Today I am most fortunate. Medusa's Kitchen has published an entire issue of my poetry and photographs.. I found the photo in a pile of books in Jan Jett's backyard that had been out in the rain for some time.

HISTORY

We thought then, when we were travelling,

The children knew something

Special, the way the light moved in their eyes,

The kinds of sounds they chose to become

Words. We would watch the owls

Beariing gifts of curious silver on silent

Wings. Not one of us said a thing.

I supposed that all things were

Like this. The rising of the moon

Was on everyone’s lips. How wonderful.

How pale. We had never seen a moon

Such as this one. Each time it was new.

Now, standing on the high places near

The edge of the water we think the wind

Has something important to say. It does

Not. It speaks but it has no words. It is

Tongue for the trees who tell us of

Bees, the names of the seasons,

The kind and number of the breezes,

How light makes sound through the cambium.

We have been so often wrong that for a

Moment we doubt the children.

We discover a red color we have

Never seen before. Language

Abandons us just before dusk.

We question each other with gestures,

Frantic to recall how it was

We made fire, how we knew to use

These roads, where we had been.

FOLK TALE

When we lived along the edge

Of the sea we used to heat our homes

With a certain oil that burned

With a particular clear green flame.

As children we thought this oil

Came from the fish that were

Our livelihood. Allejandro said

That the green was caused by the

Fact that a type of fish caught here

Shared a common dreaming.

They dreamed they did not live in the seas but

Instead swam through the oaks and

Firs that surrounded our village and

Because the entire fish was pressed

For this oil, their brains gave

Up the greens that were the color

Of the drempt leaves. Maria Xavier said, no,

It was only the food they fed upon

That graced the oil this way.

As we grew we found out that

The oil did not come from fish

At all, but rather from a sacred

Well on the cliffs above the sea.

This well had a peculiar

Property to it. It was impossible

To pump the oil out. It had

To be withdrawn by placing one’s

Mouth to the ground of the well

and sucking the fluid from the

Earth. We were the fish,

Our mouths pressed to the breast

Of the earth, our life breath

Drawing up this oil with fish

Mouth and exhaling emerald

Flames that warmed all the

Winters of our youth.

IF THERE IS NOWHERE

If there is nowhere for the spirit

To move, it builds its house in that

Place. We find wonder in the way

Distance reveals objects on the edge

Of disappearing. We find names for the way

A hand opens.

We give special attention

To the gesures trees make. “They are

Caressing the air.” We say.

There is a story, seldom told, of seeing

And not seeing, more than opening and

Closing the eyes.

We say dreaming is a way

Of seeing. We call from our sleep to

The waking world. It is a place

Where sound neglects language and

Spills from the lips, unhinged. It

Is unseen, a particle of the night.

What is seen: a body writhing beneath

Sheets – an avalanche of form.

HISTORY

We thought then, when we were travelling,

The children knew something

Special, the way the light moved in their eyes,

The kinds of sounds they chose to become

Words. We would watch the owls

Beariing gifts of curious silver on silent

Wings. Not one of us said a thing.

I supposed that all things were

Like this. The rising of the moon

Was on everyone’s lips. How wonderful.

How pale. We had never seen a moon

Such as this one. Each time it was new.

Now, standing on the high places near

The edge of the water we think the wind

Has something important to say. It does

Not. It speaks but it has no words. It is

Tongue for the trees who tell us of

Bees, the names of the seasons,

The kind and number of the breezes,

How light makes sound through the cambium.

We have been so often wrong that for a

Moment we doubt the children.

We discover a red color we have

Never seen before. Language

Abandons us just before dusk.

We question each other with gestures,

Frantic to recall how it was

We made fire, how we knew to use

These roads, where we had been.

DELTA MOON

The moon rose, thick,

Orange and damaged.

It was the horizon for a few

Moments, then, bleeding its

Refection into the river,

Lifted itself into the delta

And became the Autumn night.

photo published today in Medusa's Kitchen

Medusa was kind enough to publish this one today.

ONE HUNDRED POEMS

The way light eats the horizon.

The way Japanese ghosts

Have no feet. Birds gather

In the trees. They say things

To each other that we can hear

But are unable to understand.

A glass reflects the rising

Of the moon. Reading secret

Messages in the pattern of leaves

Upon the ground. There were

Pieces of conversation stuck to

His teeth. A great cultus of

Admonition flourished around

Any mention of the present tense.

