PANOPLY

A simple—but effective 

smudge

of shadow-black 

crescents bobbing

up 

and down in soft

unison

parade formation—receding 

there

against the warmish

bulging

grey of city streetwash 

and sky

so gently 

clotted-over—

charmingly

ameliorates—or even better

the latest pelting 

shock—

of dark hard April rain.

CONCEPTS

All aspiring young 
milder weather poem 
and prose writers

are herein advised 
to take 
special notice—of how

even in the innocent 
and
strawyellow dawn 

of this as-yet 
unpolluted
promise of the new virgin

season—there gestates
something 

pretty dirty—
in the shy furtive way 
in which a few
more green shocks

of would-
be tulips 

and crocuses 
exist
than could be caught hocking-

up their tiniest bulbs—here
at this same 
muddy time and place yesterday;

and—more importantly

of just 
how exquisitely this consideration
constitutes

indisputable proof—that virginity

and some other word
you'll be tempted
to invoke

like chastity—stand

about as far apart 
from each 
other—semantically

as formal spring
from raw
unfettered springtime. 

WATERLOG

Kathryn—I'm more than
a little bit

ashamed
to admit—that it

feels almost too easy

and appropriate 
to miss

you so 
formally while it 

keeps weeping—such heavy
soft

buckets as this one—

THIS IS WILD—

but—for a minute

or more 

back there

sitting down blind-

eyed and tallish

I actually felt

at least

half like a tree—

mostly

in so far as—I had absolutely

no hands

and hence

couldn't even pretend

to apprehend

the world

around me like that.

What a relief!

not to 

reach to be 

part of it—

to be 

in my dumb place

and to know it

as such—I mean, er

no 

not 

at all like that—but

yes, I guess 

you really

kind of 

had to be there—

MAN AND NATURE WORKING TOGETHER

Rest assured—

exactly

such and so 

many

reams 

of magnificent 

foliage—

have been ordered

to beautify

this manufacturing 

district's prodigious 

square footage.

THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA

round-breasted 
robin,
so much

larger
than the rest—

all of your late-
in-coming 
ravenous brothers 

and sisters are
are stick-
thin and needling

around here—for a cheap little 
bit of fresh 
hope in hard moss.

How is it?—that you 
alone
hold this old bit

of dinosaur knowledge—
that springtime 

is not 
actually—anything 
like a time

you arrive at—but actually, 
just always

an eternal-
ly 
rotating 

spot—reoccurring!

CACHET

Oh pale 

shy and far-feeling

circle of sun—there 

are days

when you strike one 

as little

more than just 

painted-on—

seeming to 

while so 

abstrusely away 

on this 

two dimensional drop-

ceiling of heaven 

with no real 

immediate

pull of your own—

your mauve-

colored morning 

light clapped

dimly up in thick 

clots of grey 

pigments—in fact

it's like 

you're only 

last-minute—pinned up

or plastered 

to the set—simply

for the sake 

of day-

to-day

continuity.