A large green iguana fell out of a tree
onto my head.
Ohio has no invasive Iguanas.
I don't smoke anymore.
Right in front of me
a speeding red van killed a woman.
I have developed an allergic reaction
to all kinds of blind spots.
Latterly,
balding eagles have buried their memories
under symbolic windfarms.
Since moving to where I am,
the mail truck arrives far too late
to do anything about it.
I used to leak over sterile tabletops.
Now and again, a thin lifeblood still drains
through systemic digital aqueducts.
Upon a time, I considered following the ways
of an autonomous wildebeest,
no matter,
an habitual herd instinct
led me to drink from only shallow waterholes.
I have reconsidered.
Ever since,
a rung-less ladder gets me high enough
without the use of heel lifts.
I choose my socks carefully.
they live in an iron nest
under a back window
they have begun to dream
the way threadbare drapes will
in too much sunlight
scorched by sky
blooms crumple like straw hats
reach up bent by an internal smolder
as if the air were a cistern
but the sky is a dry bed today
sprinkled water has no effect
i expect to see stringy stems
swell into firm aqueducts
but the newly doused droop the more
as if water were a flame
in a beached throat
I gave my heart to someone in the rain,
the clouds exploding, witness to my vows
The water carrying away each fervent wish
—to stream in happy aqueducts of love
(Dreamsleep: January, 2021)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imCOi7pqKh0
They live in an iron nest
and have begun to dream
the way threadbare drapes will
in too much sunlight.
Scorched by sky
blooms crumple like straw hats.
Water has no effect.
Any time now,
I expect to see stringy stems
swell into aqueducts
but the newly doused
droop the more.
The fancy blooms cost me $74
Stupidly I yell at them:
to revive, to live, to thrive!
Nothing.
The buggers have also gone deaf.
Terracotta dreams alight
in rising Roman aqueducts
slipping in twilight hours of the night
where mysterious Spanish memories are plucked;
a momentary plunge
with Hercules standing muscle-bound
from which olden images are hung
as winds rise without a sound;
a flare in dance upon the castle floors
to pray a prayer aloud
beyond grand cathedral doors
holding visions authentic to each crowd;
slip in and out the corridors of legacy
Segovia and Madrid, the old Alcazar,
where history lay in wait splendidly
and time marches on, near and far;
these are mere images that remain
to tell a story old yet true
by which history is framed
a place, a legend, a story not new;
let it rise, let it stay
mysteries laid in the past
while awe and beauty grace the day
and visions and dreams race fast.
It carves its way through the hills and cliffsides,
too far from the oceans to feel a tide,
by Rome it is narrow, but here it is wide,
great locks of the Erie let barges rise
past sand bars and rocks shoals that undermine;
the only way west back in olden times.
From ruined aqueducts, kids they will dive,
along scenic 5S tourists will drive,
look above and sometimes bald eagles fly
scanning for bass that in the current thrive,
while deer come to shore looking to imbibe.
Rambles until the Hudson is in sight,
the mighty Mohawk is ever alive.
silent kisses
escalating warmth
petals of roses
volcanic eruptions
in the outer stratosphere
spatulate fingers intoxicated
searching in the aqueducts
dark moist soil waiting
your luminous eyes
entangled in new
rain dark pools
i drown in bliss
sep 15 2016
12.13 pm
Demesne
at Pergamon
stirred an epiphany.
The Aqueducts, Acropolis,
propinquity, Temple Dionysus,
Trajan Temple- all so magnificent.
Persian, Greek, and Roman wonders;
some standing, most lying...
erstwhile kingdoms,
all gone.
I viewed
and imagined
robust efflorescence
that once filled this bucolic place.
Dalliance here, much too ephemeral.
Damp ruins- yellow soil stirred petrichor.
Wild grass, broken art; redolent
grave serendipity...
wars...harbinger...
of loss.
March 20, 2016
~1st Place~
Contest: A Day In A Town
Sponsor: Nayda Ivette Negron
Judged: 04/14/2016
Required words in order of appearance:
demesne, epiphany, propinquity, erstwhile, efflorescence, bucolic, dalliance, ephemeral, petrichor, redolent, serendipity, harbinger
November water somber black
Runs under haunted houses down the block
Moving through the shallow aqueducts
Poisoning shadows, contaminated, liquefied
Red bricks cling to deposits rank decay
Waters feed on foundations on limestone rocks
Down there to etch the center of the soul
Sinkholes gobble up the ground
Houses draw their own conclusions, shatter
Take men down as well in fear, in sin with malice
Expire as the lungs fill up with sediment
Only silent water knows the hour
There are no tombstones by the sinkhole graves
Silent meanderings, black water, somber wet
Continue down beneath the street
Gravity of the matter takes on meaning; holds
Sidewalks are known to walk alone
When sink holes take your home
my roman ruins
you are my rome,
all roads lead home to you
the ruins of my destruction
on the rounding patchy earthen grounds
strewn with stiff marble columns
that have long ago cracked and crumbled
and into several broken pieces
by the hand of a violent man
signs of the holy catholic trinity
stand everywhere
yet there's no holy space
where I find the comfort that I need
to rest my weary head
bleached bones and skulls
with sullen hollow spaces
hide in deep tunnels under the ground
continue to haunt me in my sleep
as the towering roman aqueducts
remind me of the mighty powers
that fell from grace years ago
the via appian way spreads
far and wide to many places
destroying forces that
blocked their armies way
on its broken bricked path
I trod through my sunny days
and my dark lonely nights
yet no matter how hard I fight
to move my sandaled
feet far away from you
my warped brain keeps
directing it's seizing waves to
cherished memories of your
youthful tanned roman face
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