THE APPRENTICE

The workshop is flooding

and there are no buckets for bailing.

The ego is an ark

oxen can’t haul.

When the self is a charlatan

and the magician is absent,

the apprentice can’t make 
alchemies from robberies 

or convenants 
from acacias.

ABBREVIATION

An abyss and no bridge.

A roiling and no river.

Dough and no leaven.

No room to swing a sword.

How to find the way

to simplicity and mercy.

To tell the story

without so many stairs.

TRUE OR FALSE?

Everyone in the saloon is me.

And is you. The entire motley crew.

Together we all toast to our fictions.

But we can’t hear what we’re saying,

because the juke,

that only takes wooden nickels,

is blaring “Just My Imagination”

by the Temptations,

like a drunkard playing poker

in the corner.

THE CHARIOT

Somewhere in the heartland

- miles of crop, in every direction,

corn picked clean by the crows -

on a blue highway

on the side of the road

in a ditch

after a downpour

at dusk

in the mud

on his back

is a man

under the axle

of his jacked-up jalopy.

He is looking to see

if there is anything more

than the flat that needs fixin’.

His woman is standing by

ready with a wrench.

The spare - tread worn bare

and tattooed with patches - leans

against the rusted, dented bumper.

This is the tire

that will get them down the road.

This is the chariot

that will take them home.

This is what love looks like

when you're driving it for real.

THREE LEMONS

I.

A man and a woman

Are a silence, a waiting.

A man and a woman and three lemons

Are a silence, a waiting.

II.

Assumptions

Unchecked, can bear

Their own tart fruit.

III.

An apology

Can take any shape

In the garden of the mind.

IV.

So many things

Can follow from

A yellow ellipsis.

V.

The tree in the yard

Never once thought of him or her

As its Meyers grew among the green leaves.

VI.

Sometimes fruit,

Bitter or not,

Is just fruit.

VAPORS  

The rains come, the rivers flood.

Birds rise from the reeds.

Calves lick their tails.

Arteries pump their blood.

Every tongue has its blessing.

And somewhere in the night

the word aphrodisiac evaporates

within the sound of itself.