Tunnel vision 1

When the car drove into the driveway
she was on the walkway.
When the car stopped
she had arrived at the front door.
When the engine turned off
she fumbled for her keys.
When the driver’s door opened
she suddenly squinted.

When the driver’s door slammed shut,
she looked up into the sky.
Startled by the vision,
she looked back into her bag.
When the vision disappeared
she turned her key and went inside,
leaving the passenger seat
full of unripe fruit still
hanging from the past.

Woman nowadays 2

You see she is blind to the blade
about to fly from the edge.
No sooner do you make your own entry
than it must fall on the wedge
banked by executioners
ready to behead.

Woman nowadays

I make women like this nowadays

Aurora is her name
strands apart
Morning break

Brandishing a brush
Axe held high
Chop would to wood
Krona into pennies

I make women like this nowadays
Native strengths

Scalping barbarity
wherever it turns,
eager to build crosswords,
deeply ingrained in
every hammer that
nails another lie.

Forthright.

I make women like this nowadays

Axe is light
Metal resounds

(Neat stacks
Of split wood
Taming trees.)

I make women like this nowadays
Notching
Combing
Owing
Groping
Night and day
Inscribed along the way
Tending to a backlog
Of unfinished blows.

Acrostic in homage to "The Vane Sisters".

Re:turning a black eye

I can take it.
Being in the shadow
of a boxing bag
sour breed,
brooding
Re: return
too cold.

Returning piece by peace

Showering in a Redwood Forest

For Bonnie
P asked me if I would like to take a shower and wash my hair in her stall. At first I said no. Then I decided I would take a shower in her stall, where I decided to take the time to wash my hair. And then I lingered in the mist of it all, hovering upstream before I tested the silt.

Valentine's Day desserts

As though enough is not enough, I continue to indulge in the sweetness at my roots.

Managed to enter the Hillside Club on Cedar in Berkeley this evening, as the last person to be offered standing room only, where Haydn Reiss was showing his filmed interview of conversations between poets Robert Bly and William Stafford. "Even trees deserve their place." Artist, come home. "Find what the world is trying to be." W. Stafford.