Glancing at appeals from other people's castaways
dropped in bottles of scatter-shot vernacular 
afloat in oceans of debris, 
I look for the cord to cut, the sharpened edge,
the subtle, yet heavyweight response,
the sort of shit those 'gentle-guys' 
used to fight over, but stylishly, 
no blood on the page. 
 
Happily I think of thee,
dear immortal of that special company,
visionaries of earthly visions, 
mere blood on the page, no lace on the throat,
pistols drawn half a universe away
and discharged into the cosmos.
 
07.25.20
                        

The lament of the ages, and the aged,
the slender veneer of capability in which 
so many, nearly all, found the natural state of id (or itch)
Name and number, recorded in the vital stats,
wearing the clothes of fashion, birth ties, and tinted hat,
Ideas of sober, sweat of earth, greeting sweet,
Borrowed memes, re-gifted, wrapped up in a tweet —
Hey, Honey, get a load of that!
 
The turn that comes when nature looks away,
nobody left attending to your cracks
They smile and turn aside, and fashionably sway
like creatures withdrawn from sale, that time attacks 
Those that live longest are slowest to change
Finding all about one transformed, demented, and passing strange. 
 
07.26.20
                        

Your gentle flutes, 
oh, too gentle for what we know of you
here on earth beneath your scorching eye 
How the wind blows! the rain lashes! 
We beg for your peace, implore the god of Weather,
that unending scroll of profane Revelations,
for the mercy of your milder face  
not only for mariners naked in the vulnerability 
of all who cannot walk on water,
 
but those who live by sewing life 
into the earth, and pray for rain, 
     but not too much,
who feed grass to beasts, dread bugs, pick infested leaves
off tomato plants,
Sing "Glory in the Morning" to Morning Glories 
Escape the heat in river sloughs,
Hunger for shorelines, 
for shallows lacking all creatures 
    that sting or bite,
Secure their harvests, their orchards, their vines, 
their trees with paper spells
     purchased from witch doctors 
 
Inspect their animals for signs of plague 
Protect their children from signs of plague 
Lift their prayers to the skies, 
stuff raspberries into the freezer 
when the growing is good
and fill all the world's vases, old wine bottles, occasional canteens, 
     and other vessels 
with the severed stems of beautiful things 
that cannot in the nature of things — 
     in the Nature of anything —
endure 
 
But listen! Listen to this fluted voice
of the praise singer,
Think of red fruit, and the dried and frozen sustenance of 
     winters, all those other days, 
those other seasons, 
when the sweetest song — song of fluted praise... 
floats immaculately away
 
*After Peter Kater's "Summer," in a version heard on Spotify  
08.05.20