a fish that swims
through the sea
must turn full circle
if he wants to see
what swims behind him –
he turns – then, Hark!
cannot whirl again
to flee the shark.

Oh, Desmodus Rotundus!
Thou mesmerizing bat,
With swollen lips
Diminished hips
And hair as fine as rat.
You suck my blood in pints
Until tipsy from the taste
With eyes bead-black
And teeth snick-snack,
Smeared with bloody paste.
Your body bloats from snacking
But you say it’s in the style –
Down it weighs
Your flapping days
With stomach in denial.
You crawl along, upside down,
Squeak complaint of every crag;
When there’s none
To whine upon
You snare male Vamps to nag.
Still you expect these picky bats
To endure your heavy hanging –
They’d rather wait
For guarded mates
Suited to soaring over haranguing.

Japhet Orchids, Caladium, Canterbury Bells,
Gomphrena, Amaryllis, Spring Snowflakes, Rue,
Morning Glories, Nasturtium, Lupine, Malva, Chives:
Sea of blossoms pale of hue in the
dawn’s morning light. They ache for sunshine,
but you will have to wait a bit more, my
precious posies. The fog of a new morning,
leftover residue of the moon’s secret dance,
submerges the tallest trees knot-deep in
mist, a thin river of floating vapor,
tinting my forest in a colorless, lifeless blue.
Nevertheless, there is life everywhere.
My flowers are a testament to that; winter was harsh, but
spring now lifts their delicate chins from
fields of one bland dye to fields of a whole palette, and I –
I mark time, waiting, watching, wanting
to swoop down and drown in their aromatic ocean.
But I will not, for the fancy always passes,
as the long day passes into the next,
and the breeze carries on my thoughts
to Yonder Side.

The flowers are lovely in their sweet
anticipation, but my forest is bereft of life
otherwise; a song shall remedy that. When I sing –
Affettuoso, amoroso, spiritoso –
all reality gives leave of post
to slur with each strisciando
and someone, somewhere, will
answer this, my hallowed call.
So I commence the ancient hoot:
“Who are you, who wander here –
Lost, alone, and incomplete?
Hark this tender, lulling sigh
Lilting lithely through my trees,
Bidding you seek out a form
Following swiftly behind
As it extends caring claw,
Helping you go on your way.”

A sprightly giggle clearly rings
far off, somewhere amidst the dampened spruce;
scratching, and scratching frantically,
leaping from limb to limb, my
wings unfurled, cradling the wind,
I followed the titter to a small clearing ‘round
a raised patch of earth florally dressed.
Laughing and spinning and skipping and falling
is a petite creature, a fledgling girl,
whose blushing cheeks reflect the budded rose,
whose delicate arms wave about
like the stem of a fragile sea thrift.
She plays there, breast-deep among the flowers,
and I remain perched above her tiny head
observing how each delicate finger traces
the vibrant vessels of a petal.

My eclipsing shadow betrays my
presence, and the child carefully surveys the
canopy until I am revealed – or choose to be.
A toothy smile, speckled by many gaps
between the pearls, shines through the foggy
meadow, a lighthouse in a sea of chrysanthemum
and azalea. I hunch over on my branch, sharp talons
digging deeper in their hold, breaking bark that
cracks and trickles to the forest floor, lost from
sight before it even reaches halfway down.

“Who are you, dear little one, lost in my
forlorn forest, set apart from time and space,
when the sun has yet to stretch wide her
fiery wings and ignite the heavens?”

The child exclaims, “Who are you?”
without the slightest hint of fear.

“I have names longer than the roots of the
tallest sequoia. They are more learned than
the angels of Heaven, deeper than the
lowest trench, more hideous than your darkest
fears, more beautiful than the most sparkling gem.
They are names older than the beard of Time,
faster than the northern wind, younger than
the newborn fetus, slower than a century.
But they are names, and only names.”

“Okay. I will call you Mister Owl!
Will you play with me?”

