POEM: POEMLETS: EAT AND ENJOY

              The Dead-Whisperer's Apprentice

While tramping through the fallen leaves,

Through this village of quiet ground,

I hear the tenants calling, "Please!

You make too much of sound."

Sykes-Picot

Lines writ of blood or lines of pain.

Then comes the flood and cleansing rain.

Then rides the horseman from the hill. 
Then comes the tiger for its kill.

So, cut new crops to guard and ward,
then burnish shields and sharpen swords.
The lands all listen for the sound

of the calling-horn’s other round.

New maps soon drawn tear up old lines

and cut new shapes where once were signs

of living times and living’s sheen;

they redden dust and wither green.

And so another round does go,

another proud and mottled show.

Their flags and banners swirl the air

above our bottled corpse’s stare.

Tidal

Waves kiss your feet

in liquid moon rhythms.

The Sinner

I’ll try, I’ll try, as best I can,

but I'm a humble, little man.

I’ll go, I’ll go. I’ll even run!

Away from this, our noonday sun.

Don’t tell, don’t tell! Or sins will out!

They’re whispers born that grow and shout.

I’ll pray, I’ll pray. It’s what I do

to even scores between we two.

Remittance Man

In hills abound with wild flowers,

by a river full of rain;

in a darkened cave, a shelter,

sits a grave, by any name.

In airs of brightest sunshine rose

the frost-silvered, tall grass tips.

And a brook whose bed of rougher rock

held cold water, once, to lips.

It ran beneath a broader face

whose dark brows did once shade noon

from such eyes, like liquid mirrors;

they'd held the waning moon.

Disappearing Act

Sky into water

into sky again.

Light bends

in the grey-white,

horizon-less,

world of the shoreline.

And it’s here 
you've come
to realize

slipping in between

isn't a question,

after all.

Fall Meditation #3

Intersection

Leaves dance

across the street

while cars race by.

Need a Light?

The men from the power grid have arrived!

Electric authority opens wide

the switch that will soon start the current flow,

giving new light to the dark town below.

And lighting cigars for a job well done,

for all their hard work and all they had won,

they look to the last of the nighttime towns

and wait for the street lamps to come around.

And when they light up—like strings of bright pearls!

They light up in waves, like a flag unfurls!

The men from the power grid have arrived.

It’s just too bad that all the rest have died.

A Keystone Kops’ Guide

To The Future

Mark my words! Fingers will point!

In many directions. Oh yes.

Yes they will!

And tongues will wag.

They’ll wag like armies

of dogs in the hot sun,

slathering after cool water.

Eyes will roll, too.

They’ll roll like

spinning, out of control

lottery balls!

And all over what’s

being said here, today.

Imagine that.

A Conclave of Confusionists

HERE'S ANOTHER PLATE OF GREASY EGGS FOR YOU to pour large amounts of ketchup over. They’re oldies written at around the same time I think. I did some editing; some didn’t make sense or seemed incomplete. So hopefully I’ve removed all the scaffolding, and the gaps and gaffes won’t be too noticeable. They have a variety of themes: legacies, blind faith in technology; bequests, simple moments of living, despair or hope, and there's hubris (as always). And mortality, of course (there’s always that). 
In “Keystone”, I write that those future eyes looking back on all our folly, with gob-smacked disbelief, are eyes that roll around in their sockets like “spinning out-of-control lottery balls!” I think instead they might roll around more like spinning, out-of-control pinballs! Rocketing back and forth, crashing into all our bells and whistles, bumpers and traps. Hopefully they won't all go down the drain.  And as for the other poems? Bon appetite.

Cheers