goodbye.

campfire ash
she wipes the sleep
fom her eyes

big dipper,
do you hold more
than darkness?
tonight I long to pour out
her thoughts of suicide

tracing
outside the lines,
the child
follows the sunlight
across the page

down stage!
center stage!
up stage!
the audience applauds
this indecisive fly?

mushroom
gathering at dusk—
the straw hat
to the brim with
youthful memories

how patient
you stand, old tree!
will I ever
get tired of stargazing
this side of heaven?

one slice
of cornbread left
tonight—
I think of every girl
that has a piece of me

earthworm,
will we ever reach
paradise
before the sun dries
both of us up!

still lake
a cork passes through
the sardine cloud

a boy
unwraps his mooncake—
harvest moon

one last toast
rises above the crowd—
—oh, the moon!

late night
phone conversation
she tells me
about her window view
of the harvest moon

still pond
she walks ankle-deep
in the harvest moon

dandelions seeds
great grandmother's hands
full of hair

..dus........k
.on...........e
...l..........eaf
..dri.........fts
..dow........n
.the sp.......lit
..oak t.......ree

Today's Schools

With the autumn wind at my back, I walk up the steps of Scarborough Chapel while wiping the last bit of sleep from my eyes. Birds chirp over my yawn. The professor hands back my test as I enter the dim, makeshift classroom. Everyone turns around in their desks and compares grades, but the only thing I find comforting it so slump down and out of the uncomfortable desk.

The door slams behind me.

late night news:
police caution tape
around the schoolyard

Thirst

The students slowly pile into the chapel. Blacks sit to the right, whites up front, Hispanics scatter, and sleepers in the back. I sit alone in between them all.

The speaker raises his voice with each scripture: Matthew to Mark; John to Exodus; Revelation to Psalms. I thirst for something new. My eyes lower into Basho and Bukowski.

A few hands rise toward God, some rise simply toward the ceiling. My hands cup to catch the third sneeze. "Help me to get through this, God," I mumble to myself. Others look my way and nod their "bless you." I smile and reply, "I'll keep the cold, but this Gospel is too much for me to handle."

almost winter
the dog's chained neck
bent toward the bowl

Weekend's Hunt

The college crowd stumbles in and out of drunkenness. Autumn wind pushes the drunkest to one side of the lawn and then back to the other side. The girls begin to make their passes at the boys. The boys knock over bottles with their denim erections.

"Happy Birthday," they yell and toast for the fifth time. Nobody cares for this celebration of birth, the years, the past; they only care for another hard swallow of alcohol; just the weekend's hunt for the opposite sex to devour.

Darkness slowly sets upon everyone's face.

autumn dusk
the doe looks back at the deer
in headlights