Pour Joe Coffee Shop

A book at the coffee bar is open
to the ‘page of the day’, it’s yellowed
from facing the window
ever since gin was served in teacups.

I look over the words
and string sense together,
I get the string of pelicans outside
skimming the melancholy between breakers.

A purple woman with an aggressive figure
drops two copies of a book on the bar,
“Do you like to read?” she asks.
I can’t tell her I don’t know.

Reading a page isn’t like reading
a purple storm thundering over the ridge,
get ready.

I read the grounds in my cup’s pit,
they tell me, “I read, I guess I like it.
Get ready.“

Format

Carol leaves fresh poems
on the kitchen table, four line stanzas,
left aligned, regular spacing,
a line of portholes to her center.

With morning tea I peak in, glimpse
a jade moon in the space between stars
lighting the fresh plum blossoms,
purple spice escapes the garden

on a dapple gray we call Snow Ghost.
In late fall when the weather changes
Carol makes innocent adjustments,
five line stanzas, then eight, then nineteen,

nineteen? What does that mean?
She scatters words across the page
in ways I can’t track, the word on the right
doesn't line up with the three in the middle

that don't see the one floating
along the left margin, my dyslexic sight
collects the words and assembles a window
to a black moon. The autistic part of my brain

finds meaning, frustration and anger
not seen before, I won't have her back,
I won't have that hate in my house.

Burnt-Sienna Headscarf

A hen Ruddy Duck cannot resist
a burnt-sienna head with white cheeks
and blue bill, the small fish

that just vanished cannot refuse
the Angler Fish’s flaunted lure,
the spider that took up residence

on my desk cannot ignore
the quiver streaming through its web,
I cannot refuse Brenda Webster’s allure,

white cheeks under a burnt-sienna headscarf,
dark blue eyes invite my naive core
to a windowless cabin to learn my fortune,

lightening flickers above the cypress,
in candlelight the sulfuric incense
wards off dark flying things,

on the woodstove pine-tar and garlic fumes
bubble from a blackened pot
and wrap my head, in the murky

the burnt-sienna headscarf and dark blue eyes
probe my naiveté, skeletal fingers
wrap me, with a quiver I pass into the black.

The Woods

I go to the woods, the Big Woods, the Dismal Swamp,
the Dark Forest, haunt of the Swamp Dog,
black flies, carnivorous plants, pit vipers,

Cyprus Black Bats, the crazy Spanish witch
Brenda Webster from Bristol who set her wicked children
on fire, but couldn’t kill them, they roam the swamps

in the night with their clothes aflame. I go to the woods
for the fragrance of the hallucinogenic
Ghost-dream Orchid, a canoe comes into view,

she says her name is Brenda, a dog howls,
there’s a burst of flame in the swamp.
I go to the woods.

Murdock Valley

Relentless sun heats sage until a swirl
of hot air goes up the drain in a dust devil.

A vulture stops flying and glides around
the plume, tasting flavors from the valley floor,

a jackrabbit, four-wing saltbush,
a dried out deer carcass, the algae at Fish Springs,

a ranch hand wrapped in Irish Spring
riding a nasty old mule. The vulture grips

the rising heat and swirls into upper layers
where flavors ferment and mature,

where vultures have special dreams,
I ride a nasty old mule to Murdock Ranch

and give Sadie a taste of Irish Spring.
“You never,” she says, “cease to amaze.”

Crater Ku

Jennifer says
do you still
love me

~

whitewater cascades
around rocks and eddies –
black hole

~

Diamond Craters west of Crane –
Rock Wren call’s in and out

~

six black holes
around the table –
chug, guzzle, munch

~

ocean craters
swallow whitecaps,
surfboards spit out

~

I watch Jennifer
walk out –
door latch clicks