lingers past dawn

In a space that might let slip 
the wisp of an angel's wing
or a moment so mercurial
it passes like a taste on  tongue
You come like the portal of a dream

Inviting as a flower on the wind-
a night scent that lingers past dawn-
the haunting that only plies in memory,
where play wishes we might have made.

You, in a reach for happiness
inspired by the nearness of breath,
are a touch of fingertips and brush of lips
and a rush of feelings that crowd  into escape,
 sounds that steal breath,
and reveal beyond words,
a meaning of loving You.

spring-ku

left by melted snow
a pile of forgotten things...
to do

late day sun
a robin struggles...
in frozen  twigs

a hovering gull...
above the morning sun
calls the fading moon

cool spring night...
warmed in the soft air
near her lips

Miles and miles

The blank sheet, tabula raza, mind fall-
is a sponge of life in this moment,
when every wisp of wind sweeps like a tide,
the flicker of a fly's wings, a fascination,
and the jazz man's horn
forms a cornucopia of vivid dreamlets;
streamlets flown in the spring's thaw of spirit,
joined to gurgling streams, mist-cloud cascades.

The world on a string of pungent thought
a thought of the woman and last night
the woman I wanted and never saw again
again the dream of a moment I would remake
the mistake that teaches the ache
of an unforgiven silence

and floating away to dream again
to re-arm for the assault of day
the challenge to be no less than to be
resist the will to shrink away, when time
spares nothing, and the race is yet won...
by the weary



________________________________
Miles Davis, Jazz Musician, and in this instance:
My Funny Valentine, and Something I dreamed Last Night
by the Miles Davis Quintet.

from her...

So many ways to see a life
in endless rings and things done and not,
from a reckoned moment: now to this;
from the shocks that rock the wagon
when life is a traveler on a tortured road.
I revel in the glows of so many afters,
when loving made the purpose of being;
the memories of skin have their own meanings.

In heights of happiness, into a valley without,
when light seemed like waters of the desert
and loneliness like the waters of the seas,
there were moments that knitted me.
They held me to become such,
piece by piece into a whole.

And then...there were
simply, times that keep me;
a moment in the sun of your love
that left your shadow on my soul.

missing home...

Unfolding like new leaves in springtime sun
a dream begun in a smile, the familiar-
a view down Main Street in my little town.

Pacing past store windows, glass panels chronicle
my reach to the sun and the way my eyes
took on the wisdom of shade-dark circles.
Beneath a determined brow, a slanted sun
spring begun in the early walks and wondering

A view, the tall building where mother lived
defiant happiness, turning the world's indifference
into a patient golden glow...like this springtime sun
painting my portrait on lower Main.
Below Market and Broadway, another tower
where my sister held court
in a lively flow of rumor and near chance,
together, a lofty pair of deep and doubtless faiths.

The smile in the dreamy view
wrinkled anew as I dream-stepped
across a wide expanse of time, relaxed in expectation
the touch of love; and then, as if at shimmers end,
the vision took to sudden flight.
with so many still moments of knowing
the warmth of care and the shared ways
feelings we'd made into a cocoon of eruptive life.

They are not there any longer
neither together nor separately there,
gone, and the tall buildings
are just that, stoney anthills,
No longer the seats of love
no longer ...home

frosty dunes

Missing spring, bound in waves
creeping cold fills the inward thought
and the reflex to curl within extends
as resistance thins like the wantful kiss
felt of a bright but distant sun

When ease and comfort is a rumor
spread through hissing winds
still bare branches begin to swell
from habit rather than invitation

I chill in the slightest draft
and dread the morning steps to do
thing not put-off today, and say
spring has a fickle way that hides among
white frosty dunes, with hungered bird prints
and glyphs etched of callous winds

softness of words

We need not celebrate the self,

but find that it has a wondrous dimension,

to create, and recreate- become a feeling,

a consciousness immersed in something of itself.

It is as close as we can come to touching, 

when we agree to be within a feeling...

We cease to be an insular entity

when the inner creativity, builds 

a fortress  comes from a bubble of air

We stand, as thought beings

woman and man but far less than

the rift between seen and unseen.

No need of any other sense to know

the wanting turns to stillness,

the ache finds its balm, and in

the depths of wonder, there is wonder still

of the reach of some dearest eyes

The spirit vines like life to sun

lifted on wings define the winds;

 float upon the softness of words

that stay and fold into memory, that we

were just...this way