HOME RUN

Would that I
could tap her
memory out of
me with a hammer

and a well positioned
nail from which to
hang nothing from
but blessed relief

The practice went
out of style I hear
Why Old Mister
Jenkins used to
do it for free

TEAR

when this poem
 fills up that
is when
it will
drop

GEMPOINT

rest inside your eye
escape through a wink
reflected on the stairs

as they're passing by
and don't you think for a
second the test you or I

would make them blink or
even take them beyond

the sovereign halls for
a reckoning, realizing
themselves in the sky;

instead, they'd fall as
stowaways in a teardrop

carefully placed inside
a hidden oasis under
the sands of your face

TENDERGARDEN

think of the devil
call it chaos, reality
evil, whatever

anyone can sit
around providing proof
there's no such thing as
good or evil until the
cows come home

at the end of the day
someone has to know
that evil is alive
and well

I can choose to let
fate work it out

allow the gears
of the reeling cosmos
execute whatever justice

then any of a billion
equally terrifying fates
randomly awaits

I'd rather not place myself
on the yawning altar of space
as a piece of bait like that...

Instead I choose
to wield a pen
and interlock my shield
with fellow men

to direct hell itself
away from us
and decant it back
into the vacuum

If I do nothing
the dark side of
the wild will seize

and take root
in my blood

using my body
as the clay pot

WATER AND WOOD

Drowned in the wood
I knew I would
stared at the grain
way too long

saw a drop in the ripples
fell in to the pond
drowned in the water
of the tree of life

the tree of life got
lost in the wood
by the raging
river sat down

on a rubble strewn
log with a green
leaf still growing
from it sunned

on a rock ledge far
too long & was really
swept away by the water
stared at the wood of

a rocky limb held hands
in its claw nail twig
grip & was pulled off
the river & lost

on the bank
when I sat
down & drowned
in a tree.

MIGHT

Dying of natural
causes is a gang
related crime
in the real war

a tree can kill.
Sneak up and
strangle you.

Ivy may
demolish
a city

and a carrier frog
could invent the bomb
that poisons mankind.