“What have you been playing, child?”

“Anything and everything, but mostly with
these flowers. They’re very pretty. Will you
come down and play with me, Mister Owl?”

She twirled around and stretched out her arms
as if to catch my hulking shape, but she is
far too tiny for the task, and I too small
to understand her wish.

“I cannot, dear little one, but I know where
you can find the most enchanting blooms
to ever live on earth or elsewhere, so answer
this: Won’t you accompany me along, to
the Pasture? It’s a wonderful place, where
the sun always shines, the air is always
fresh, the water is crystal as a cloudless sky,
and the people never find a reason
to feel anything but joy. Won’t you
come with me?”

The pretty girl stepped back a pace
and shook her dainty locks. “I’m
sorry, Mister Owl, but my Mum probably
is wondering where I am. You see, she and
that boy, they were having such a good time
and wouldn’t play with me, so I went to
find someone who would. I met a nice man –
He promised to play with me. He said he knew
a place where the most fun could happen, fun
I didn’t think was real. I took his hand, but –
somewhere between here and there – I became
lost in this forest, and could not find the man
or Mummy or Jimmy, but I found these
flowers, and they are such pretty things.”

“But who are you?”

As a reply, she offered me a somber lily,
but I could not take it, lest it would shrivel
to a crisping husk. Sliding from my perch
I land right in front of her – she at the edge
of the meadow, I at the brink of the forest.
Producing from beneath my wing a dahlia,
a glimmer brightened her eye immediately, for
this dahlia grows in the Pasture and puts to shame
every flower in this clearing. The child touched
my claw and held the gift, and as she did a single
tear dripped into its stigma. The sun rose in that
moment, bathing her in its warmth and refracting
a dazzling array of otherworldly colors in the dahlia.
I caught the next tear, wiped it away,
and no more fell in its succession.

“My dear child, the one you seek
can be found at the end of the trail
paved by flowers just like this.
Follow it through to the very end and
you can play all day, to your heart’s content,
and someone who loves you will always exist
whenever you call, or think you’re alone,
to be your playmate.”

Emulating radiance of rising sun,
the child’s face brightened
as her tiny arms clung to my feathers
in an embrace that was not half my waist –
“Thank you, Mister Owl” –
then turned away toward the path
and hopped with speed through the
meadow without a single glance behind
and disappeared between the trunks –
the morning mist evaporated with her
as did the hovering wasps, letdown by her choosing
the path leading not where she expects, but on –
on to the Pasture, for that is where she must go –
Though she recognize it not.

With farewell, so I end
the dawn’s awakening with a tune
to guide the child where she must go;
I return in turn from whence I came
until the next poor wandering name.

“Draw thee hither, wayward child,
By the morn’s misty dawn,
And I shall show you Pasture green,
Newly frocked in dewing sheen,
Where you may frolic ‘mid the rows
Of Rose and Cleome, softly glows
Fields of Iris, Heav’nly lawn –
Your precious hand in mossed talon
Shall be led beyond the Wild
And home again on Yonder Side.”

Mistah Moon, doncha wondah
Why dey sing dem songs aboutcha?
Soarin’, dreamin’, driftin’ high
Without a care for lil’ guysLollin’ ‘round –
Peerin’ down –
Oh, cut me a piece a da pie, yessah,
Do cut me a piece a da pie!

Mistah Moon, doncha see
Ya in no position ta disagree
So long as far from us ya stays –
From rivers, tides, and cream-cheese glaze?
I know ya true
Breakin’ gravity’s glue
And allowin’ only dem cows to graze –
Yeah, only dem cows can graze!

Mistah Moon, doncha hear
Frequentin’ cries – No, ne’er a tear
Risin’, fallin’, carryin’ far
To reach the nearest guiding star?
‘Stead their fear,
Deaf on your ear,
The sweetest cookies of midnight mar –
Dem cookies midnight may mar!

