EVOLUTION

 The dream of universe

Is filled with shoals of stars

That caress

With fingers of gravity

Light years long.

In qualities more compact,

Strands of thought pull softly

Through the dream.

Chromas of love and hate

And curiosity

Become textured rainbows,

Colored smokes, twirling tornados,

Dancing miasmas, rolling fogs

That change and spin and change again

And coalesce to flicker

Into you and me,

Momentarily,

And then roll on, roll on

In waves of multitudes

Streaming out in threads of strangeness

So bizarre

As to crack to dust

The memory of us

That no longer resonates

Through the corridors of reality.

TOUCH

 These fingers touch the world for me.

They know the feel of bark.

They know a tree from head to knee

But cannot know a park.

They communicate with leaves and grass

Within a six foot reach

But great plains are truly strange

As is a glowing beach.

Whose parts like shells and sand and wet

Can nest into my palm

Which tells me sharp or smooth or cold

But nothing about young or old,

Or when the sun has set.

For this they whisper in their night

For knowingness from brother sight

SHORN

 At birth we are capacities untried.

Nature prunes off potentialities.

Our culture directs where effort is applied

To create subsets of realities.

But deep within us lies machineries

To plug into the strange pariah world

Where people sprout, like plants, with greeneries

And ideas snap like silver flags unfurled.

Here do dragons prowl through golden caverns

And starships sail through orange colored skies

While knights and elves sport in smoky taverns

And all dark corners harbor wild surprise.

Society constrains to mundane ends,-

Confers a job, a family and friends

SPELUNKING THE PSYCHE

 All hard lines, strong shapes

Bright colors, make escapes

To leave remains behind closed lids.

Dark sparkles, vague circles, pyramids

And glaucus forms that shimmer, shake

To part and make the path to snake

In tempting curves that beckon in -

Into miasmas, rubbled trails, widdershin

In halls of bone where eyes, where touch,

Where sound and smell sum to not much

To orient direction. Palaces of psyche here

Erect their towers. Powers form and disappear.

We have arrived at the gates

Where mind mingles with the fates.

Threads of silver, threads of gold,

Threads of diamond strung to hold

Baskets of conception, full

Of dripping luscious fruits that pull

Forth visions ...blues and reds and greens,

Subtle shades, inbetweens

Encasing passions, joys and frights,

Sleepy loves, circus sights,

Twirling parasols and braying beasts,

Horrid things at nauseous feasts,

Dusty sawdust , acrid smells,

Crunchy berms of peanut shells.

Stacks of baskets packed with stones,

With crystal shapes, jagged bones,

Where shafts of light spear the air,

Ricochet in facet glare,

Speed away into sensation,

Pain diffused to adumbration,

Hints of chaos, hints of hell,

Cacophonic ringing bell

Tolling failure, soft confusion,

Flabby thoughts, odd illusion.

Sliding shapes, found or flat...

Not quite this, nor even that.

Susserations hiss the walls.

Spectral sounds, muffled calls

Echo in, echo out,

Boosting murmurs to a shout.

Away from sounds, around the bend,

Tentacles of stench extend

And split and subdivide

To where fragrances reside.

Filaments of succulence

Explode to flocculence

Of dripping luscious fruits that pull

Forth visions ...blues and reds and greens,

Subtle shades, inbetweens

Encasing passions, joys and frights,

Sleepy loves, circus sights,

Twirling parasols and braying beasts,

Horrid things at nauseous feasts,

Dusty sawdust , acrid smells,

Crunchy berms of peanut shells.

Stacks of baskets packed with stones,

With crystal shapes, jagged bones,

Where shafts of light spear the air,

Ricochet in facet glare,

Speed away into sensation,

Pain diffused to adumbration,

Hints of chaos, hints of hell,

Cacophonic ringing bell

Tolling failure, soft confusion,

Flabby thoughts, odd illusion.

Sliding shapes, found or flat...

Not quite this, nor even that.

Susserations hiss the walls.

Spectral sounds, muffled calls

Echo in, echo out,

Boosting murmurs to a shout.

Away from sounds, around the bend,

Tentacles of stench extend

And split and subdivide

To where fragrances reside.

Filaments of succulence

Explode to flocculence

Which shock through inhibitions

To reminiscent exhibitions

Where shattered memories clatter to the floor.

Sludges of nostalgia to shuffle through, ignore.

The final destination disolves in fuzzy mist

For the locus of the self, a point, does not exist.

It=s thoroughly distributed,

The sum of all contributed.

A holographic spatter

Of activated matter

That cannot be dissected

From the meat where it=s erected.

So we tumble back out into the Sun

Not far from the point where we=ve begun.

