You,
clawed 
as dragon fruit

There can be no aubade,
no gentle lifting
the morning light

Paring back sheets
like skin of soft plums
to abide this leaving

Only
the heart of fire
like the sun 

In my palm
burns just to say
goodbye 

dVerse Quadrille

Fill is to feeling
as Cossack is to Mars –

Your gallop, flying over steppe,
riding into the air at escape velocity

To raid the stars,
the moon your scimitar –

braving the impossible sky,
an arc across cold space

From the heat of your horse –



Quadrille for dVerse

The Year slow-rolled to a stop,
at midnight the moon’s transmission
fell out with a clunk.

The poets were out of gas –
no roar in their coffee,
no boom-boom love in their pens.

The return of the sun and inspiration
a dreambillion lightyears
away.

Quadrille for dVerse

The hobnail feet of Winter
mash us into slush

as if to press iced wine
from our broken skins

a crush on spirits
of summer love

tasted, stripped
just off the vine

sleet’s sharp rhythm
in robes of immaculate white

dancing
on our graves



Quadrille for dVerse

The crack of dawn…
is like a big taco!

OK, a big breakfast taco –
scrambled egg clouds
stuffed in a flour tortilla.

The sun split your sleep
against the bowl
and whisked your dreams.

It’s quite a mouthful.
You’re going to need salsa.



Quadrille for dVerse

A late summer sky so hot
you could cook extinction
on the pavement –
soon enough it will light the leaves
above my head
and they will burn to the ground,
comforting flames
before we cave to winter.
I am in harmony
with Nature here.



Late Quadrille for dVerse

We play Voce like backyard Bocce –
rolling our tongues across verdure,
verbiage, herbiage, lawntastic poems
we’re having ball –
trying to avoid the gutter
or splitting infinities –
we’re Bowling for Dollars
(OK, maybe not)
but for a braggadocio moment
we win naming rights
in the Garden.

For dVerse Quadrille and friends.

Dragony:

That firestorm
of nerves teething
when you need to shed
your alligator brain –

Because snakeskin
swallowed you whole.
Because, impossible to imagine,
you are both pig and python here.

That scaly lump in your throat
is you –
a stretch to get over
yourself.

For dVerse Quadrille and friends.

Upstart whimsy
says shake it up,
wake it up –
shake loose from under
that downy blanket,
down so long don’t know
which way is up,
preposterous preposition
gets a heads up noogie
man up up up and away
the whole skyward gizmo
upended

For dVerse Quadrille