Poem Sequences

​silence is the language of the enlightened

5-7-5 haiku :: shoe-fitting the ugly sisters

modern haiku :: another moment bearing repetition

one-line haiku :: a floating pause crosses the eye

visual haiku :: unaloud as kittens born by night

asemic haiku :: markings freed of the tyranny of word-sense

avant garde haiku :: dadaku and mamaku are tree ferns

confessional haiku :: Yukio Mishima spills his guts

parallel haiku :: meeting in the infinite

a glimpse of moon
in keeping with the rules
I drop two lines

forever they will be
what the clouds hid away

it is said
that beginnings
lead to ends

the catastrophe
awaits its cue

Dog breath in its drawing back is God
 
Awakened to a patient etherized upon a table

Rerum Novarum the progress of light across a modern slum

Knowing naught the soft suppuration of naysayers

Nevermore a raven fills the mouths of the poor

Extinct light-bringers compose a nocturne

Solstice night what does it profit amid the stars?

Soliloquy of the drip by drip withdrawal of sight

(published in Bones 21)

viral in its alpha
and in its omega
Crow's darker side

challenging
the verb "to be"
Crow marches on

2019 novel
Crow covets another's
dystopian theme

Crow recomposes
Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus
in his own image

dead by daylight
Crow gives away
the game

ICU
Crow eyeballs the soul
leaving the body

knowing the final chapter
Crow breaches quarantine
blacker than ever

fed up with life
Crow empties his bowels
onto a wet market

been there, done that
Crow recites his litany
of first causes

in Trump's world
Crow never changes
his mourning attire

with just caws
Crow plagues the living daylights
out of all who heed him

bare-faced lies
Crow shuns all masks
of giving a damn

one of 13 black birds
Crow gorges himself
on his nature

Crow's credo
faith in him is caught
not taught

obsidian cross
Crow reflects on his fame
for the masses

a black death
Crow divides himself
by zero

mocking Stevens
Crow goose-steps through the snow
to die alone

drawn and quartered
Crow tunes humankind up
for the end of time

change of climate
Crow strings up the white flag
of himself

(published in Weird Laburnum)

“With usura hath no man a house of good stone”

 —Ezra Pound, Canto XLV

with usura
nothing seen
becomes a flower
nor imagined, the moon

with usura
the angel's message falls
on deaf ears

with usura
the child in the womb
is stillborn

with usura
the holy innocents' sin
against nature

with usura
thirty pieces of silver
puts one's head
in a noose

with usura
a fossil fuels
an ancient debt

with usura
the cry of the poor
drowns the feast

with usura
disinformation ensures
election wins

with usura
the gulf between Dives and Lazarus
yawns wider than a hyphen

with usura
the enslavement of billions
is never abolished

with usura
sublime beauty is a debt
to be repaid

with usura
the public interest
attracts interest

with usura
the future weighs down
on the now

with usura
in a station of the metro
Pound's canto appears

rising heat
a snow globe warms
to its theme

the sun bobbing at sea-rise

no less and less an isle of man

an atoll submerges into a plastic replica

sure to rise at dead low water

back by way of
the commodious vicus
just about wrapped up

outer space in the blink of an eye

stars dim through a cataract

there it was finite as the speed of light

a theory breaches the Kármán line

you too can craft a god
imagined into absence

oh wonder . . .
i feel now
this not me

a toddler tiptoeing into the void

a loopworm
out of leaf
out of itself

these words passing their limits

full-freighted words sink in silence

a spot light takes centre stage

winter sun light to the touch

a lighthouse fogbound with distant light

that said there can only be light

a play of light in a single act

the burden of proof it's just light

in darkness we saw the light was good

lightness by moth flicker

a shift into the afterlight

stillness at the speed of light

light verse on the last page just a matter of light

plastic people flushing our deaths away

life-giving breath . . .
phytoplankton evolve
into plastic

plastic bags
return to sender . . .
ocean breeze

morning rise on the tips of our toes

all that remains of us will return 

to be our story without you 

a memory yet not yet and yet

remember when now was when

in reduced circumstance winter solstice

know now less than no thing

if missed light less present

without a second thought an ar-15

without a second thought the nra

without a second thought platitudes

wheel spokes of ar-15s

a circle of ar-15s shoot at the centre

an ar-15 shoots off its mouth

right to mouth off the nra

an ar-15 because i can

open carry platitudes poured on tap

life you're fired

morning constitutional right to kill

nra empowering your inner darkness since 1871

another round of spent shells of prayers and condolences

(for Marlene Mountain with gratitude)

end to end daze drone on

year end and mine and

the poet dwells
at a safe distance
from words

the poet
pussyfoots around
the utter brink

the poet paces out
the sound of space
in-waiting

the poet
hot off the press
goes silent

the poet goes
dum-de-dum-de-dum
between breaths

the poet
pads out
the silences

the poet
lipsynchs his reflection
in tranquility

the poet
skirts the edges
of relevance

the poet
rattles off
his mortal coil

the poet at home
with the loneliness
of a long-distance runner

the poet
scratches the imagined limits
of his horizons

the poet
feathers
his nest egg

the poet
measures his success
in tossed panties

the poet loses
his daytime job
to the moon

the poet quickens
to the sound
of his own voice

the poet
strikes a pose
off its pedestal

the poet
plays out
the party line

the poet weeps
as sound and sense end
his abstinence

the poet
resurrects
a moment

the poet
loses himself
in his words

(published in Failed Haiku 24)

doublespeak
all could be ill
or well

self-imaged
Atlas shrugs off
a fountainhead

on an orange ass
"the masters of mankind"
trumpet their anthem

behind the ass
crying "look at me, look at me",
"destroy destroy destroy"

pre-emptive strike
against the earth
and their other

before light
when to be
is just that

in darkness
becoming
a candle

let there be . . .
ta ta ta
strike the flint

for now
a spark
just that

Saroyan's candle
sputtering
lighght

night breeze —
the sound of light
on a wick

the light
that lies
in words

a candle deifynes the darkness

(published in Bones 12)

jigsaw child
fitting words
fall together

only this
the flicker of blood
barely glimpsed

singled out
by silence
our mutable feast

in the world
if only of it
daughter buffalo

echoing
what has no voice
daughter of mine

(published in Otata 13)

always now
before it has a name
morning light

does it live
the other I think
in the word

vital signs
the form conforms
to the word

eye to eye
what comes to pass
with a yes

no room now
light without end
fills the night

to be
what is hidden
and seen

(published in Otata 13)

while doves cry i coo

a season word
cuts 'twixt my coming
and my going

human nature stages a high coup

spell casting
a hokkus pokkus
of words

the verbal hiccups of a beat movement

close reading a cross-eyed ku

autumn's end . . .
a vulture turns over
the pieces

urban garden . . .
among skeletal trees
a vulture waits

summer grasses . . .
a vulture circles over
soldier's dreams

stricken ill
a vulture scavenges
extant dreams

dawn parade . . .
a vulture flies itself
at half-mast

moon halo —
the vulture eyes
a ring finger

Irish stew —
finnegan's wake
of vultures

branching out —
vultures in committee
form a quorum

a vulture
sniffs out the state
of Denmark

seventh day . . .
vultures feed on the
afterbirth

pas de deux . . .
a vulture outsmarts
the crow

darkening sky . . .
vultures keep watch over
a vale of tears

empty sky . . .
a vulture returns
to fuck all

(published in Otata 37)

dog
breath