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The opening · free to read

Not So Much

I evaded capture today with only a handful of dust to escape that Old Sandman Death.

Certainly, those maroon berries, so large & luscious, crowded on their fat stems had something to do with it as did the ground fog leaving its burrow as so many boll-weevils their crowded nests.

And there might be something to the fact the moonlight sat fat & confidant in the night sky as surely as my head rests on this pillow and the poem invites itself into my lair of thoughts, much as nestlings charge the entrance to the runway of a tree.

I walked flat out in an instance as standing urine held its own stench and the grim splash within the pond dead center in the wilderness underscores the tone of this warning.

One thought encapsulates wonder though suggestive evil hides leaden leaves buried in lake mud down the corner eaves of someone's fire hydrant mind. When you pray for someone an Angel sits on their shoulder, when that same someone hates you does that Angel die of grief?

Serendipity is a flower and those clouds re-arranging the breeze harbingers of forbidden things not so much like these boulders use hand-held scissors to open twilight and watch this fading light ebb forth tip-I-toe like a bird squeezed thru an opening in its cage.

Serpentine

More fragment of tree than serpent clothed in wet he mirrors me bedraggled in stone cloak or so it seems this cavernous ledge coven.

Is he witch's totem swimming at yard's length I can web reach him startling darts of rain cutting lagoon's edge this sedge & eel grass dragon.

Lithuanian Dolls /consulate Front

These eyes of dolls seem leaden stones not canisters of the Faith but cannon-balls engraved in tome-like stares so much waxen shapes, these dust cloths & spidery webs.

Dolls with eyes stare lidless & forlorn such eyes are cracks minden shapes or basement eves hogans of the human form. I'm interested in the priapic silence of such dolls--their indolent aura in time one long amber twilight & the results are in the shadows have produced twins ...hazy silhouettes rough-housing in the dark, come passing headlights although the stampede of noises affects nought.

Ticker-tape & collage in quick thick barrage these lonesome dolls slouching half-pinned in their stalls-- a cat transcends crouching his spine then pelvic thrusts and tableaux change.

People are divisive, dolls less so. the dolls know nothing of that.

Begin and Beguile

If brains be gables & minds, say, the shutters in a derelict New England Mansion then intuition is in the eaves & casements the well-springs seeping into turrets & cupolas of all other nether spaces.

These big, wide entrances are ourselves in all their splendor, notwithstanding the Winchester Mansions or Vanderbilt Estates where our very personalities are laid bare see antics give rise to attics feed in onto themselves where the Astor's of our alter-egos are resplendent in rich pride of self longing to manifest in lavish architecture so redolent of wealth yet see-sawing in, squabbling their thread-bare servant quarters where murderous passions bare dingy walls and where stained, yellowing wallpaper is harbinger to further heart-felt quarrels & what is unspeakable, gilded and more. Manifold and many, recant and lament. Repent.

Fire Bush

If flies be dragons and they may you know. In large desiccated brambles where wasps go involuntary blue-green coelacanths these Devil's Darning Needles wedge in Flying Circuses frame pale diaphanous wet green sky as shooting columns twig and Rock Face.

There, fire-bush entrance scrapes paler wax green fronds then Blue Holes into canopies thru the stars.

Skootematta

Sheldrake, a magician --the mandrake a mythic plant whose shriek drove listeners wild.... this lake, Sheldrake and its windsong-heartswoon counterpart, Skootematta with Shabomeka & a whiff of Buckshot Lake to boot, waves lapping the prayerful stones-- water's edge the earth's bones.... Lakes an art-form hardscrabble scribble shorthand on a blessed land.

The mysticism of basic shadows, occult shapes of ourselves.

And Then Some

The anger past as a cat arches her back a thickly rich robust anger blackest coffee in a thick earthen mug this thug & mugger with sufficient silk thread.

Yet the assassin is back with catcalls & hiss cortisol adrenalin that lunge like that cat rapid-fire along the back garden fence this patio stroll my senses black.

And time luxuriating like a thick veil.

That dread pack with anger in the lead --what prevokes it-- obviously really a pack of violent running lies--wolves hell-bent running over intent on deceit, thievery, then some.

A narrative with a long reach.

Woodsy Backwoods Poem

I saw Bear shopping with Santa Claus at the North of 7 Plaza only he wasn't wearing a bib-- only a cotton-wool imitation synthetic polystyrene white fluffy instead.

I saw the Bear gracing a wall at the Old Trout Lake Hotel (part-time job), looking self-satisfied, smug back of the Mosque Lake Road but a self-starter, no less, lacking the wherewithal, nonetheless, to be a serious shit-disturber accolades & kudos aside, still circus Work is hard & good dancing difficult to come by, poor dish of custard, sticky stuffed bastard.

yet the pay-off begins when Bear gets home with only grubs in the bank and maggots to show for his life's work, alas, no fireworks for free in the big grin as you den, leaf-off frenzy witch begins October month of orange zen zip up only can ya please.

Corner Store Fifties Reveille

I met Bear at the 5 n' dime sipping a Cream Soda he was voluble & needed to talk... "I got a shit-load on my mind," mumbling something about some run-in with a Mountie--tampering with Crown Evidence, the purloined Honey Jar, in question, Jimmy Dean was there, too, polishing his coolness though he would have his own Run-In later in the evening. As Marilyn had left, I decided to forgo Bear's company, still slurping his Soda & crying into the bubbles, some things never change.

Trout Lake Hotel

The walls don't lack sincerity, here, or be accused of "ordinary," what with the bleached remains of a carbon skull, a yellowing pike head of uncertain girth, adder-like fangs positioned like the Bear Head gasping for the night air one wall over or the old pool table that's seen as many games as ghosts fly by or drinks downed in the penumbra Shooters flaming elixir stars, a shooting gallery of exotica and potent portions-- crimson Garter, Pink Panties, the men in this lounge live up to that with cigarettes bullying the air, chortles, one doesn't expect to see southern good ole boys in the North Backwoods with no 'gators or Biloxi Blues but a gallows to good intentions, nonetheless.

II Here's Bear, week's growth of beard, long bushy eyebrows still reeking of gin apparently wanted the penny-strapped Claus' to dump Rudolph, spray-paint his coat white use Bear's fleshy drinker's nose to lead the sleigh that crazy night.

III A tiff erupted Rudolph almost lost it santa ended paying Hibernation fees though Bear grumbled he wasn't bedding Next to no knot of worms garter snakes.

Orange Lichens

Orange lichens, in sun-like clusters, entomb the Rockface wall a sheer ascent from the waterline into glassy viscous green--- the plummet from skyward to lake face passes breathless squadrons of Dragon Flies --devil's Darning Needles threading the air where Wolf Spiders bivouac in web-castles, thin Draculas to their insect host each hairy mantle black with burrow moats at high watermark; yet unforeseen are the funnel lairs for bull snakes each water thrasher gracing the rotund, behemoth Rock lunging like a Spirit Presence up from this watery chalice.

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