RIPPLES

Looking through an acrylic extrusion
Purple ripples run across my brain

I once had a girl
I thought I could change
But when the change came
It was me.
 

ROUNDUP

When was the last time
You could honestly say
That you had preserved
A little non permanence?
Like the nineteen cent pen
Drained complete of ink!

Back when fires were lighted
And girls danced to the flame
Around the organ's steady control
There were few who saw
The carving taking place.
Dividing up the slaughtered herd
And roping off the stray bucks
Guided by the quarter guitar
Whose chords gently vibrated
Across the room.
There were few who could note
That three held by one
Could produce such sound
Approaching the return to our town.
 

SAILOR

I'm the weary sailor returning home
I've worked all the sea ways
And into night ports of call
To gamble and drink grog
And now to see the home cliffs
Over the soaked bow
I gather my coat over my chin
And pull my hat across my brow
With sandy shores ahead
I wade across in salt caked boots
To the town of my birth
Musk in my beard
And tar in my nails
And love in my heart
I stride up the road
To the cottage of my girl
Where I know she's been waiting
Now for seven years
For her sailor Jack
To return
Return to the love that can
Wash my soul of the sea
And I hope
I won't feel that call again
That sends men like me
On to the sea
 

SECRET STAIRWAY

What happened to that secret stairway
From the attic to the back of the closet
Where you could slide through the blackness
Down to the trap door?
It went where all dreams go.
Down that endless path
Of spiraling circles where we all seem to go,
In one direction, toward.
But sometimes from the dark walls beyond
You seem to recall that childhood
Long past. The second time is
Always a deeper understanding with
Regret to have another childhood
Fantasy relinquished from its
Throne, or a deeper understanding
Into what makes you what you
Are today.
 

SHE WOLF

The she wolf
Silhouetted
Canyon wall
Howls
Shattered - stillness
Blink
Chill
The living blood
Alone
The hunt begins
Sounded trumpet
Desert
High plains
Driven by hunger
Smell lust
Into
The
Night.