with what little effort
do we fill the silent,
snow-flaked air
with words;

thoughts, across
the lattice-laced
backs of long-descending
wings, draped weightless
on the wind; they prickle
my throbbing ears
with contemplation;

do i dare believe
such tiny angels?
do i dare grasp
fleeting frigid
with bare hands?

we dribble life,
like humid sea breeze
from a languid sail;
stinging condensation
stains the canvas
of our days,
obscuring the delicate
watercolors of love;

a tempest in the teacup
of blind momentary;
a nor’easter
off the feckless bow;
a rudderless fear
upon white-capped swells;

sent in endless pursuit
of weathering whispers,
the white-clad army
(pure as winter’s
lust for spring)
covers consciousness
in snowfall;
crimson sin
beneath a dressing
of drifted cotton;
and bleeding wounds
beneath a compost
made of pain;

i ache for you;
do thou speak
my secret name;
and i, in sweet
com(passion),
for you
will do
the same.

with trembling hands,
stiff from the cold
invading sinew
and tendon,
knuckle and joint,
winter arranges
an empty room;

stems, which once
heaved beneath the weight
of flower and bud -
nodding affirmation
on the summer breeze -
now strain to stand erect,
huddled as they are
against the blue breath
of callous December;

the shapeless air bares,
white and witless,
ragged rows of crumbling teeth,
pinching feather and fur
until even hope has paled
in the long moonless sigh
of a fitful, solstice sleep;

at my feet, fissures gape
in agonies of disbelief,
the dumb waters gulping
lungs-full of pleuritic despair;

this lake has swallowed
me before, how she longs
to drink deep my deepest fears;
striking heel against her
aching breast, i defy
vain mistress winter,
and disdain her empty threats;

across the stoic ice,
a red flame darts, sputtering
embers in the snow;
a regal fox, with tail
like an artist’s fude,
blazes brazen
in the unbroken seamless
of the frozen plain;
and i dare to hope
that i, too, might know
spring again.

how big is the world
in which we live?
no wider than
a day’s breadth;
no longer than
a night’s watch;
no higher than
our own ambitions;
little more than
come and gone;

over the course
of our stay,
we trudge
and trample flat
the furrows formed
by feet that walked
these meadows before us;
churning the self-same soil
of our own tiny lives
into rich pastures
or fallow fields, as only
harvest time will find;

such is the corner
we call the world;
such is the sliver
we call the stage;
and such is the sole extent
we are called to change;

not nations or policies
nor hearts nor minds;
all such are beyond our reach;
for, the wide world lives
outside the boundaries
set forth by one day’s march
or one night’s lonely watch;
my ambitions crave
stuff more solid than this:
that, from the slivers
that lay close at hand,
a new grand stage be made.

the mountain breathes with lungs
of foothill and floodplain;
upon its slopes, fir trees spread
wide their feathered fingers,
gathering hope sopping
white with purity;

a river of relentless mist flows,
three feet atop the matted floor;
weaving, wafting, weeping its
sluggish way around all in its
path; fox and hare drown
in gossamer veils - hung
lifeless above the gurgling ground;

grey run the watercolor hues,
down dense windowpanes
of sky and unbroken; vistas
spread like bridal trains,
less costly but more assured;

the sullen landscape wears upheaval,
a mad portrait of disproportionate;
rendered in Neo-Topsyturvism,
the sky surges like turbid seawater,
while earthen tides
reclaim the fallen leaves;

along mystic pathways, geese cry
desperate in the creeping fog;
their feet ache to feel the sponge
of safe landing; never were souls
less suited for flight than water
fowl above this fluid plain;

oh, how i fear the sun has died;
how pale he looks in yonder sky.

southern storm thunders rage
against my panes, with fists
of gushing tantrums, dense
as the flesh of sodden fruit;
fury runs, black and jagged,
down naked streets;

through my open window,
the heavy air squeezes her
thick thighs, sitting astride
my heaving chest, filling
the night with cold remorse;
even the gasping ground
gulps mouthfuls of muddy despair;

the thunderheads seem stern
beyond reckoning;
their brooding minds glow pink
with humid discontent; these
are not tears they shed, but the
rabid slavering of reckless raving;
what tragedy befell to pervert
such pure souls, none can say;

lightning stamps mayhem across
the face of the sky; like razor burn
dragged over dry skin, it flays
my spine raw; even the tree frogs
scream dismay, each raindrop
falling like a spike to impale
their thin, wet skins like so many
vile trophies; chaos spins cruelty
in careless stampedes;

but listen…

count the miles as they widen
between thunder and light,
i’m certain of one thing:
i will not sleep again this night.

the ragged earth
is razor-burned;
stiff stubble chafes
the cheek of the wind,
caressing, as she does,
her lover’s face;
the sun sets soonest,
these days; 5 o’clock
shadows are lengthening;

among summer’s
severed stalks,
blackhead crows,
like moles
marring unblemished
faces, burden
the morning air
with their rowdy,
strident screeches;
would that the sky
might, pillowing,
smother them whole;

in laundry heaps
of soiled and dismal,
winter’s raiment
huddles fast
against the warmth
of a fuller who seeks
to bleach them bare;
who knows what treasures lurk
within the folds and pockets
of core-frozen
snowbanks: shopping
carts and sundry
lives swept up
by indiscriminate snowplows;
a heart, once thawed,
reveals all things;

the field, too, is a graveyard
of markers; rows and aisles
of unforced perspective;
husks of withered skin;
ears of gnawed
and toothless;
unfit to swallow by any
but the gluttonous mud;
i lose my eye
inside a maze
of amazement;
who plants
with such precision?
who masters
the indifferent ground?

is this not a metaphor?
is it not like a simile?
that i might walk so far afield
to master the seasons
inside of me.