CHRISTMAS ON PIEDMONT AVENUE

A boy on a pogo stick.

A busker on a corner.

Russet and gold

between them.

Fallen leaves, dancing 

in December light.

AVOWAL

Dear reader, without you,

this poem is a lonely thing,

like a consonant without its vowel.

You are the scribe

who adds the missing intonation,

accents the scripture,

so it can be a cantillation,

so it can sing and be sung.

THE CANVAS

Give it up: 

your name,

all the awkwardness 

of being,

what you know to be true.

Become torrent, butterfly or dream,

something you’re not

and never have been.

Unhinge from 

the persisting paradigms

of the mind

and enter the space

between the polarities 

that partition and confound,

where everything is actually

woven. From here

you will ride the spiral

like a wind or a wave

and find the anthem

that will free you,

the canvas

that will paint you.

MAKING SYRUP

The courtesan

will make thunder

by pulling a dictionary

off a shelf.

She will make sap

by looking up the word astonish.

She will.

Her lips will be the spile

and the knight will be the maple.

The season

will make the syrup.

FAIL SAFE:

An Ode to the Oxymoron

Go ahead: expose the hidden innuendo,

eschew the obfuscations, if you can.

Good luck!

In matters of the heart,

where often anarchy rules,

with its consistent inconsistencies,

direct circumventions,

and random patterns

arising out of recent histories,

there’s no tip-toeing into relationship.

It just can’t be done.

Better to just take the calculated risk

and prepare for the crash landing

and leap into Love’s quarrel

with an intimate stranger.

There’s no better place to forge

a loyal opposition,

to practice acting naturally,

to agree to disagree,

to commit to being absolutely unsure

and clearly confused

almost all the time,

alone together,

as honest thieves

and sad clowns,

trying to know the unknowable

in advance.

It’s all a definite maybe, baby!

Fuzzy logic.

An endless parade of

near misses, minor miracles,

deliberate mistakes,

obvious misunderstandings,

civil disobediences,

some bad luck

and a string of good griefs,

along with a disorderly array

of quiet riots,

cruel kindnesses,

and sweet sorrows –

all happening accidentally on purpose,

that can turn any man or woman

upside down and inside out

as they attempt to binge on moderation

one big sip at a time.

If you want my unbiased opinion,

I say either keep yourself conspicuously absent,

in the swirl of all the numbing sensations,

or take the shortest distance

into the heart of the waking dream,

into the spinning hub-cap of passion,

by admitting outright to yourself

there is no quick fix or reprieve

from the routine emergencies.

There’s no fair trial.

The tragic comedy romance is

just isn’t fail safe.

It just ain’t!

Better to get use to

going nowhere fast

and to making educated guesses

amidst an aroma of relative truths

and true lies.

All things considered,

and conventional wisdom consulted,

you will come to see

with eyes wide shut

that reckless caution is the way to go.

It is the only choice there is, actually –

and the surest wager we can make

in this casino and virtual reality called Life.

CONTOURS:

A RELIQUARY FOR CUTICLES AND CLAVICLES

The verdict and the sentence

can’t banish the lines -

the finely clipped crescents,

the subtle bowing

the body makes and shoulders,

with keratin and collagen -

that you’ve seen,

touched,

put your lips to

like prayer.

No, it can’t!

You can still hold them,

these lines, these contours,

as images

your body can remember

and carry

across any desert,

any exile,

any famine of trust,

like the relics of a faith

on their way

to a basilica

by the sea.