This Cobweb of Rain

This cobweb of rain heavy laden
with unexpected fall low slung
belonging to someone else now
a hundred others a hundred
droplets caught in your fine filaments
spanning the evergreen shrub tips
everything holding everything
so nested have we become
even a glance fills up our work
and our interest in wings
fills us with what not despair
hope released perhaps we know
we were always headed somewhere
somewhere more than a scratch
marked on the wall the primtive
calendar a collander standing
in the kitchen holding some things
while others fall through
all our lives following what we thought
was substance taking it up to our mouths
taking it inside while all along
we might have seen
what keeps moving

Dirty Nails

They say in so many words he doesn't care
maybe a look conveys the judgment of the suburbs
unzipped by the eyes what can a guy do
but carry on with a chance of shame
low in the sky over the left shoulder
this is the forecast whenever you think
there smells evil the glance of death
that separates the living from those
eternally damned to their twisted dogma
and hastily made opinion wow they say
you been gardening or what maybe
a grease monkey maybe stayed up late
making chocolate figurines maybe dark
where you live and cannot find the brush
normally reserved for washing potatoes
those little ugly fruit our ancestors
winkled out of the earth between
blood sacrifices clusters of gold
washed in the mountain stream
saving some to plant for later
touching with some love the dark
green leaves rising out of the ground
marveling with some regard for beauty
the blossoms that say in so many words
the time the tight pastel clusters
that say it's time

Thirst

You are the rainwater

inside the jaws of the giant blue agave

I am the thirsty black cat

Tired of Rejection

Tired of rejection Martha turned to the wall. "Hi. It's been awhile."

"Wasn't that a Johnny Cash song," said George.

Martha placed both palms flat against the wall and arched her back.

George had seen that done in a television special on yoga one time. A thought flickered across his collegiate brow. Jesus. Maybe it's too, what's the word? dispassionate. He shook his head and said, "You okay?"

She spoke from behind the curtain of hair that screened her suspended face. "I think it was the Beatles."

Now George was really lost. He knew it really couldn't have been the Beatles. It had a country vibe he couldn't put his fingers on. The ice maker in the refrigerator went off, whirring and clunking. Maybe the machines of the world were sent to save us, thought George.

"It's big," said Martha.

"What?" said George. Then he caught himself. Rejection. It came folded up in the morning mail, a little bent from the way the cute postmistress had crammed it into that pigeonhole they called a PO Box, but when you unfolded it, George realized, it was a pretty big rejection.

"Don't..." he cleared his throat.

Martha hadn't moved and her body language, half asana and half comical—My God. She looks like she's going to push the wall down, he thought. No wait. She's holding it up! The wall of rejection. He shook himself again. "Don't some people, uh, writers," he said, "don't they say you can wallpaper your walls with rejection notices?"

"Go to hell," Martha mumbled.

My Mother's Metaphors

My mother’s an emerald green hummingbird at the kitchen window.

The bird is my dad’s spirit come for the purple heather by the door.

The door opens onto Rossbeigh Strand on a stone cold spring morning.

The morning is the song only she can remember, the one with a banjo.

The four strings are the paths we took from the wild mountains.

The peaks hide the Black Valley’s secrets and hold up the sky.

That’s where the clouds become rashers, eggs and one fried tomato.

Sunrise on the day I left was a bright star shining before and after.

The past waits by the bridge below, wagging its tail, glad to see her.

She is the scent of lavender, a needle piercing the Aran elbow,

the bent knee against the road with the long winding memory.

The memory is a fine bone China cup lifted up and up till there is no more.

Book of Stars

It’s in the book the one you didn’t read

the title I emailed to you the time you

never replied all this time I’ve wanted to

tell you but now this sensation I’m stranded

on an island and you will never find the

bottle I set afloat the message within

I have no blame in my heart please understand

a little confusion a little memory loss a little

delusion such as did you ever exist I could

number you like a new star seen once in

the void but there are so many the book so

full of numbers but these are different times

when words go out like thoughts transmitted

from one continent to another we are gods we

fly we materialize or in your case not

the war is of course still raging the gates of the

citadel once impregnable await their wooden

horse the surprise that follows the gift

and those long voyages too the rocks the

temptations the sleep inducing plants the

beautiful women at the shoreline powdered in

sand taking their own photographs with their

iPhones you’ll soon be receiving one I’m

sure but I’ve stopped caring these are

different times like I say and the book now

is only an icon an image no signatures

no leaves and pages only slightly more than

figments covering our vulnerabilities was

there something you wanted? I still hear

your voice like it was yesterday but I

can’t assume anything anymore certainly where

you’re concerned I saw you once I felt

your pull your gravitational field your

magnetism perhaps I was mistaken some

configuration rising from the horizon like

heatwaves an illusion I gave a name now

I’m here holding your shell to my ear

The Ditch

There's something warm about surrender she heard herself say
half in water half in dream with a chorus of toads one single
baritone reaching out from beneath a twisted Hilo Moon

overlays of rapid bamboo percussion sections she was lost
for words and finding the right word was vital to her even
here in the direst mirest circumstances not one shadow

only ditch sounds nor even a floating lilikoi to light the way
bufo marinus she said and silence looked hard into the darkness
eyes wide open a little formal isn't it she heard a voice return

would you prefer cane toad she whispered or nameless
proliferators warts and all I beg your pardon he said
aren't you forgetting your manners there's no time she said

like the fossilized arteries of a forgotten goddess the ditch
had no beginning and no end it pulled down the stars
to dank sanctuaries crawling with dead languages

what's with overpopulation anyhow said the toad
we're all racing to the edge of the proverbial cliff
but I prefer the ditch he said you've got a point

she sighed perhaps I'll lie here till the smoke passes
till the haze clears till the burning fields choke
with the bitter people's ashes there's nothing subtle

there's nothing worth redeeming there be careful
said the toad I'm the victim of relocation myself
where's home my kids ask hell forget that thought

home is wherever the sky cries out and down I say
life's either a dance or a game of statues and you
take your chances out there on the tarmac

I've forgotten why she said confiding in the stranger
his implacable bodhisattva smile wide beneath
her fingertips I've lost my way I'm running

yeah dance or statues he mumbled and dropped
out of touch till dawn the world still on fire
crazy people out there with coupons and vouchers

waving flags and political placards standing
on street corners trying to make eye contact
with faceless citizens hunkered down in their bubbles

hands gripping the wheels as long as those hands
gripped the damn wheels they believed in freedom
talk about illusion she sighed and sank into a long sleep