Painting

A man rows a boat through a blue thigh.
A bird flies across the golden sky of a lover’s hair.
A dog barks at the absent yellow which he is.
White circumscribed circles float in celestial ultramarine:
Deep sea glimmered by dots which are the stars
Of her eyes. A tree takes root in the brown
Furrows of her hair;  the spotted cow stares.
A fish swims by.

Haiku

Passing in the park
I look down
But breathe her deeply.

Prayer

O Lord, let your will pass through my soul
As wind through a grove of straightly-planted olive trees
Full in their season; and the grape vines beyond them
In their time; and the barley, oats, and corn.

Let my wisdom grow fat like the cows which bellow
Into the deep valley where they daily graze
Which slants down to the river
From which we all drink.

Make my spirit fresh and young
As lambs when the lavender and juniper berries
Perfume the fields; let their peace be
My peace as their peace is thine.

Lament

Because my friends no longer want to hear,
And my mother does not believe me,
And my father cannot comprehend
That I am to the hilt in love

I’ve been conversing with the birds
& the wind, and the wind & the trees
And the trees & the sky and the sky
& the earth and now by God I know

That they understand — but alas!
They don’t know, and so here I lay
On this desolate island of love
All alone, not even You beside me!

Racetrack

In a town nearby where my parents grew up
There was a racetrack my dad would take my not-yet mother to;

He had a nice car, the kind you keep a picture of
Once you sell it after having your first child.

I’d go by the exit sometimes on the Interstate
After I’d left home for school and graduated

But have never stopped in a hundred times passing.
I’ve never heard the cars roaring around the track,

Never smelt the hot air ripe with rubber and hot dogs
With love’s butterflies fluttering inside me.

Just saw the old sign’s big red arrow growing grayer and grayer
Along the side of the road as I’d drive by.

After Issa

O you poet,
Walking about observing,
And eating
And drinking;

O you poet,
Wondering!
Sometimes pretending
People see you;

You Poet,
Rapscallion, Rascal —
Go catch a fish!
With your poem’s net.

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