My breathing system seems to be:these lungs within; without: those trees……………………….. —Inspiration. Conjoined There are mountains in this pic of withered leaves—as from a satellite and voids in shadows they recede but I see brittle peaks bright spinescurling from dead stemsdry as earth desiccated by the practicesof men: light filamentsthat have broadcast life and breath:…

Another Piece of Eternity I’m peeling back a page reading a new dayby the light of a new sun.mom died years ago, or was it yesterday?.I once read something similar by Camusbut was too new to understand that time bleeds.its dyes are not fast but runbetween years and sometimes like old cloththe colors of time…

Topology I love the space of your soulthe way it tends up and outlike that wide field in Conwaynear the sugarhouse which one spring blossomedwith dandelionsso dense and profuseits rising humpin the morning sunwas a mound of goldwhose brilliance was more fabulousthan that most coveted ore I love the niches and covesof a soul that…

Easter I should be devotionalin my mother’s waystanding at the mouth of a tombwith its rolled stoneempty as the night sky between starsempty as the space within atomsbecause, they say, a man diedbut beat death and wouldbequeath immortalityto those who believedeath can be beat entirelyso that bodies may embrace in heavenso that what was so…

Knot maybe you think I do not knowmaybe you think I could not bemaybe I am not where I gomaybe you are not here with me.perhaps the moon is nothing oldperhaps the sun is never newperhaps all stories have been toldperhaps there is no being through it could be everything is hereit could be everything…

Breeze I dreamt I wasdreaming in Chineseso didn’t understand my dreamthough it’s calligraphy was clearas the brushed strokes of breeze. the characters Lao Tzuclimbed behind closed eyes but said as little as they couldmounting nothing hill obliquely vanishingbetween two skies. I came upon a Buddhasitting circular and wise as a pictographwithout a word silentlyloquacious mutely…

Fresh Brim-Feather Inside the eye of a new stormare you lost? came the question;came as a little nesting tornado, awindy Matryoshka tuckednaturally within another;a wind like the tiny tempeststhat lift street leaves from gutters in fall—a miniscule funnel by standards ofTornado Alley butif you’re small (as smallas a small thought)the small question,are you lost in…

Bolts of Light The Sami have a hundred words for snowI have fewRivers of nuance flow from familiarity I know the bite of my own barkToothless as a frog I sit upon my stoneI croak across my pond, the sun,early spark and setting emberknew what I have knownknows what I remember,has seen it all, collecting…

“When the rich get too rich and the poorget too poor, there is a way.”…………….. —Pearle Buck, The Good Earth.Quake when the rich get too richthe sky fallswhen the poor get too poor there is a way: see what breaksover a fault when platepushes plate even stacked bullion falls it’s a grim scenewhen all work…

Alarm Wake up as much as possiblebefore you sleep………………… catchyour breath while the sun’s upwhen……….in February after a snoweverything’s so soaked with lightsleep……… is impossibleand all that’s left is to catch a dayby an hour………………. and dance.. ….in incandescence forget……….. about sleep and dreamsforget……….. the doldrums andwake……….. to what the crows cawcackling over road kill…………………

As dust and gas swirls around the black hole matter compresses causing it to glow.Scientists can only see the outline of the black hole, also called its shadow. –Physorg.com. Seeing a Black Hole or Bouquet of Altroemeria First you must knowthat shadows glow Circling the shade of nada(the thing that can’t be seen)the stuff of…

Expect nothing and nothingwill come bearing something—sure thing Sure Thing This is how the world began:expecting nothing but see how something(a blazing ballcaroming off the tip of Kepler’s cue)breaks the horizontrailing a passionate veil of crimson lightwhich sets the sea afire with fierce luminescenceand me with fierce delight this is how it is:the earth, without…

Caresses and Cuffs Silence thick as her stews sometimesfilled my grandmother’s housebut for the cars on 15hissing toward Picatinnyon a wet nightbig black Packards or Buicksheavy as a hard life,Chevy’s wide whitewallsspinning over asphalt on a two-lanebefore the interstate sliced througha table in her living roomcluttered with snaps of Jim and JackHoward Frank Velma RuthGladys…

So, Socrates to young Plato said,”The things we think we know are like shadowscast on the walls of a cave by a distant light of unseen things we do not know.”. A Hole in The Banal-For L.You called last night troubled.Looking for something in particular(a pink balloon shaped like the heartof your long dead cousin)you'd…

—for Ricardo Reply to a message from Ricardo who wrote:How U b?.I b well enough Work fairly regular— ’bout 4-5 hours a day at TSA,plus a couple of side jobs drawinglucky (to have work)chug chug Keep my hand in the writing game:blogs, two local paper gigsshooting my mouth off at greedy vampire windmills sucking global…

Drawing In my drawing a line movesnorthwest along the edgeof a white birchtoward the top left limit of a pagelike an inky contrailtracing an idea of somethingseen in a white skyit banks up and rightalong the dark underside of the shadow of a limbuntil it branches again and againretelling a tale of deciduous DNA,limbs a…

Aftermath Goaded by hurricane the river raged through on a tear to the sea taking trucks and treesOil tanks bobbed under bridgeson swells of liquid gravitya wood-framed studio pirouetted from its piersoff downstream, a ship of art, rudderlessuntil it lodged against the steellifts of the dam gatesCellars filled with siltand whatever the river’d dredgedfrom back-yard…

Old Lovers Two old lovers–ships beachednear the sea of love in a cove off a bayno storm can reach,lean into each otherlonging not for past passion,not listening for a poet’s speechjust listing, leaning each into each by Jim Culleny2009

“Several males hold a hand or foot of the rival so the victim can be damaged at will.” — Poet C.K. Williams on chimpanzee behavior in his poem “Apes” Survivable Bliss seeing DNA’s serpentine double helixa thought occurs that Adam’s snakehissing from its tree was another kind of knowingnot thought of in those many-years BC…

Burnt Love My memory’s a divine brothel, he saidremembering a fog of lust What drives a man is evanescent;even that fierce flame. Jesus how time clips wings and burieseven conflagrations in dust In a pool of recall,which is always troubledby a new morning breeze,you may never seethe forest or the trees—but there is a gazebeneath…