Imaginary Prohibition

A novel bootlegger,

A fighter for fiction, 

And a rebellious reader

Whisper in smuggler’s diction.

Illiterate watchmen 

Now prowl the scribblers’ den. 

They want what’s real, not lies,

That the poetic privateer provides.

Their eyes scorch like torches

At Fahrenheit 451. 

They are blind, but forces

Divorces for lovers of the pun. 

They feed each other mythic sources.

They keep alive the classic corpses. 

The Child Inside Will Never Die.

It occurred to us at dusk on the playgrounds of our past.

Standing atop frail wooden castles, 
Challenging the day for one more play,

Challenging the sun for one more hour of fun. 

The child inside will never die.

Child sentries at their posts. The ground is lava 
And we’re afraid to touch our feet to the ground.

We’re climbing like animals in the jungle gym.

We’re haunted by the knowledge that our primal joy 
Will end with the knell of the recess bell. 

We’ll stay till the giants dare to drag us away.

The child inside will never die.

Thorn of the Rose

I made myself

Fall in love with you.

Without ever seeing 

If the feeling was true.

I made some change

With this broken heart buck,

I’ve gone and pressed

Too hard on my luck. 

I see new colors

With these rosy glass eyes.

Making new shades of

Those passions I despise.

She’s the thorn of the rose

In my clenched fist,

Its pain and beauty close

My eyes and I missed. 

Coyote Lines

Coyote;

Serenader

Of the moon.

He baits our plates.

A course, a song- 

The double hook-

Swallowed long ago.

Coyote’s fishing line

Caught on fear inside.

Bodies tremble in the night.

Coyote pulls us close tonight. 

Sink and Think

Docks like our feet there in the water.

As we dip our legs into the thinking pool,

Take off, take off, all your worries.

Leave behind your city clothes and hurries.

Leave firm foot of land and come

With me and stand upon our kingdom

Of sea script blue ink. We’ll sink and think. 

Sink and think. 

Boys Don’t Cry

What is the greater force? 

When a man holds back his tear,

And a women lets hers tear. 

Like the weight of a river against a dam, 

Or the force of the river burst from a dame. 

Neanderthal Withdrawal

Fear the Beast’s inner feast

That ancestors of animals enjoy.

How similar is the smile to the snarl? 

That show of canine emotion.

How like the predator’s eye 

Behind the flash of the lash?

How familiar is the red

On her nails and lips?

Our blood relative,

Adrenaline kin

Which waits within. 

Instant Coffee

Rapid romance like instant coffee:
Stir stick, taste, it's over so quick.
Caught the fallen angel red handed;
Devils dip in liquid lust.
Raging romantic, a compliment
To Cupid's shaft that stirred the mix.
Love lasts as long as it's in your grasp.
Love lingers on fingers and sticks.

Prelude to Sense and Sacrifice

Stop preaching in tongues!

Love lost lyrics

Pulled from your lungs. 

Your hope from a fix

On a note of air.

This empty twist mix

Full of sweet despair.

Their tangled tongue dare,

My match to your flare.  

Ladies of Light

I romanced two ladies.

At first light I did seize

True beauty- a spirit

In rock face lace appeared it. 

The second night did show

A seductress from the shadow.

In neon light tights, caught off guard,

She appeared on the boulevard.

I sat at dusk and dawn 

Not knowing to which I was drawn.

One holds my thoughts fresh,  

The other thinks of my flesh.

Body and mind torn sure

To sin and pure allure. 

The Wild, We Wonder, We Wander

Mother's touch and Man's hand
Have left their mark upon
Blank slates of newborn land.
Makers and Shapers long gone

And we wonder
How we wander
Without blunder
Into splendor.

The path is cut
And rivers flow
Our voyage strut
To El Dorado.

We are men made wealthy
As nature is healthy.

Fall From the Cradle

Born to a cradled age
Of my mother's love.
Baring teeth to the cage,
Bars hold the wild of

The child when gentle hands would do.
We would let the unborn die
When we fear the youth's coo
Like the coup of the rebel's cry.

