Teeter-Totter

    To create dream -
    the pearl thru wine effect,
    oil and vinegar viscidity
    of giant salad leaves
    basking on the
    broken picnic table
    like so many lemurs
    taken to a
    Malagasy forest.

    Liverwurst on rye,
    cuff-links drag
    the hard, mica table;
    so, why be afraid
    'cause spume from waves
    glows upward
    in so many trails of
    grey-laden smoke?

    This island looks like a loaf,
    a dot or mole on inviting cheeks,
    to me; so wary, invariably, of land
    (and perhaps the Sand Man)
    amongst all those wandering eyes,
    especially the sea-scape,
    curl of snake
    illuminated
    in a sudden, tropic shower.

    See the sudden bandanna ...

    Orchestrating violins thru whisky sky
    clouds slide like billiard balls
    a Jackie Gleason-Fats Domino
    ricochet off greener velvet;
    my pheasant escaping snow.

    Jack Ketch the hangman
    in brilliant plumage,
    a touch of Borgia in
    long, murderous hands.

    The light of Capone in
    steeple-dark eyes
    running like a
    haunted ship
    around the white, facial disc.

    Offset. Bold type.
    I see you through pages
    of my history book
    only you're unpaginated.

    Unclench the fist,
    watch for effervescent islets,
    erotic mounds of Venus or
    protuberances called Marquesas
    off my left hand.

    Omens are the cloth
    of dreams, scissors

    I evaded capture today
    with only a handful of dust
    to escape that Old Sandman Death.

    Certainly, those maroon berries,
    so large & luscious,
    crowded on their fat stems
    had something to do with it
    as did the ground fog
    leaving its burrow as so many boll-weevils
    their crowded nests.

    And there might be something to the fact
    the moonlight sat
    fat & confidant in the night sky
    as surely
    as my head rests on this pillow
    and the poem invites itself
    into my lair of thoughts,
    much as nestlings charge the
    entrance to the runway
    of a tree.

    I walked flat out
    in an instance
    as standing urine
    held its own stench
    an...

Scouting the sun
thin clouds threadbare vests
barely to cover the horizon.
the heat or the day, canine,
a hot tongue's intensily
splashing yr face.

The docks are quiet,
prawn trawlers unloading gear
gar fish at the surface of the water
echoing little fins like
tiny waves green
into the shallows.

Bubbles anchor the lagoon    -
changing rivulets into sand
stone walls numbered in shards of glass
trade universal currency
but, beware, the proprietor
cobblestones up to his door,
a candle in the window-stoop,
a creeking gate opened as an afterthought.

Come the picaroon.
Spanish adventurer
lesser known rogue, thief
a smile like piano keys
huevos sent back.

I've seen the parfumerie
the snake pit,...

    1
    The moon has a larder
    and a kitchen,
    wears a nightcap
    as Father in the Night Before Christmas.

    2
    The moon hoards pistachios,
    marzipan
    commands the shadows
    is mustachioed
    sleeps in a sloop
    (at least when I look)
    like the boat
    owl and pussycat
    took to sea.

    3
    And on country nights
    in high summer
    fishing nets seem drawn
    about his face,
    reveal ribbons of light,
    eerie panhandlers grubbing quarters;
    a sinister sailor with a sack
    on a pitch black wharf.

    4
    Between clouds,
    leafy barques
    the hinge reflected on the
    thick, ashen door
    the moon will pirate
    your sen...

    Who administers to my needs?

    Is it the dandelion, so ant-encrusted, that
    yellow pollen dangles from a shiny abdomen
    suggestive of some actor's
    smeared and garish make-up?

    Or the cicada's song,
    difficult to describe,
    laundering thick summer heat?

    Perhaps, then, the Red Admiral butterfly
    especially active at the close of day and drawn
    to wooden lawn-furniture or the exposed human limb?

    If none of these
    breathes vigour or tonic
    through my nostrils,
    what of tubs of fresh water?

    Take pea-pods for crude, rudimentary boats
    and children as make-shift sailors,
    then they both shall spy the secrets of seas.
    Bold harbours will be their cues,
    astrola...