Ivy & ivory fan, kitten on a rocker,
cradled baby that amounts to me,
the sun coming home to roost on this plaintiff, pleading
wall.

Passage of thought
into this chocolate box--
the lid off stern memory
prying forth a directory of
mouth-watering choice,
or so the advertisers' claim.

Yet do we ever thought
over what we taut (in our heads)
we are? My dad in Kenya (a time and age
from this perspective like the peanut brittle)
or grandfather, about eight, from the dreamy,
dark cream & nougat reaches of layered black space
that speaks the aeons ago--
his manner and distance a smoky haze
from the twilight "special occasion"
Black Magic chocolate box.

TURNCOAT

Sitting in the spendthrift dark
lilting pennies away,
deciphering fate ... .
The bed, a warm reach past
the pillow
like personal mortality in the
incest breath of life.

Warm stuff of dreams--
the calender with its days mesh &
march like soldiers
dearly departed
(cindered and bludgeoned)
or the old sea-faring chest
where all men are sailors
past light's corner.

Sturdy trudgeons,
clock bursts thru the room
mindful of time and aching,
decaying things.

Hallow's Eve in movements of the curtains--
a remembered Rembrandt,
self-portrait of the old man
standing alone in a clammy room,
idling the seconds, with drab
browns and grays;
that sea-faring chest, again, speaking
of depleted journeys.

Mystic and occult moods,
worlds caught in a single glance
off the wall paper standing abreast
the lamp
and the mirror, back from
the pace of a single thought.

GANGLAND

A sailor, "tatoo you,"
the cigarette Players
with tape-deck playing
a jaundiced "Yellow Bird",
Cerveza, Dos Equiis, the
two horses, in red flame,
across the label.

Trolling in a deep sea-trench
(spinners and chubb),
the dark night
a religious procession,
acolyte stars in hymnal to the wind.

Across the channel
a Party Boat
--the words almost demand capitals
with actions so diminutive--
creased laughter "to go" cross the waves
flicker of lights, siren call
then a lemon shark strikes the bait
on anchor reel, Horse-Eyed Jack
perhaps borrowing the name
from the Outback--
think pantomime, enter Wahoo
and the aesthetic of fear
crazed fish jack-knifing the boat.

Someone produces a cheese tray,
warm