#557 Arbitrary Moment Coming To Pass

Tender is the swimmer
far out in the ocean of light.
Bright star dances tonight.
I am possessed by my dysfunction,
jangle and clang, chime and hum.
Human to the core, human to the stars,
my violence precedes my time.
Time to sing no more time to weep,
no more time than now.

#554. swan

swan
how is it
you left me
here on this earth
alone and remembering
tears are not just salt water
they are the sea

#545. brooklyn bridge forest

with fragile stone
people are hurrying
scurrying raindrops home
but i am on a walk to walk over
the brooklyn bridge to smell the sea
and hear poetry and to sing with the poets
all the ayes all the masts intertwined with cables
steel gray sky breathing with us as we amble and stride
strive to hear the music the words the horn of the ferries bright
beyond the underneath the promenade still stands fast greenheart
of the fragile forest

#538. shooter

alive your pain pried me

open with a dull curving blade

alive in the middle of the muscle world

plump meat oyster me in crisp sea salt chill

pearl liquor decorated moss green weed rough black

gritty shell back tidal scent popped the hinge and slurped

with lemon and sriracha sauce as red as any of your dreams

#525. kokoru

imagine on mud made beach
voices of human birds
devolution body songs
ash returning to life oceans
pearl shell and shimmer
fish fighting with wind
cast about for tenderness

#520. the river has no doldrums

the river is still in its course today
she rolls softly and enfolds this string
in the multiverse with a quiet song now
on the open flow to whatever sea dreams us 
forward the river is still in its course wherever
it sings flowing open soft forward in string dreams

#513. jihaazi (from a photo by mk

your photograph with dhows lines of grey african water
looking deeper i read the charts of fleet admiral Zheng He
ancient curving sails sweeping through the Lamu Archipelago
re-attaching to the past we still sail without engines on this earth
small mariners bending sails through sand bars avoiding the hazards
wrack of storms shipwrecks pirates turning towards the horizon the same
as the present is more demanding than the past which makes it so seductive
that only beauty found in danger and tumult and joy and the dawn can keep me

#500. totem poem

bottom of the sea
top of the ocean
salt water in between

human we gather
for a last meal 
we gather the totems
wear our ancient masks 
hold on to sparkling 
figures in memories
sustained thru time
to comfort and upset us

bottom of the sea
top of the ocean
salt water in between

we create art from meaning
it is so hard to give up a child
a father a lover a wife an old life
the prison of desire
is a prism to look through at death
my little fragment of rope
desperately tied and retied
holds me in this circle

bottom of the sea
top of the ocean
salt water in between

#479. irene the vacation

thin shade
the light from clouds crossed sun
water speaking
with the wind
pressure changes ozone depletes
exhilarated
run on grass
bright day after high sky blue sea
shout

#474. walking brooklyn bridge

quiet walk
alone in the chatter
of unusually happy poets
i love you brooklyn bridge from high
and low beneath me an ancient schooner
casts off her lines and stands out to blue sea

the cables thrummmm and i have become unstuck in time