Taste of the Afterlife

It was nearly the end of her life as we know it
Of that much I was sure her fingers found my quiet arm
And laid upon it like fragments of a trumpet call
Squinching my eyes ever so slightly off to the left hand side
An endless dessert table stretched into the darkening forest
By the glint in her eyes it was clear she saw it too
Words had long left her in the pinch of a balloon tied off
The air inside slightly damp condensed perhaps on purple latex
Inexplicably I reached out for a tiny confection
Tender cake dipped in dark hardened chocolate
Perfect crème anglais lurking beneath
Innocent candy hardened violets in a tight circle on top
She opened her mouth and received it like a communion wafer
I would have bitten it twice
Beneath their sugar shells the violets’ perfume settled in her mouth
like the sparrow’s song of a dewy morning
An upside down cypress tree dangled in a water droplet 
Twisted trunk not yet surrounded by the starry night
Her sigh settled upon the skin below my eyes
So I let them close as in the woods the rains trembled leaves
Fresh moss struck a never before heard chord 
Beneath slippered feet there was a gathering of white petaled daisies
The end of the song was somewhere else 

One Day in String of Pearls

A band of clouds lives on the rim of the world
Their reflection in the salty sea is white on blue
It is there the fiddlers play all afternoon
Fillies whinny back of the barn where the straw is musty
Dogs snarl and show each other their teeth
Formidable nature no less so than Mrs Hempingshamworth
Ms Thespianissimo and Mdm Claude-Lukie meeting for a spot of tea
Sweets on a saucer and clotted cream
They will speak of certain custards 
Rumors of the Mayor’s peccadillos
When they overtip the serving girl by so much
She will grab the chance to pack up and leave
Forever this time, to join a high wire act with silks on a sailboat
The three old dames will high five in the parking lot
Bow to the fiddlers on the horizon
Hurry home before the afternoon showers blow in

Of Things to Come

It was a calm season for storms
Then the night of the Lyrids came 
Fancy rains from boiling skies
Separating us from the streaking meteors
Shrieking it charged over the sea
Wet war horses foaming upon the cliffs
You could not turn away from the perturbed blackness
There upon the heaving ocean came
Intimations of morning
Shivering finger of light
It wrote out the story of what had happened
There above the storm
Thousand chrysanthemum light petals 
A boy lying out in a field in Iowa
New corn coming in and the night so still
You could hear stemlets pushing out of the ground
tiny hairs on each new leaf brushing one another
the grooming of new life
then jumping up he whooped
“That was a beaut!” 
Just for a moment he danced the story of
When he would fall in love
Milky Way across the moonless sky
another night of shooting stars
this time with laughter and a chase through the new corn

I do love it where you are

It is not that I long for your sweet muguet du bois
because it is yours 
and not mine
It is not that your Cecile Brunner rose 
smells sweeter than my lilikoi 
Both climb exquisitely draped with blooms
I will send you pictures but not the fragrance
It does not bottle well I have tried
Fronds of grasses sway more golden wild oceans bluer deeper 
when the sun is at your back
We can both look out together you there and me not there
I have my frothy summer sea
You have your snow crunch deep in December
These are images we trade like cards
Until feet whisper in soft black flats
upon certain old cobblestones
there will be swirly music in the starry night
notepad sherry pencils chapeaux
Cafe de la RueCafe de la BourseCafe de la DanseCafe de la Paix
We will string them along like recent lovers
Silk scarves billowing laughter 
floating behind us en plain air

Late in the Day

Late in the Day a large moth
Winged into the window mistaking it for an aircraft carrier
Apparently
Befuddled by the large expanse of ocean below
It settled its brownness sideways
Owl eyes staring out into the lilikoi vine
It whispered a tale of the other side
Winked and settled deeply into the woodwork
Out in the beyond two dolphins leaped
And that was all

I took two pieces of glass
And tossed them as far as they would go
Into the blue past the waiting moth
Who then taking off
Seized one glittering glass shard in her delicate legs
. . . . fell with it
.
.
.
. . . . . ... ..Out beyond where I could still see

In Search of Beatrice of the Topa Topas

Her secrets spilled out like spools of colored threads from a tipped basket

Never one to keep anything to herself

She shed ideas much as you would a coat in the summer dropping

Not just the political fashion but the very skin of her own culture

Beatrice took to the stage like a snail to leaves

Devouring her roles until the good little girl she was 

Had been painted over and over in a shellac of pentimento she was then

Ready for her Babylonian close up 

Falling in with the painters of Paris descending the staircase nude

Choosing the paintbrush that laughs she dipped into the pigment jars her

Silly mimicry came out as essence of joy and bohemian love

Life's very secrets pulled from the Mad Hatter's head wear 

Fame became Beato much as the perfume of her art

spread wafted floated like party invitations from Soho

It was because she wanted a certain something and finding none

Made her own

You see that right there is her secret

She did not capitulate or settle or give in

Ever, but painted her own path and walked down that

She declared herself 32 forever and a thief of husbands

Beatrice took herself to the first and last freedom the paper of her

Absorbing ink that writes there is no distance between 

observer and observed

Molding clay and words to form the last quarter of her century

Soul married to the mountain the only solid piece of life she could not move

Opening April

Out of the bursts of waves
Ocean cream white bubbling foam surface
Mousse thick glistening
Giving birth not to Venus on the half shell
But harsh Mauna Kea
flaunting white thighs sovereign shoulders
feet deep beneath the sea

And now down from the towering mountain
top face telescope studded as if with blemishes
Prodding heaven for truths not guessed at
Comes Poliahu of the frozen heart
Icy lips shaping fluffy masses in the very air

Masses of white drift over Kilauea
Settling misty breath between fronds of fern
elegant Jurassic golden fur adorned
Sunlight translated pulu next to be nest of apapane

Morning sunlight softly pink
hinting at Kukahau‘ula
whose time awaits