Abandoned Bicycle

A woman's bike in dusty rose appeared
One day right on the corner lot--it flaunts
Anachronistic bars slung low, a weird
Retention of a time of dresses haunts
Us as arational tradition bent
Across such time that reasoning is spent.

The bicycle is sitting by the road
For days--unmoved by owners (who are they?),
Unmoved by thieves--unsung but by this ode
Which seems the only thing that wants to play
With this pink bike beside the broken street
Absorbing the October summer heat.

Suppression

The rocks crunch beneath my soles as cruel black heat
Ascends, sharp against my calves--it won't defeat
My dull drive to wander--to my feet repeat
Their blue-black soul beat.

A thought tempts, but obligations gain the ground--
My walk waits, perhaps forever--life will bound
And bring back ambitions to harmonic sound
Which swell songs around.

To go slow and gather all I see and hear--
That goal grips me, trips me--down the road I fear
I will wander, will not dare to go nor steer
That far future near.

A breeze, balmy, blowing through my thinning hair--
A grim grackle calling from the ground, its stare
Demands more from me--the dandelions wear
My down, dancing fair.

Is this truly what I want, a homeless life--
The earth's girth my home, to live without the strife
Of hard human expectations?" That's the knife
To rend reeds a fife.

A Chinjikijilu

A poem is a crystal made of time
That's built out of the future, made in sounds.
Emerging out of the unsayable,
Where I have known all the unknowable
And proven all of the unprovable
And reasoned through all the irrational,
I brought to complex order all the chaos
And disconnected the connectedness
That disconnects the future where I'm from,
In all the beds and shadows where I sleep,
In all the coffee houses where I dream,
And after I've returned to you from death
I'll bring to you the undefined, defined
In lines of rhythm, rhyme and patterned time.
I come upon the river of the blood
Of all the ancestors that fill my mind
And wade across it, slip to be baptized
By all the echoes they make from the future
Where truth is all that's spoken, if in rhyme.
The rest is all prosaic lies. The ground
That rises brings me back to Athens, life
Here in the city where the sophists lie,
Deny the past and future, beauty, good,
Light and shadow, complexity, and love,
Are hostile to the makers of time crystals,
To anyone who brings dead back to life,
To anyone who triumphs over death,
Emerges pure and clarified and true.

Narcissus o Christos

The egomaniac declares he's "woke"--
Parading through the town to his own tune,
Impressed by his own narcissistic stroke--
He's certain all will see his Truth real soon--
He's certain that his every thought's a boon.

He wants to strip down every woman, man
And cut their hair to his, dress them like him
And make each one conform to his own plan--
A plan that's brilliant just because it's brim
With him--your difference his blades will trim.

He thinks the world and he must be the same--
They are the same, except the evil parts--
He'll cut the tall down--better they are lame
And following behind him in their carts
And worshiping his ego in their hearts.

He wants the world all "woke" like him, with eyes
Of adoration for the things he's done
For them--and who'll lay low and terrorize
Those who refuse to see that he's their sun--
Through him a brand new world has just begun. 

White Bird of Paradise

A blue boat with white sails taking turns to rise
Beside sailors indigo in dress that sail
Among massive fans of green banana leaves--
In sharp shade he grieves.

The tree twists into the sky and butterflies
In brown breathe a baby's breath into the blue
And strong-streaked canoe that's destined not to flee
The cool canopy.

The swift sunbird, iridescent scarlet, tastes
The sweet syrup cargo of the ship, is paid
In gold given to this thirsty messenger
Whose wise words recur.

The blue boat will boldly lift its sails of white
So swift sunbirds, butterflies can bring the words
The tree twists into a song the wind will fail
To sing strong to gale.