New Mexican Ghazal

Full moon rises amber upon golden augmentations of the night

Autumnal ascent, Fire enters navy blue of night

Umber, ruby, amethyst, against marcasite

Colors captured in skies of day and night

Turquoise, carnelian, onyx, silver fetishes call

Desert jewelry for sale at a empty roadside stand at night

Stars glow in shattered shadowed escalations

The hills backdrop plains like curtains at night

Yellow and red flowering fruit upon fishhook barrels

along desert washes under full moon long shadowed night

Lockdown

The shrillness of the stillness is sickening to the quickening,
distancing from the potential of the dilemma of influenza,
no corona like lymphoma or pneumonia symptoms for me.
Covid novel eroded misquoted twaddle
this systemic epidemic Is pandemic.
The virus like phthirus affects our gyrus.
So, in our lockdown don’t break down instead let’s take down
the virus in isolation and filtration for the duration.

* this poem first appeared @ Pendemic.ie

A Poem not yet Written

A voice echos in my head
a heavenly choral refrain
chanting words from a poem
not yet written.
Marcel is a soft spring scent
an escaped ethnic flavor of San Jose
and I am an essential worker in these dire days.
Echoing despair singing bitterness
emojis might suffice in the retell
but that’s not what poetry is for.
So, when the cat gets your tongue
don’t let it eat your lunch.
Fleeting friendship of ideas
rear their ugly heads in anonymity
in yet another circle I am free
from that which holds me.
The door has sprung and exit
is allowed out of the choir’s chapel.

Lake Baker Clean-up

Lake Baker clean up 

anniversary number five*

beside dead babies breath, mushrooms and fern fronds 

wrappers, bottles, needles, cans, car parts, plastic, and diapers 

kayaks, canoes, conservationists congregate 

camping in sun waned windy weather

buckets, bags, and pickers in gloved hands

success measured in shorelines and ditches

*J L Wright and her wife Kathy Smith, volunteers at the 2019 Clean up, we’re legally married on September 28, 2014

Chaotic Journeys

Looking out the RV window watching bear 

In the quiet of the northern summer night 

where there is too much light to sleep and 

we imagine there’s no place like home

It’s been a year since your fall down

a muddy bank at low tide the channel

was rank; rotting seaweed and fish

like the toilet in the corner of the garage

conversations in my head leave me

wondering about heaven and hell

“we need butter” he said, “there’s some 

in the freezer” the response. I glance

out the window, feel a twinge caused by 

an earring I took it off her writing desk. 

she’d often slip them off and rub gently.

In my dreams, I saved her maroon lobes

El Paso

200 or more in less than so many days - why is an AK an acceptable arm? This time Walmart and then another in a business area, a park, a church or school. This time racist rants warned us. This time is not the last time. They haven’t been able to shut it down. I listen to European news speak about the stupid Americans knowing that we are only set up for more damage, more destruction with single gunmen on rampages. I haven’t seen the list of names yet will it be one of my friends? Or children? The young man who did it sits alone in a cage for 20 or more hours a day for nigh on 20 years as 20 or more lay in boxes and another 20 plus in hospital beds. The cost for death nearly three times higher than imprisoning in max for life. The cost future generations lost.

rat tat tat echo
metal casings ringing heat
summer desert blossoms

52

Weeks in a year

cards in a deck

Ivory keys on a piano

An untouchable number 

for a touchable you

on this birthday