vintage wine abreast
rider and horse.

Potables. A blue eggshell. The sun stirring Virginia Creeper
that moves in unison with the wind.

Electra and electricity, the current that prods the mind.

SIDEWAY LOOK

It's snowing and all I can think of
are leaves to wrap your memory,
leaves pungent as tea,
green curls alive
with the promise of fire,
shutes like fingers
to play a tap on your skin.

The snow is wet like your eyes at parting,
cold as the promise of a winter dawn
wet again as city-streets
I must tread to make a living,
the flask of wine
pressed to my lips.

On the winter landscape all
I see is the ghost white of sheets,
our sheets wrapped to keep breath warm
the log cannisters of our bed
a heady raft upon which to travel
to burn up an ocean of delight.

LOLITA GARDENS

A man weeps at your ankles,
climbs the stairs to peek-a-boo
panties, with finger clasps,
a Rapunzel lowering your hair,
the long-matted braids
a skilful weaver turns to gold.

An ivy forest in
a castle impregnated with doors,
the prince overhears the code
"let down your hair" and,
with perilous grasp,
mounts the stirrup wall,
foot to clasp,
searching cloud grey &
storm blasts for billowy mists
green within this empress queen.

Walking plasticine ledge
in the shower with a mermaid
soaping her perfumed treasure trove,
at an intersection within that woman,
her tulip trees explode--
faeryland syrupy,
tasting of apricot and sugar cane;
a swallow parting indigo sky.

UNPAGINATED

Orchestrating violins thru whisky sky
clouds slide like billiard balls
a Jackie Gleason-Fats Domino
ricochet off greener velvet;
my pheasant escaping snow.

Jack Ketch the hangman
in brilliant plumage,
a touch of Borgia in
long, murderous hands.

The light of Capone in
steeple-dark eyes
running like a
haunted ship
around the white, facial disc.

Offset. Bold type.
I see you through pages
of my history book
only you're unpaginated.

Unclench the fist,
watch for effervescent islets,
erotic mounds of Venus or
protuberances called Marquesas
off my left hand.

Omens are the cloth
of dreams, scissors
used to open sky.

Work out cosmic debts--
figure stone footprints on Hollywood Blvd.
en route to Tijuana for a start;
I should have been Buddha incarnate
o