"for all the"

In smoke,
the moonlight swirls into fragrant night
like cream into clear black tea, curling
deep down deep, visible and furled
like blown glass into marbles, only
the prettiest ones – the ones with all
the colors trapped in, except here, these
- all the colors are ash, charcoal, white,
argent, silver and grey, and the music is
click, skip, roll – regular as breaths, as
red eyes flicker and watch the play, and
your lucky shooter once again shoots
past the test, knocks the last crystal ball out
of the magic circle, and it – like the moment
it caromed from – is yours.
Gathered up in smoke,
trapped in glass, clicking
and counting each other
in your drawstring bag,
take what’s yours
and let the ash enrich
whatever it hasn’t yet set on fire. This game,
this garden, this match - like our lungs,
is done.

Reveille

Time to wake
up, time to awake,
let a spring of discontent wash
this winter away, wash this winter
of complacency clean.

Let it come.

Let it wash over all.
Wash it over and done,
and over and over,
and under and done
as well - let it wash all,
and all wash clean. Wash under
and down, drown
every blessed thing
that can't
go on living like this,

there now. Let the buds of summer
spring from the deep spring mud,
as every growing thing
takes root downstream -

and above, let the birds pour
forth like rain
- sideways in the sun.

Let it be these ways always,
or at least, for a count of days
without count.

Let it ring.

Let the choir of frogs and
angels sing, for the fall of man
is always such a glorious thing.

choreovore

My eyes occasionally stumble,
with the dancer you are
as a partner, I can't help
your gracefulness

takes
precedence, and leads
consequence astray, my eyes
awry, but I follow - as best I can, and so
am drawn in. Your steps,

like a web,
are weaving, and woven,
and warped, and weft, and deft
as I try to be
- caught.
Dead-
center,
my eyes are read
with intent,
by you, with surprise as I'm sure
you've read faces
and hands,
and eyes
before. Caught dead
to rights, and whatever was planned,
for one of these nights at least, at
last, we have finally both been caught
at a glance, and (I hope)
we both
understand,
we can have this dance.

Well,

I wish you well.

I wish you tonight, in a life
under skies full of sharp, shooting stars
in a garden of dark, smelling deeply
of green.

And without any thought
in your mind for a wish, or
for what it all means - far as wishes go,
this: with a dream of what's coming,
Awake to what is.

Not to what it all means, putting whys
to what's wrong, setting all whats to rights -
for whatever it's worth in this garden,
tonight, there is peace here on earth.

except only my soul,

or whatever
it hurts

knights errant

Once upon
high horse
with lance

and shield,
in armor,
shall we dance?

Oh knock us off!
Draw sword,
dismount -

Close in, you feint
I faint,
You count
from ten to one,
so very slow,
deliberate -

and then you go.

Then I arise.
Triumphant me!
I am a pacifist, you see.

Life Is Effectively Over

You sit staring out of the windows
your walls don't have
and the world you imagine
outside doesn't look too bad
but the world you envision
is freedom, and you're sealed off
and if you even got out,
would it really be there at all?
You're at the wall, now

Life is effectively over,
only it seems like nobody knows it but you
Life is effectively over, still they expect
these perpetual motions
that you go through.

You stand looking over the brink,
and you can't help laugh
at all of the meaning
that life was supposed to have
you see it now that it's too late
to do anything right
still struggling a bit,
but your heart isn't even in the fight
You know damn right, now

Life is effectively over
only it seems like nobody knows it but you
Life is effectively over, still they expect
these perpetual motions that you go through.
It's effectively over,
but you've still got to make it work.
Do you really believe
that we've all got a place
in this small, cruel world?

The fat lady's gone anorexic
and she won't sing
you're standing at the Crack of Doom
but who's got the Ring?
You wish that it was more
of an epic majestic loss,
but the story's petered out,
and the end is so many
pages off.
The cause is loss, now

Life is effectively over,
only it seems like nobody knows it but you
Life is effectively over, still
they expect these perpetual motions
that you go through.
It's effectively over,
but you've still got to make it work.
You know what? I still believe
that I will find a place
in this cool, damp earth.

books, our last line

I love books,
and will miss them
when they're gone. If they go,
I should say. I hope
we're not so short-sighted
as to let

all our key
information

migrate to forms that
need a power source! What

if the polar icecaps reverse? What

if the satellites come streaking down, and all

our batteries turn into beetles? Then

what? Books!

We'll be thrown back on books. Anyway,
civilization

will rise again don't you worry about it.

I'm writing a book about it for them