The rafters were draped

With banners showing the most

Intimate secrets of the verb.

Landscape is spoken of only

In regard to feelings. There is

No middle distance. It becomes

Inevitable that dense conversation

Cover the face of the moon,

That night untie itself

From any reason and reduce

All poetry to whispers which

Remind one of the wind.

One hundred poems are written

At exactly the same moment.

They are mistaken for oceans,

And fished and thought of great

Depth. One crosses them

Full of wonder, lingering as long

As possible to watch

The waves, the shadow

Flight of birds across

Their sweet surface.

Medusa's Kitchen published this poem today

WALKING ALONG THE ROAD WE STOP NEAR A STREAM IN SPRINGTIME

You have found bits of song caught

In the spillway of a beaver dam. They

Are church-like in their praising. They shake

The collection of sticks

Piercing the face of the dam like so many

Bayonets. A rain begins and spills

Upon the surface of the pool, each drop a book,

A crowd, a child, a Golden Heart siging to the fools,

To what is left of the dancers, the poor shoulders

Of the river made to bear a cascade of tears.

They have built a monument on the edge

Of a cliff. It is impossible to get close enough

To look at it without plunging into the mind of God.

We stand watching the little fires in its towers,

The pitiful way it seems to contemplate the end

Of day. A vibrant eye peers from every window,

Some of them weep as only ones who have seen murder

Can weep. Ships send up flares to illuminate this place.

We walk along the edge of the pond where the grass

Grows tall and yellow. We stop and kiss each other

Before deciding to lie in this place and create

Another world, full of wings and the silence invented by snow.

We are unquenchable as acrobats before the highest throne.

House, knife, wonder, tears, cold, a flute,

Lambs, bridges, hills, the beautiful dark,

Silver bells opening like journeys, a crying,

Weaving a web around the heart that it may

Not break. All of the heavens resting

In the corners of your smile.

`Medusa's Kitchen published this photo today

Medusa's Kitchen published these two poems today, this Halloween

HALLOWEEN

She filled her hands

With winter light and November's

Crows, a calcophany of wings

Against the blue of early evening.

Children used to come here.

There were hills and copses and woods

Challenging the imagination with shadows

Caught alive in stories of the Fall.

The road ended at her mouth,

Full of weeds and drifting terrors

Searching for a body to accompany

During the dark evenings of the waning year.

Shaken, she reaches for the twilight

As if it were a vessel of some kind,

Easy on any sea, unmoved and with sails

Painted in the colors of forgetting.

To dream was to vanish into memory,

The twinkle of an eye,

The brush of a hand across a shoulder,

No place for sharing stories, whispering.

This time of year is full of stuff

Like this, fine of hand and bathed

In a crystal construct made of wood,

Made of fire, made of singing.

She was not given to understand

More of this than her hands covered

With the cool and brilliant light.

She wishes us luck as we continue

Toward the shoreline, the same light

Glinting off the water, infecting

Our minds, making everything in life

A challenge and the turning of the days

Borne on the backs of black birds

Exploding time with cackling and shrieking.

THE BURN

There are no stars in the sky tonight.

It is not because of the clouds.

The ego is so immense.

I feel I have called this to myself.

today Medusa's kitchen published the following

ANOTHER HALLOWEEN

The moon is unsteady, trusting its light

To the stars it cowers behind clouds

Not allowing beams or dreams

To release themselves from its foggy

Journey. The voice is gone.

From the jungle floor we are able

To see those stars with proper names.

We do not greet them nor they us.

From here they seem cold. Distance

Is such a detatched maiden, full of thought

That have nothing to do with our petty concerns.

Closer, a night bird tells the darkness

Another secret, crazing the place where we sleep

With lines of sound. Fear begins to rise from

Its shadowy rooms, tells us we should be afraid,

Of what we have no idea. Just be afraid

Comes the message. Halloween arranging

Its crested headpiece in orange and yellow,

Glaucous whites and using the wind as voice,

Begins the seasons tales. We have heard them

All before and we have never heard them.

“Wait for the moon to return.”, someone whispers.

“She will be round and huge and full." We will be able

To see everything the night conceals clearly.

Perhaps this is a good idea. Things fly quickly

Just above our heads. We smell the cinnamon of

Autumn rising to the top of the night.

Someone calls our names.

We never recognize the voice.

CALIFORNIA HALLOWEEN

Bright orange CALTRANS

Trash bags piled on the side

Of the freeway: Seansonal garbage.