Through the aviary,
sparrows streak yellow,
flashes of blue,
shadows over the ferns.
You capture the light
in prisms,
making it dance-
chase the birds in circles
through the dome sky.
Giant lilies dip close to the water.
A plane of bees
vibrate and shift,
tipping the flowers
close to the ground.
Through the refractory nature
of glass, you fire at the creatures-
the incendiary focus of sunlight,
just missing the birds,
who pause on branches, mocking you,
cocking their heads
to stare down
at the pockmarks below.

Thank God that if the desire
to create something in His likeness should arise,
there are subtle ways to fullfill it.
When the baker measures out cupfulls
from his bag of flour,
and an hour later pulls out a warm dozen,
he can lord over his kitchen, content
to have mortared his brick into the wall.
Women, at a stage of development,
having attained the likeness of their mothers,
crave something to nurture,
and are moved to find it.
A solitary Picasso hunches over
a foggy beach, feverishly sketching into the sand,
then climbs a dune
abandoning his masterpiece as the tide claims it.
A child buries an acorn in the schoolyard,
and returns a lifetime later
to find a towering tree.

We strive least often,
to create something in the likeness of God,
but when we ask for the ability
it seems we are given
a sample version.

Shall I sing you the song of lost youth?
Woe is me, my shorts are all gone,
they’ve fallen to my knees in a hurried trip
to courduroy, silk. Worms spin my man garb now.
This body has to feed itself, how sad.
It has to feed others, and is inclined
to stay from the water’s edge, to remain
safely on the train platform.
It is an asset to the community,
a mobile, thinking, shitting vessel of commerce.
The eulogies are all on file, the family
pictures behind ultraviolet glass now,
adding another forty years to their life,
twelve more people will remember my name.
How curious, the ant hill will soon
be inhabited by sand fleas, who will feast
on the blood of the ankles of aliens.

The heads of my ancestors
visited me in dreams,
delivered packages of frankincense.
Days aren't that bountiful anymore.
Flies have invaded the home,
claiming the pasta, bread, brocolli as their own.
Fucking flies.
The dogs have found new owners.
I am only a haggard man, with a whittle
shouting curses from the porch.
I used to carve soap,
but the tsunami turned it all to foam.
All men have dusty guitars waiting to be played,
dusty lungs straining to be filled,
faded jeans, tattered windsocks all drying on a line.
This house and all its facets will outlive me.
I'll pass on from the floor looking up
garlic butter spilt down my front
socks bunched up around my ankles
the caged animals will starve
a film will settle
The ringing telephone minstrel serenades
my soul, softly,
laying me down.

Squeeze your eyes shut hard enough,
and nothingness between the molocules that make you
will ignite and sponaneously combust.
Far off, four million light years away,
a galaxy implodes on itself,
taking with it ten thousand thoughts.
A baby cries,
the world orgasms,
a blade of grass shadows the entire universe.
All is crazy, all is well.

The Apocalypse is Neigh Vs. Nothing At All

It would take more words
than gallons of water in all seven seas
to describe the passing of each breeze
and just as much emotion to move the pen to write.

But the sea will dry up
and with it the ink
even digitized files of all the recollections of man
returned to the carbon sludge from whence they came.

Cities watched from afar
that are founded, will flourish, crumble, vanish
and their artifacts are buried
and in one thousand years discovered, learned from and sold.

Every second, ten thousand people
push and pull against brick walls
and one million birds
drift on a lazy West wind.

Does the river struggle at all,
as it flows down the mountain?
Do rain drops protest,
as they fall into the sea?

In a last gasp of air, one discovers,
that the walls were never there.