Dream beetle; draft #3

And I sit on dry turf
sinking into the hillside's fair chalky meadow
dry summer day clouds
mixed crimson magenta and for months ash masked sunsets the world over.
My minds eye sees beetles burrowing through the dung of my dreams
metallic rose and black carapace
mandibles grind rock to dust
palpi feel for food and digest
stone-dust their waste back-filling tunnels
like analid these anthropods mix like no sex does.

I now know as no sense can tell:
sun enriches skin vitamin D
eyeballs turn back toward brain
eyelids flutter as the butterfly
and like Chuang-Tzu before me
beauty amazes confounds confuses amuses,
but leaves ever after an awe of the unknown.

Dream beetle; draft #2

I sit on the dry turf
sink into hillside's fair chalky meadow
dry summer day clouds mixed crimson magenta
and for months ash masked sunsets the world over.
My minds eye sees beetles burrowing through the dung of my dreams
crimson and black carapace
mandibles grind even rock to dust
palpi feel for food and digest
stone-dust their waste back-filling tunnels
like analid these anthropods mix like no sex does.

I now know as no sense can tell:
sun enriches my skin with vitamin D
eyeballs turn back toward my brain
eyelids flutter as the butterfly
and like Chuang-Tzu before me
beauty amazes confounds confuses amuses,
but leaves ever after an awe of the unknown.

Dream beetle

To relax I sit on the dry turf
sink into hillside's fair chalky meadow
dry summer day clouds mixed crimson magenta
an ash tinted sunset for months the world over.
My minds eye sees beetles burrowing in the dung of my dreams
and their mandibles even rock grinds to dust
their palpi feel for food and digest
stone-dust their waste back-filling tunnels
like analid these athropods mix like no sex does.

I now know like no sense can tell:
and as the sun enriches my skin with vitamin D
my eyeballs turn back toward my brain
eyelids flutter as the butterfly
and like Chuang-Tzu before me
beauty amazes confounds confuses amuses,
but leaves ever after an awe of the unknown.

A letter I need to send (from rhyming exercise)

I pretend to have a letter I need to send
and though writing is not a sin
heaven forfeits what it does not let in;
letter written in blood if I was anemic I'd been dead long since.

Everything's still the same
even when we change the rules or dress up the name:
society maimed made lame
no one and everyone is to blame
even though he never came.

In unison they swing their canes
dapper dressed they walk along
one way while our lives wind
not as a literal time-piece
but as wisps of wind that catch your face
and bring relief on a hot day.

In this autumn month (from Brainstorm #1)

In this autumn month
eyes gaze through thin window pane
down leaf strewn street
and scattered about rags plastic bags butts discarded wrappers
black gum-tar stuck everlasting a polka dot distraction
faded beer cans smashed flat like aluminum paper.

In this autumn month
eyes gaze through cracked window pane
unable to stop the loud sound
of other people's matters late into the night
lost at sea must be seen to believe but invisible to most:
like the late night moan of the trolley
letting the whole house know the weekend schedule of the number ten.

In this autumn month
eyes gaze through the thin veil of window pane
farsighted I bare witness to the long and slow groan
of earth's internal clock tearing a hole through space and time
seeping into living matter and finding its way into
blood choked scream screened streets
that are rivers in our lives.

Cicada's Song; Draft #3

Cicadas sing the clack and click of timbals,
a cacophony for hot summer days
when sticky sweat runs down slippery backs.

timbals buckle out bend back in,
dispersing a shaking sound as of rattles
the noise rising and falling like
deep and repeated knife stabs,
unending even deep past dim light into night
descending out from trees off into humid and misty airs over fields
of sword grass grown fat off flood plain waters.

And thus the male hearkens to its mate,
and screaming at me through ossicle and cochlea
he becomes proof positive:
time plays out moment by moment,
burdens are rewards all their own,
and the cicada's empty rust-colored shells shed
symbolic carcass an ironic but muted reminder of the cycle of life.

Brainstorm #1

Eyes gaze through window pane and down
street strewn with leaves in this autumn month
street littered with discarded wrappers and wasted human lives.

Eyes gaze through window pane and across
homes sittings on low hills slanted doorways
witness to the hard crunch of modern lives
for people that do not breathe the clean air
for people that do not breathe the free air
for others that do not share a sense of home,
lost in a sea that I see but is invisible to most.

Eyes gaze through window pane and far off
men strong and brave and men weak and timid
stand along side each other and and share in the contempt
that has been building in the sum of living matter in the sum of human thought
in the the blood choked scream screened streets that are rivers
in our lives.

Rhyming Exercise #1; Draft #3

I pretend to have mail I need to send
and though this is not a sin
heaven forfeits what it does not let in.

Everything's still the same
even when we change the rules or dress up the name:
societies maimed made lame
no one and everyone is to blame
even though he never came.

Together and at once swinging their canes
dapper dressed walking one way:
our lives wind away not as literal time-pieces
but as wisps of wind that catch your face
and bring relief on a hot day.