin' gun,"

   you flashed it at me,
"Gimme all yo' fuckin' money,
    or I'll shoot you dead."
"What!??" (oh god) is what I said.

And so we began our intimate dance,
   Joined at the hands by a chrome-
Plated wish:  we whirled, twirled, and pranced.
   By streetlight we danced a pas de deux,
   Violently graceful beneath that moon,
And awaited one sound to extinguish the night.
Too rudely, perhaps, I broke our embrace
   And ran for the warmth of a well-lit room.
You walked away, chrome in hand, some benighted
   Suitor, tres triste et seul.