Vecchia donna
Cogli occhi
Azzurri
Ci sta guardando
Come se fossimo
Trulli

La vita
è dolce
sovente,
tranne quando
è amara
raramente

Like a legion of ancient
Roman soldiers
suffering silence in the sun
an ancient olive grove
stands boldly, face to face
with the pressing, midday
Mediterranean heat

For nearly 20 centuries
it waits, tirelessly
for the searing star’s command
as undaunted by passing
thoughts of time & death
as it is content to thrive
putting down roots
ever deeper
at a rate of one foot more
for every passing century

Proffered trunks
like chiseled chests
stand firm
stand tall
thick undulating limbs
buck coltishly
‘gainst the shifting, sand-hewn
swords of pressing winds
outward, upward
towards the sapphire summer sky
rolling leaves viridian
on the one side
shimmer silver on the next
flamboyant tongues flicker
urging peace with life’s rhythms
surrender to its flow
its feasts, its famines
its dawning, its dusk

In silent harmony
I might have heard
them sing..

Dance dauntlessly
in the fierce
and biting wind
buoyantly
friskily, like a sea of rippling silver leaves
in the sweet and gently
shifting breeze, Be quick
to make waves of joy
of rage! Bear fruit
– abundantly
then in silence, yield
unwaveringly
to each and every
pulsating caress
of the glistening, fire-white
fecund, golden star

As tinseling pearls of silvery sweat
slip sluggishly down his brow,
the lush morning brush
drips silver & wet
with the dew
of dawn’s
desire

A tepid, electric cyan sea splashes,
painting my sweaty knees with salt.
Chest-high, pumping,
thick black rubber hoops pull lazily
‘round a glistening pair of
stainless-steel spokes,
leading me, sluggishly
‘long a sun-poached, yellow-brick path,
one inch closer – ever
to the buoyant, airborne poet’s mind:
the one who is free;
where finally, aloft!
he soars. When,
in the time it takes
this hummingbird mind
to switch a fairy tale’s focus,
a piercing, menacing, hiss and roar
– coastline fighter jet maneuvers
rip mercilessly
through the pale blue tint of surrender
to one blissful, Miami morn’s
staggering
silky haze.

he slips ever-so
softly
into the pale
blue-grey shadows
of the sheepish, dawning
spring morn’s light
face first, peeking
from behind the white, paint-chipped
wooden door ajar
just in case – so
not to wake me;
he glimpses my snoozy
snoring body – prone
my naked thigh & nalgas
snuggled limply ‘round the length
of a crisp & creamy white
king-sized comforter
kneaded flawlessly
to the form, to the girth
of a full-grown
pillow man

Arctic cold

slows

my circulating blood

to slush,

the forced hot water

heating system

to this 70 inch

towering townhouse;

on the 8th floor:

hearth & breath,

its ceo working at a hummingbird’s pace

on the 10th!

Without knowing
the simple puressence
of our being We just might spend
an entire addled lifetime
believing…
in a psychologicself

In the current
and ever-changing weather conditions:
Partly cloudy,
with a likely chance of thunderstorms…

In the one who’s been conditioned
– to react!
Bewildered by worldly events By biochemistry’s
bumbling
flights of fancy.

The surest way
for you to know
the joyful, unrestrained
nature of puressence Our perennially present
and essential
climatic constitution:

72 degrees
With bright blue skies
& a Constant
of Contentedness

is through silence…

In the meditative state
of communion
with things otherwise,
unknowable

Please look,
then
See!
(Je vous en prie)

A whole lifetime’s past
since I saw you last
leaving the house this morn’
in blue champion sweats
a hat, to cover your ears
‘gainst the new year’s biting dawn.
From a goose down berth
billowing to the seams
silky tufted quills, prick
then make me sneeze
eyes watering
nausea turns my head
into a swirling cobalt carousel
of pink and white
papier-mâché ponies.
Incidental moments, telescope
one into another
then all into the next
each keeping company
with a scattered band
of park bench brothers.