The moon makes lunatics of us all
A great ripping sound
the fabric of reality
Blue Angel goes by
Bats aflight tonight
seems they know it's October
gulls have gone elsewhere
A scatter of crows
between the lake and the moon
the first chill of Fall
What makes a man a recluse?
a car radio
booming a talk show
otherwise peace
bees and ground squirrels
come this far
then it's just gulls
the fish of the sea
all the faraway places
sails on the Bay
fifty people standing on deck
followed by a raft
an empty Hornblower
gentle clouds sweep from the north
like chanterelles
like encephlapods
I've come to be alone
with my thoughts
unmediated image capture
white boat approaches
like an unknown dog
throws stuffed bags over the side
a field of gulls rest up the shore
sails far out from Sausalito
morning on the wide Bay
bird-like over Angel island
a plane turns to san Francisco
swoops in the soaring distance
Tamalpais has a stationary cloud
a floating model mountain ridge
fragmenting in the noon
inexorably the plane comes here
turning broad wings
gone again toward Treasure island
circling the Bay ominously
over Golden gate again
the thrill of martial law
Berkeley Marina
Rumors of a rectangular ice shelf elsewhere
Lobby cards promise a cinema of the ideal
If you scratch the surface
you are apt to find
where the skeletons are hidden
buried alive in shallow graves
Crown Beach
Kites plunge perpendicular
Mount Tam a skull cap
on the white capped fog
Twin peaks a tuning fork
Stuck in story book mountains
of blue and white illusions
The family from the next tent
now seem distant on the Bay
Droopy girls in clingy jersey
tattoos and comic book colored hair
dip a toe then sit down again
lazy snacks a bulbous recline
the other is more chubby
yet the first one says, I'm fat
Florescent pedestrian icon
one hundred yards away
catches my eye catches the sun
and communicates it to me
yellow green stains the sky
blazing
The sky crystalized
inevitably refracts
my prismatic mind
How heavy the dew
on my neighboring rooftop
has it been raining?
Due more to serendipity
than due to propinquity
I moved ten feet back from
the edge of the precipice
just before it stove in
scattering seals far below
where it mattered
I could see Tule elk
the crest of an ultimate hill
look up in interest
while the cattle chewed
dully on their cud
Swilling fabulous pabulum
to his base base
Do you prefer homo sapiens
or human being?
Geese fall into chevrons
even for short hops
heavy yellow and black
bumble bee bends the flowers
squirrel looks in every direction
before hiding its morsel
beneath a garden shrub
October morning
blow all my nightmares away
cool breeze open window
Have you flown in the sky?
It's easy to try
First you must find
the right broom
Old Scratch buys your soul
Then you dance 'til your old
under a blood red
moon
Have you ever gone
Outside the norm
and changes to a cat
or raccoon?
Have you kept a strange form
from dusk until dawn
and chanted all night
'neath the moon?
Have you conjured a hex
on either sex
enough to make someone
swoon?
Have you marked with an X
the head that was vexed
to make him another
child of the moon?
Dreams hidden
in the leaves of the trees
all come down in the Fall
Some prophecy of the sea
came back to haunt me
Wreck after wreck
demanding respect
Cane after cane
tempest and flood
The sea took back the islands
and then the shore
In oscillating shoals
the flying fish flew past
The abandoned birdbath
like an empty laugh
.
Lands washed out to sea
all the barnyard animals
Followed on
from old Macdonald's farm
Brides left to their devices
mountain flowers the windward side
Flames lick the leeward
wind overturns an adirondack chair
All Souls Day
Remember your loved ones
forgive those you didn't love
October 2018
