Even Charon on the grift –
pennies in the eyes to die 
were fool's gold –
no more scrimping off deadbeats,
no hustling poor-mouth shades 
in their scarecrow burial suits:

The Lethe now full Disney,
theme park’d thrills and chills –
the Daredevil, the Hellfire, the Screamer –
"Look ma! No hands!" 
Folks can't get enough.
Grab a BeelzeBurgerTM with cheese.

One more time, pretty please?
Lucifer's Crash Cars, the Dirt Nap Fun House –
"Step right up!" – midway shooting galleries 
with rapid-fire, drop clip nightclubs –
and over here: nine-layer Inferno Sundaes,
sno-cones cold and blue as lips.

When night falls, take the River Ride.
Premium death wishes 
and first class cabins on the boat,
or just fly over private jet –
enjoy casket-strength bourbon
chilled with whisky bones.

Oh Miyata, Miyata my love,
you can't take it with you, no.
I've called for your car,
and filled your marble suite with roses.
Your chauffeur holds his cap out
for a tip.

I'm so sorry, your purse is empty –
the white one you never used
from the bottom dresser drawer.
The driver will take a kiss in lieu –
Your mouth, a burnt offering.
Your eyes, payment in ash.

The Sunday Muse

Throwing a clay 
pot 
is how you stick your 
thumb 
in the world's muddy 
eye 

Yeah, smash it down 
good 
grind it in and let the earth 
turn 
you're a weird little angry 
god 

There you go, that feels 
better 
now right? Scrap it all and start 
over 
just like poems, better luck next 
time 

So here goes: I pound it 
flat 
and scrape in a gyre of 
grooves 
with my unclipped finger 
nails 

welcome now please the 
crow 
to drop its beak down a record 
player 
and caw, claw us all back 
to kingdom come

The Sunday Muse

Trio for Cello

(Musician Conspicuously Absent)

The Bow

I am high-strung of horsehair,
racehorse-quivering, all nerves in the gate, 
this quarter-horse no quarter nor quarter note
but eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second, 
galloping sixty-fourths furlong over furlong
into a split finish –
curry me with favor or I will buck and whinny 
across your course of notes


The Strings

Yes, yes, I hear you say catgut is passé,
yet you want purr and yowl,
and when plucked hear a lion provoked –
then lay your finger lightly on my neck,
grimalkin vibrato or black cat magic
might be yours, become a familiar –
would you trade your soul
for this taut beauty? 


The Cello

My ribs were bent in heat
on hard forms, my chest carved
spruce as if the jackknife of lovers
on my bark were not enough, love's idea
chiseled by steel deeper and rounder until
you say this shape will carry song, 
this will make a moan for two
lying under the branches

The Sunday Muse

She said to me: "your ode to the moon 
is a bird pecking frantically 
at light in a dirty puddle – 
futile but for its shit on the pavement, 
which was at least warmer and brighter, 
than anything you had to say." 

And I turned the words over in my hand – 
what I had imagined was a sparrow – 
was indeed without life, 
its fluttering not a heartbeat nor untested wings, 
but the wind blowing scraps of fortune cookie tropes 
from the empty nest of my pages. 

The terrible sound that followed – 
like endless boxcars empty of thought 
rattling across the plains – 
the sky a million points of darkness 
as locusts of Haiku descended, ravaging 
and leaving only stubble in their wake.

The Sunday Muse

Fun Facts in today's paper,
an obituary from 125 years ago –
one Lottie Porte , 21,
"for whom the Angel of Death 
has brought her spirit welcome release."

I think yes, that is it, exactly,
no soft "passing" –
when I go, leave me to a winged avenger
with her flaming sword,
my mortal coil severed at a stroke.

Do not then write about me gently –
leave my shadow spiked
on the sharp hands of midnight, 
my last hours and minutes 
spear tips pointed to the sky.

Thank you Lottie, may you rest in peace,
you lead me to the gate
where a language of dying swings –
leave me now to mourn and grieve
the loss.  

The Sunday Muse

Spring – what a comedian! 
warms up on stage,
daffodils crack like a joke
through gaps in the pavement.

We wait for it –
but today's punch line
a slagging, obscene wind –
the crowd boos.

Gardens are a three-ring spectacle –
clown cars of tulips fill the planters,
roses snap their whips
in hoops of flame.

Soon the flying trapeze
and magic act of Summer –
'til then I rest my head
in the jaws of tiger lilies.

The Sunday Muse

Narrator:    qbit, yours truly, marking his morning rounds of the salt marsh
Chorus:      A pair of steel-rimmed spectacles



Lightning cracks one hundred years of sky –
The faraway docks of Gothenburg 
		                                                   are made of stone, made of stone
                                                                  its boats are moored to iron rings
	
So lightning goes to ground
		                                                          comes around, comes around
                                                                     and ground returns to lightning
	
Finally then at sea, mornings
among the deck hands calling 
		                                                        back and forth, back and forth
	
Gulls suspended off the bow where you stood,
fly neither forward nor back,
		                                       waves are waves are waves are waves
	
A century's wind holding them in place –
over the harbor I watch them marking time
		                                    neither sky nor water have that answer

I turn from the ocean to a path of hard bounty –
stone and sand held out to you,
simple dirt floor of the world
		                                                this was known, this was known
	
Poems in your journal untranslatable, yet 
I carry them with me still,
and mine, a stranger has put to wind 
of foreign tongues
		          Iceland come, Croatia come, Kurdistan come, and on
		            to the East, to the West, North wind, the Southerlies

Heirloom flowers that grow from gristle and tendon
		                                                 blow like seeds, blow like seeds
                                                                                  from across the ocean

Could you have known then,
Could you have known

one day my hands 
would be so cold?

The Sunday Muse

it doesn't work that way unless you grab the lead gull's beak and pull until a thousand wings unzip the sky, thin air parted from blue waves split along a conga flight-line of birds from shore to shore their haka gull cries like Māori stamping and line dancing on the beach, horizon halved, snaps of winter's coat popping open, the flocked velvet of our flight so new that down glistens from sun breaking on the surface of the water we don't know what to say to each other just watch the sky unfold like two great wings of blue lifting us higher as line after line of gulls keep coming, line after line of white hyphens with black commas at the tips of their wings pulling toward some vista of summer and home that beckons but never arrives 
was never meant to arrive just keeps us 
moving towards the distance 
you and I holding hands 
still amazed

The Sunday Muse

If I were a lamb	cha-cha-cha in a lion’s tooth coat
If I were a fish	suited to sharkskin, rhumba ’til dawn
If I were a sparrow	in cowboy falcon boots, square dance shaking the floorboards over the heads of mice
I contain dualities, multitudes	breakfast of toast and coffee, oatmeal and eggs
when I look in the mirror	I need a shave
the glass will not shatter if my dark wing	touches the light

The Sunday Muse