A Bedtime Story

The American
ghost is white, ubiquitous.

The type of encounter that lays eggs
in the moon's reflection and lurks

from the tree shadows, dreaming.

A near-death experience
in search of a nightmare like you.

The astral lips of osteology,

the eye of the Raven, Nevermore
like the teeth of the witch doctor, Nevermore

This cryptic ocean

will take a bite from the baby
doll inside of you,

an arthritic old man,
the giant squid beneath the epithelial.

You think you are alone in this valley?
360 your gutter ball head and inhale

the phantom cat over your shoulder.

The St. Joe river valley is a zoo
south bent to the charmer in flames.

Sleep with your body facing north!

Parallel

Two cardinals
cut the street

in twos.

The sound
of your hair

turns my river
around.

In twos:

birds silhouette
your crescent

moon eye.

You wash my
name across fields,

unearth
my railroad

lips of
unearthly explosion.

The Howl

Something in your 

physiognomy screams

dog-person. 

Say, "I love you." Say,

"I love you."

I love you,

cat-person in the dog mask.

Odysseus

Where are
the leaves

headed?

Bounce, tumble
ship-like in one

direction.

Forward motion
away from my

lips like Penelope.

Autumnal Slap

*

Leaves fall

cathedral, oblique.

Did I just imagine 

it all. And now

the bark falls

off the sycamore 

like the flesh 

off my bones.

My pastoral static

cryptic in the pyramids 

of oak, ash and thorn,

the low weeping 

tentacles, electric,
methuselah. 

*

You folded your arms

like a mummy

and in 11 words

my silent ferris wheel 

           eyes 

hung darkful over oceans.

All that Remains

The days of a young corpse
are the glory days for any dead.

Just ask an old skeleton,
it will tell you.

The morning stench is gone
the rot, gone.

The toy expressions of children,
the cold hands of osteology

The stagnation of stone,
chamber of white

white dodo cryptic.

The Fowl

The Geese have taken the place
of bats in the spiral-milky, darkful

barking like tall dogs
in the wild shadows of oaks,

laughing like coyotes in the
odor of cool October farmland,

howling like wolves in the dying
embers of a witching hour fire.

(No one expected these strange birds)

hovering ancestral grounds,
haunting sleepless nights.

Chords

Oh no, not again!!!

it was just
the cling-on

of a gray alien

creeped across
my office window.

It's face
like it had just

grabbed

ahold of my
intestinal cable.

Matter

Like the wild
goose over

the river valley,

I crack open
my head

mid-tree.

To count
the leaves

and branches,

tomorrow,

skeletal morning
of burning October.

Edward

Snow will come
before the leaves

can dance

in autumn's ball.

(This world is

for you)

An infinite

number of stars 

reflect

an infinite 

number of ships.

(Turn it upside down)

The sands will

sail again.



In Memory of Edward A. Goerner (1929-2012)

Fading Youth

Two moons steam
over the city:

the end of a horse's

snout.

It is one of those nights
that begs you

to imagine the world

beneath the cobblestone.

The silhouette
of bricks and metal,

an occasional branch

from the surrounding forest

Beckons eyes skyward.
And somewhere in the middle

Mid-ground, stage left,
a child wrapped like a mummy,

rapt in the permafrost,

                      eyes like daggers.