NOCTURNE

 When Earth dons

Night=s black helmet

With the heavy sunball

Swinging from the chinstrap

In pursuit of tomorrows

Expectations, hopes and deaths,

Half the world lies paralyzed in dreams.

Silver moonshafts fall

Through sieves of black leaves

Transforming all familiar things

To shapeless threats that clothe themselves

In myths; specters, bloodsucking ghouls,

Dark predators of tooth and claw,

Icy souls yearning for life=s heat.

Then emerge the tiny furry beasts of timidity,

Sharp spears of fear

To garner crumbs of sustenance

In midnight mini-mayhem.

Round yellow eyes and green lumenescences

Comet through the black.

Hooked claws on whooshing wings

Zero in on buzzing trails.

Furious, the tumbles of pursuer and pursued

>Til morning=s thumb tilts back

Night=s helmet to the raucous cries

Of birds in symphony,

Lullaby to things of night.

NIGHTMARE

 Gargoyles from the sea come in

And drift the streets at night.

With iron claws and dripping jaws

And eyes all milky white,

Their freezing breath

Is plain pure death

Committed in low moans

To terrify and petrify

Down to the blood and bones.

Their shadows fall on walk and wall.

They sniff for warm red blood

To liquify and purify

Their veins, which run with mud

All full of worms and stinking germs

Mixed with pus and piss

Which make the gargoyles itch and twitch.

  They breathe in rasping hiss.

  Into the cellar windows crawl

  Or lie flat on the lawn,

  Waiting with their white spark eyes

  Until the gray of dawn.

  Then, slowly, dribble back again

  To depths beneath the waves

  To wait the rise of night and dark

  In murky deep sea caves.

WEDNESDAY

 The middle of the week

Wherein I balance on one foot

On the crack, the leak

Where past dribbles into future

And entropy sucks life

From activity. This suture

Healing memory to possibility

So compacted failures might

Form nourishment for hopes

To solidify my life to something bright.

Today a meteor, a diamond big

As a cabbage should come to fly

In my back yard to swipe a tree and dig

Itself half down to wink at me with stony eye.

Today I shall discover bumps upon my shoulder blades

Which undoubtedly will presage further sprout

And, in short time, to accolades,

Full blown wings will pop out

Today a knock upon my front door

Will announce a gorgeous girl who smiles

And indicates that I qualify, more

Than adequate to match her sexy wiles.

Today my local community will phone

To appoint me as their sage,

Offer me a seat in Congress where, alone,

I can lead my constituents to a golden age.

Today fourteen big eyed aliens will land

And offer me to be ambassador

To the galaxy. With friendly tentacles to my hand

We seal the deal and they depart in rocket roar.

The day is closing down.

I sit here to fiddle with my computer.

Nothing of immense renown

Could be muter.

Soon Thursday will emerge

Stifling the Wednesday manic.

One cannot stem time=s surge.

But still, no need to panic.

Wednesday awaits a week from now.

Who knows what it might endow?

FALL, HELSINKI

 The first cool hint of winter

Came this Sunday morning

From a pale blue sky

To shine

With lemon light on yellow leaves

And fire up maple reds.

It jostled stiff brown stems

To rustle in the flower beds.

So frail and shy a creature

With the slightest touch

Transmutes the summer=s feature

By not much -

In such a gentle evil way

One does not even quail

To feel the softest brush

Of faint death=s tail.

Has this ghost pupa hatched

From out the extra hour

Set to sleep through summer

From the Spring?

Or merely tipped and spilled

From Time itself

Which wobbles

With the planet=s bobbles

In its sunswept swing?

 No matter.

Transparently

It glitters in the weakened sun

To stiffen out its membranes

With their needle spines.

Cooling breezes tease away

The heat of summer

Shed like a sunburned skin

To sweep like flying silken scarves

Far down to Africa.

It needs three months

To gnaw away the green to brown

And brown to black,

To fill its lungs with poison cold and ice

And crack the shell of life,

To spill the snow with frozen birds

And mice

And etch its black-white artistry

On dead gray clouds.

A moon-white sun

Awaits for when

The Earth slides down its path

To certain rendezvous with life

Begun again.

TAKE-OUT

 AI want,@

He said,

AWhen I

Am dead

To be most neatly kept.

My eyes

Just closed,

My frame

Relaxed

Just as if I slept.@

AAll rot

Must cease.

I=ll pay the fees.@

He cried, like King Canute.

AFor I must freeze

At two degrees

Cryogenic absolute!@

So, sure enough

His friends

Did stuff

Him in a vacuum bottle.

Stiff and blue

Was their last view,

With a cork stuck in his glottal.

The Sun

Did burn,

The Earth

Did turn

Two hundred million spins,

While time

Did pass,

Beneath the grass

Where our frozen friend still grins.

As species must,

Mankind was dust,

But mind must have a site.