Rot III

Black asphalt hyphae 

 infiltrate forests and farms 

suburbs rot the globe

Rot II

mycologists know 

 the spread of suburbia 

 smacks of corruption

Rot

Black asphalt hyphae 

 rotting everything they touch 

 to suburbia

first, ya gotta get their attention

Profligately lit 

Oakland's Mormon temple shines 

 like a weird theme-park

holiday traffic

past the Altamont

traffic starts to move again

we may get there yet

one for the archaeologists

shells strew the desert

mixed molluscs and munitions

funny groups camp here

sense of urgency IV

looking back, southwards

a storm obscures the launch road

got to fly faster

is this a test?

year by year I face

more arcane technology

just to brew coffee

bobbleheads

launching new pilots

off Walt's Point mid-day in June

just seems negligent

early launch

down below seven

I scratched for all I was worth

before zipping in

scoring function

ten thousand theories

jostle in Kurtis' brain

most of them are wrong

sense of urgency III

two cups of coffee

with a breakfast of berries

dig that latrine quick

arriving high

Black's not very tall

scarcely a mountain at all

more like a blackhead

prudence

Scott had an idea

he'll fix out transfill on launch

channelling Kurtis

fair-trade coffee

eager for coffee

I gave James a cold lizard

in trade for my stove

decisions

disdaining to cross

despite the westerly winds

Scott taunted Goodale

Arrakis

Gurney was non-plussed

mood matters for love-making

you fight when you must

early crossing

leaving at Kearsarge

I grovelled up Mazourka

and jumped the Westgard

extrapolation

Lord, I beseech thee

spare me from drivers who think

they know where I am

C-130

something with four props

passed just a bit below me

just about Kearsarge

finger-tight

found in the spent ground

parts of Kurtis' French Press

like emeralds in shit

zone shift

Don't have a cow, man 

 we're not too late to launch yet 

 you're on central time

cold lizard II

'til the sun warms him 

 his blood refuses to flow 

 unless there's coffee

cold lizard

until his blood warms 

 he basks on my exposed flesh 

 dreaming lizard dreams

May scenery

Tattered rags of snow 

snagged on the Sierra's crags 

 unravel in sun

dream-stuck

Inconvenient bone 

diverting half my blood's flow 

 trapping me in bed

louts

Glass shards on the beach 

 as if no one else walks here 

 what kind of moron?

move into the light...

The first glint of sun 

 in my dark eternity 

 lights up White Mountain

passage

Coins on his eye-lids 

pay the fare across the Styx 

 they don't take plastic

long day's work

Stiff after long flights 

 feeling half as old as god 

 needing a hot tub

oxygen

Sounds like you got high 

 but you aren't making sense 

 breath through your nose, dude

treachery

Won't the howling end? 

how can there be so much sink 

 under such cute clouds?

sense of urgency II

Hail lashes the Wall 

shortly after I passed it 

 I'll try the valley

one less option

As I left Kearsarge 

 Mazourka was wrapped in storm 

 guess I won't go there

sensai of the day

Leaving the mountains 

I need a whole new mind-set 

what would Ian do?

napoleonic

In such company 

Black resents being so short 

 that's what makes it mean

hypertension

Leaving the hot tub 

feeling like i'm down a quart 

 whoa, here comes the floor

a sense of urgency

The storm pursues us 

 as an ox licks up the grass 

 it engulfs mountains

camouflage

lurking in shadows

 owls defeat my camera

 as if I were prey

the appearance of warmth

Wind sweeps the Castro

 robbing the sun of its warmth 

even in Summer

transference

Sculpting car bodies 

 to evoke a woman's curves 

 "auto-erotic"

maladaptive compulsion

hobbling on thrashed knees 

 runners still can't satisfy 

 their compulsive need

make no mistake

Standing united 

 we protest murderous cops

I am Oscar Grant

abate this

like standing dead grass

an intimate air/fuel mix

 will burn most fiercely

the Village

All the same pundits 

 who called clinton a shoe-in 

 dismiss torture probes

McCrystal

the truth's just a tool 

 to be used or discarded 

 like Pat Tilman's life

No drama

 excessive mercy 

 mars the change we voted for 

 where's the catharsis?

newton, MA

Naked, on the lawn 

 they're planted tomato vines 

 have they no deer here?

newton, MA

Gray here, and humid 

 houses of load-bearing brick 

 untroubled by quakes

the familiar

The green smells of Spring 

 prompt a flood of memories 

as if this were home

priorities

Dick-headed driver 

 seems baffled at my outrage 

 he's in my crosswalk

back east

Flinty-eyed yankees 

 don't disguise their suspicion 

 of this outlander

it's not the heat...

Sun breaks through at noon 

 at once my clothes stick to me 

 summer has arrived

The new BS

 malleable youth 

can be shaped for good or ill 

why give them jack-boots?