We're being held over a ledge
And told we're in safe hands.
An impossible pledge,
Not looking where the child lands.

Look to the hands that hold you,
Do they hold you in vice or virtue?

We Are But Spirits

Spirits for the night

Sitting round the table,

Looking back at us through 

The eye of tempered glass...

Spirits, we kiss to our lips.

Consuming you and I.

A shot of no control.

New faces for the show...

........................................

Spirits that lift us all

Just high enough to fall.

There goes evil Rory, 

In the morning he’ll say "Sorry."

Oh sensitive Mitch

Has gone and called someone a “Bitch!” 

But then there’s Matt

Who’s found a girl willing to "chat."

Somewhere is Vince
Drinking like a "prince."
But for now Alex
Won't quit talking about "phallics."

Of course there’s no harm 

In a little spiritual charm. 

We are but spirits 

Consumed for the nights.

(Dream Catcher) The Girl With the Dream Catcher Legs

Dream catcher legs
Dancing in a skirt
That teases and begs
The wind itself to flirt.

Catching a wanderer
Of the summer's night,
Taken on feather
Through the night's flight.

Caught in motion
Stolen slumber's
Dreamy emotion
Now burns like embers.

The lonely midnight traveller
Is caught by legs that dance on dreams and air.

Deja Vu Point of View

Deja Vu
Point of view,
Seeing things
New askew.

Life lives twice.
Living dice,
Are we true
Men of ice?

Shattered time,
Scattered rhyme.
Life lives thrice.
See the mime;

Temporal splice,
Oh how nice!

Wage of Fear

I know the same old task
Keeps blurring into the empty flask,
And those stains and scars
Weren't written in the stars.
But there's a reason you are here,
Don't let your work become your fear.

We put out our burning palms
To receive our wages as alms,
Even though we never get to hold
Our reward as tangible gold.
It's like life's an empty hole
And we're just digging to find our soul.

But there's a reason you are here,
Don't let your work become your fear.

Sweet Sunshine Soul

Sounds in the bush,
Soaked golden leaves.
Sunshine from the
Soul does feed on
Sweet sweet luxuries.
Subtle sights of my baby
Soothe me right to the soul.
Sunday mornings
Seem so lonely,
So lonely, with out you.
So saunter in with morning's
Slow, slow slumber flow.

Of the Meaning Makers

The diction of the dictator was
Forged in the Phoenician fire.
Words of the ancestral smith and what they mean to us
Is riddled in what they did conspire.

Dead linguists still speaking
From the cryptographic crypt
Offer us origins of word's first teaching,
Showing us signs in their hands gripped.

Voices of the mountains
And the sweet canopy
Were like lyrical fountains
For man to echo eternally.

Savage tongues turned silver
As we drank from the primordial elixir.

Imagine This Fantasy, Please

Behind the sleeping giant
Whose slumber looks of stone.
There is the dragon's breath defiant
That whispers from Imagination's throne.

Before the mechanical clock
Struck the doomsday hour.
The child's eye did flock
To a hidden kind of power.

The eye in the sky does mock
The memory of the Fantasy.
Depleted is Imagination's stock
For we have sunk it into the sea.

Like sunken treasure with lock
Now rusted shut in its watery grave.
The fathoms of Fantasy lack
The proper gauge to save

Imagination from the black
And deep requiem of the sea.
The scientific attack
Has made the mythic monster flee.

For now the Supernatural, see,
Surrenders to the Factual plee.

I Know Who "They" Are

I know who they are.

I know who cracked the teapot,

Who slammed the door, and cut the

Strings on the guitar.

I saw their mischievous shadows, their dusty trails,

And other evidence of their midnight play slip away.

I believe they turned all the signs 

Around and put them upside down.

Is it so impossible to know their charm,

To see the beauty in the work,

And to believe in the signs we see?

They took our order and served us chaos.

What a Fantastic taste! 

Unscramble my eggs, my mind,

It does bubble and boil in upset turmoil.

Untangle my legs, my bind,

It is too tight, and I cannot chase

The creatures of the night.