Month: May 2023

The invisible half-loop
Birds take
Just for swoop’s sake

The coaster stirs and shakes the glass
People over the swirling turns like liquid
That burns in the throat it tucks under
For possible Upchuck and wonder
At the heights the scintillating lights

The vexing thoughts while ascending the staircase raised cold sweat along the nape of his neck. A fortnight ago he’d received the Anonymous note, warning and calling doom upon him, for not attending to the “cursed spirit which shall arise in that damned place…was his family not dear to him?” In truth, there had been no stirrings or stiflings in this first week of inhabitance, only the creaks and settlings of such old abodes, and the note was an anomaly in the smooth transition from city to country life. Compelled, and then obsessed by it, he’d cleared his startled wife and children to a local inn, and now on the uppermost floor, the candle elongating shadows and his breaths quickening, he wondered what, in fact, he was (searching for). The wind beginning to whip up outside, the place groaned like a nettled giant. The nearest window, a subtle trick of shadow, or… he went to it, and a banshee howl when he reached the dim square. Upon the road below, obscured of face, a figure made a determined move toward the mass of tangled trees. The stranger, prickling his skin, was at least going away from the property and not skulking closer, but had he earlier been a-skulk?

To a crust
A la fungus and an alga
In which do you most trust
From fruticose
To structureless

From Brazil the papaya
Fresh to the nose in California
Like a phone but gentler on the ear
In Laos the hot spiced noodles
Sniffed in Tuscaloosa
The passages are clear

The ticket to the caged bear waggling in his hand
The bear waggling the hand with the sparkly ticket

Through puffs of cloud
And cloud shrouds
Past aimed birds
And forming showers
And the odd jumbo jet
P with wings and you not
In the mid day dream you’re caught
You’re in the office striking strange poses
And P has put you on notice.

Elaborate sunset
Whose Hues skew the shadows
To puzzle the night

Washcloths winked in wind
Sun stunned the maple and doe
Clouds descend, flags, poles

Mr. Walking Stick
Is missing
From his rounds
The streets have tipped
Him into a portal
His stick vanished
At a lightning strike
His cheerful monologues
Wiped from his script
His quick interactions
Between leg and
Swing
Gone poof
Now bounding instead
From roof to roof