warm front

One stray ray of sun 

 pierces the sky's murky dome 

 then gray floods back in

shower

Sluicing off my sweat 

 futile effort to remove 

water with water

excision

To heal our nation 

 we must cut the cancer out 

 Cheney still festers

logorrhea

The barrage of words 

 masks the absence of ideas 

 until you tune in

in the tower

Free-loading pundits 

funding no journalism 

 may kill the papers

stuck

Slack-jawed, unmoving 

 dull eyes fixed on the tv 

 his mind is static

embedded message

Didactic displays 

 reuse museums' old stuff 

 to convey ideas

backwards

Watching his hairline 

 regretting his fleeing youth 

 neglecting the now

California's shame

Unlike proper pipes 

 crude irrigation ditches 

 waste half our water

heuristics

Giving the answer 

 before they're found the question 

 pure futility

fishing

Unborn potential 

 as vast as Leviathan 

 lurks in our minds' depths

lenses

Seeing genitals 

 everywhere his eye alights 

 hormones tint his world

edge difinition

Without prejudice 

 from patterns of light and dark 

 robots can't see "things"

snapshot

Slippery image 

 as ephemeral as thought 

 captured in haiku

nature morte

speed-reading haiku

 one loses all resonance

 like Proust in Cliff-notes

fire abatement

stray scraps of barbed wire

twine around my weed-wacker

 and slash at my shins

hypocrite

Fleeing the red mosque 

 can Shariah tolerate

 an Imam in drag?

potentiate this

I hear and forget 

I see and I remember 

I do and I learn

cancerous web

Tendrils of asphalt 

 infiltrating our woodlands 

 strangle all thats green

irreconcilable

Treating their daughter 

 like a freaking china doll 

 his ex drives him nuts

anti-trust

One point five trillion 

 may derail Intel's game-plan 

 for monopoly

anthology

Fifty sad stories 

 all queued up for traffic court 

 looking for closure

design spec

Darwin's got your back

 until you produce offspring

 past that, he cares less

don't fear the reaper

Dragonflies zig-zag 

mowing narrow swathes of sky 

reaping mosquitoes

dynamic range

Dazzled by one star

we can't glimpse the depths of space

 until darkness falls

StarTrek II

A dual heritage

 and rage long suppressed mark Spock 

 like our president

StarTrek

What to make of Kirk? 

 If Spock stands for Obama 

 is he Joe Biden?

We're not in Kansas

 you can't smoke out here! 

 they're refueling the let plane 

go inside to smoke

mismatch

For very small prey 

owls' talons are as useless 

 as pitchforks for peas

wretched excess II

vast oceans  of grass 

 suburbia's green backdrop 

 waste seas of water

wretched excess

Close-cropped seas of grass 

 suburbia's green backdrop 

 waste seas of water

...shall reap in joy

Dragonflies zig-zag 

 mowing the sky in tight strips 

 reaping mosquitoes

tabula rasa

Several times each day 

 for want of a memory 

 he invents his world

Not Weebles

 tethered by their skulls 

 to the earth's gravity field 

 big-headed kids fall

Hobbes V

where law's not enforced

the devil takes the hindmost

mercy has no place

Hobbes IV

where law's not enforced

the devil takes the hindmost

ayn din/any chesed

mobile-home

Not quite a garment 

 the burqua keeps her penned in 

 an annex of home

it's a wrap

Lacking a waistline 

 any garment hangs on her 

 like a tarp on shrubs

cut off

Never quite outdoors 

a woman in a burqua 

 lives in seclusion

hello? hello?

no one really knows

 all language is metaphor

 and therefore suspect

at my window

tiny spotted fawns

sample their first solid foods

then race back to nurse

undergrowth

hairs on my tragus

rasp against my tympanum

every time I chew

Caramba she's hot!

Mexican police 

are using IR cameras 

to nab those with flu

bitter jest

Maybe this headache 

 is caused by a brain tumor 

 paranoid humor

go with the flow

A day of high winds 

 biases potential flights 

 asymmetrically

layers

"upward" means inwards 

 "god" signifies our best selves 

 all is metaphor

home

Muslims in the States 

 feel less alienated 

 than those in Europe

insouciant

Tiny spotted twins 

 chase a doe across my yard 

 prancing without care

rule of law

warrantless wiretaps

need to be prosecuted

 if we live by law

arts' budget

how many poets

can give themselves to their muse

 while raising children?

jealous muse

how many poets

find time to indulge their art

 while raising children?

delicate timing

snug on their day-roosts

 owls ignore even squirrels

 scampering nearby

purity

Lacking nutrients 

 the clear blue of poverty

sustains Tahoe's worth

beyond dumb

Spying and torture 

 failings of intelligence 

 came to define Bush

China Barn

George W. Bush 

 like a rock, only dumber 

 broke what he can't grasp

synchrony

wingtip to wingtip
crow flies as his own shadow
inches from the cliff

resourceful

Iceland's fisherfolk 

 protect their waters fiercely 

 bankers make good bait

stopgap

 Temporarily 

 a deficit of caffeine 

 can be patched with sleep

dynamic range

Night's aural background 

 peaks at a storm's thunderclap 

 lulls to a frog's croak

frog chorus

The chorus of frogs 

 marks the tempo of the night 

 between rain showers

campfollowers

At vision's limits 

 foxes fled from our flashlights 

 as they clean up camp

rites of Spring

Summoned by spring's rains 

 salamanders rank on rank 

 converge on the pond

new allies

Spring's little triumphs 

 two voracious great horned owls 

 have fledged from the nest

flimsy firmament

Clouds flirt with the deck 

 leaving just a hundred yards 

 free for VFR

quiet mind

Pattering raindrops 

 evoke nothing so much as 

 pattering raindrops

boundary conditions

'til we understand 

 how a brain gives form to mind 

 we're bounded by death

Watchmen III

"Watchmen" stumped critics 

 Allen Moore's meditation 

 on foresight's limits

tutorial

Two downy owlets 

 gaze out through the morning mist 

 watching their mom hunt

memory of smells/smells of memory

A Summer rain-storm 

 stirs up smells I'd forgotten 

 since I moved out West

May '09

Rain drums on my tent 

 trails transform to muddy streams 

 funny sort of drought