Mistah Moon, doncha know
My hate for you does monthly grow
As each passin’ cycle ya loomingly lord
O’er the world like an overripe gourd.
But others will praise
Yo pale, white rays
Like dull mayonnaise
On moldy old maize,
Revolving with nary a tarry for words –
Nah, nary a tarry for words.

The blithe hummingbird goes flit flit flit
As he hops to the heights of hellebores
His coxcomb coat and eremerus throat
Glistle through the thistle as he soars.
A lisianthine sheen among the statice teem
Heralds acrobatic dwarfen emerald ibis
While procuring pint of pollen with pluralistic peck
Playful feinting perch upon purple iris.

Mockingbird
OH! Mockingbird.
Why do you swoop so viciously
and peck my neck in spite?
I know you’re territorial
But your nest’s nowhere in sight!
You ravage me from behind,
neurotic coward-bird;
If only you’d jump me from the front
We’d have one dead Mockingturd.

Suited up like Astronauts
Set for starless black expanse
Undulating under a rig of rusty reasons
—-

Blip

—-
Let go the ladder,
Slip beneath the liquid black
Where Opah bounce like mini-moons
—-

Blip

—-
A shooting Oarfish streaking by
Orbits ‘round the coral rings
Head for trenches carving craters in the deep
—-

Blip

—-

down

down

down

Until down can be seen no more
For down is all around
And up likewise disappears
As you fall below into the sky
Formed by briny blue bottom above.

Cosmos formed of plankton
Broken by meteors made of squids
Warmed by dim sun from the cracks in the floor
—-

Blip

—-
Forth from the vents
From the core of the Earth
Cetus emerges like a nova enraged
—-

Blip

—-
His constellation-scarred body
Sucks in all like a vortex
And rearranges this galaxy as chaotic aquatic
—-

Blip

—-

up

up

up

Expelled from space below the skies
A land where no man has gone before
And man cannot find in his dreams
What is claimed by the briny blue bottom beyond.

One league I met a Mackerel Shark
I cried out “Hoi! Wow! What a lark!
To meet a full grown Mackerel Shark –
This sailor’s luck has sprung from stark!

What have we here? Twenty fins?
Twenty fins worth twenty spins!
Possessing total twenty fins,
You clearly be rare specimen!”

The Mackerel Shark cut through a wave
And barked, “Hoi! Why art thou knave
With depraved art, who stave the wave
To hunt my twenty fins you crave!

What fates I’ve seen befall my troops
For handsomest fins foul fishermen stoops –
Incapacitate tails despite our frail roops,
Then season them spicy in splendorful soups!”

I gasped, aghast, exclaimed, “Hold fast!
Hast though never tasted rapturous repast
In the fins of your brethren? Come, hurry fast!
I must make you a meal at the mount of the mast.”

The Mackerel Shark, come by curiosity,
Flopped onto my deck, direct docility,
Wriggled towards the kitchen for luminosity
Where sat bowls filled with wizening viscosity.

The Shark’s gluttony unsoundly satiated
By gobbling soup that I so cleverly baited –
As my unambitious plan caught me quite elated,
I tied his tail to mast and caught him elevated.

The Mackerel Shark raised a woeful wail,
“I should have guessed you were after tail!
Yet in throes of carnal hunger, I feel my head grow pale
Because in mental fortitude I finally find fail.”

I hacked with a hatchet, knicked with a knife –
That Shark’s opaque oculi now devoid of strife
Accosted not my hunger welling, so I keep ahold my knife
And finesse-like butchered beauty to lengthen mine own life.

‘Twas an imposing and pretty creature
With twenty fins his finest feature –
Each split and strewn by falsest teacher
For his stew so splendid it would silence a preacher.

If life is pleasing others to please ourselves in simple pleasure,
Where would we go for greater things with mightier mead to measure?
No, pleasure in its filling form would deny me costless leisure
So on I sail for Mackerel Sharks, my modest meager treasure.