wear
this journey was that,
worse, sorceress on my emotions;
I left pathways contoured with Merlin rock
& trees like Babbitt refugees
from the Nahanni,
fearful Dogrib aboriginals
swarming my imagination
their scalp-locks loaded for bear.

Arabesque boulder,
lavender curls of winter-wind swept moss and
berets of tiny, dead soldiers. The
moisture between
you and clearing.

Hushed forest
an envelope edge
of moisture patterns,
more leaves
in reindeer formation
asserting themselves
in beckoning sleighs and
trance of veined, elfin hand
skirting cracks & fissure gloom.

PYROMANIA

She had a fireplace--
the sexual kiln
of her pyromaniac
desire,
a brick embedded in heat,
white hot coal to ember,
her lust flaring red,
soot to powder
dark as charcoal
smear, a walk
across shimmering mirror.

TIDE CHARTS

To create dream--
the pearl thru wine effect,
oil and vinegar viscidity
of giant salad leaves
basking on the
broken picnic table
like so many lemurs
taken to a
Malagasy forest.

Liverwurst on rye,
cuff-links drag
the hard, mica table;
so, why be afraid
'cause spume from waves
glows upward
in so many trails of
grey-laden smoke?

This island looks like a loaf,
a dot or mole on inviting cheeks,
to me; so wary, invariably, of land
(and perhaps the Sand Man)
amongst all those wandering eyes,
especially the sea-scape,
curl of snake
illuminated
in a sudden, tropic shower.

See the sudden bandanna of rock
squeezed so tight by
shore's edge that a
grim hammer of stones
intones a warning?

Its back from the wars
to dive, there, among
threads of water
where needle eyes of little
fish ("young fry of treachery")
are so scalpel-like
dunes and eddies
of living colour
shake you.

To slake a thirst.
For adventure.
For precision.
Try a lavender roll of water
curved in bite recess
much as a conch's outer shell
dons triple-ripple effect.

Up the stakes. Skillets off the
meandering edge are pounding
undertows and riptides resemble
porters in foreign airports
who simply smile. . .

Purple dye
on white toga,
water retches up
on land.

A necklace, this activity, in warm shallows.
Consciousness raising--reef life coming
into contact with the bumper edge to freedom.

Heavenly bodies
parry