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…

Believing is Seeing in the undergrowth of an eastern wood a rabbitnot much bigger than a squirrel believesthere are eaters in the overgrowthand sees them everywhere it stops stock-still, aware as still as if its clock had stoppedno twitch or blinkmore stone than hare believing in suddenness it sees in every micro-acre of spacewhat its…

Which matters more, Philosophy or Ecology? How many thoughts can dance on the head of a radioactive pin, and for how long? –Roshi Bob Does Philosophy Matter It’s high summerwild green thrusts itselfagainst the boundsof clipped lawnsHuns of sumacamassed at a farm’s edgesurge toward logicalrows of beets andwell-reasonedranks of peppersignoring the protocolof invitation underthe wingspreadof…

daily mud when I’m down and most proneto fall into the mire of meaningI resort to the stars as ifthey might pin a ribbonon my chest: a rewardof understanding to come;the wars of fidelity won —as if I might winthe Medal of the Unknown’s Honor for piety instead of for keeping my head in the…

Band of Saints still in his gardenlighthe apologized to his sunflowers promising things wouldchangehe swore by all that’s right that he would end hiswarwith the earth that brings them forth on stalks thick asthievesupon which bright heads turn from northleavesopen as palms of supplicating hands in rows of six foot stems awalldense as the barnside…

Auto-auction if I should give account of all the days that shame meI’d be shamed indeed —especially by those daysthat shame me by my own account the noose that one gets in was once a collarits no mystery how the world goes rounda penny for my soul, why not a dollar? by Jim Culleny1/21/2010

Matryoshka BoxesAh, to think outside the box.But this box is too big —more thanlight years across (limitless in fact)so thinking out there has been a problemand (with the way it’s been)seems to be pretty much impossible A thought that big(a thought outside this box)would be divine To think outside this boxrequires a perspective well beyondthe…