Out of Service

Leaf shadows hover

over ancestral grounds.

I rake the path,

but never travel it.

Palms facing

always somewhere other.

Forgotten Dreams

Two

orbs entomb

my parents ashes.

Barked 

at by a squirrel,

eyeballed 

by an owl.

A raven,

despite its dead

metaphors,

follows me

like a satellite.

It seems it's always something.

Jelm Mountain

Granite outcrops

shift into 

unrelenting thunder 

and Dagon dredges 

elk shed from the stone.

Tilt your head into

a landslide

and pray

from upside down. 

Dangle your

wolfhand 

from the darkness

of the river

and commit a crime

of bibliomancy—

         The story always pans out the same.

Affirmation

Bone in snow 

covered spring,

will you tell

us what you know?

The thaw leaves

traces in maps of ice.

What abomination

will we dream now?

Compression

Lava flows

in spine.

Pain strikes

in undertow.

SPOOKY THINGS

In the spiraling clouds. 

In the stalactite humming. 

The witch doctor 

frog man lingers

in the willows. 

A delta-glyphic 

half moon shines, 

crystalline, 

through granite. 

The big cats are non-alien 

in darkful fog 

and wash over outcrops. 

A cold branch 

drops into colder water. 

The big cats 

drop quiet like deadfall 

and the beetles turn 

the mountain grey.

*Or this version of the first stanza that plays on The Neverending Story and Stranger Things title:

In the spiraling-nothing.

in the upside-down. 

the witch doctor

dogman lingers 

in the willows. 

Holes

 If you are a good 

boy, then

you will get what you want.

*

I want pizza, please?

And can Jacob spend

the night?

and we can drink

Fago and play Nintendo?

*

Jacob's mom

drops him off

and we play 

Double Dragon II

until our eyes bleed.

*

The mornings 

are spent toppling

over dirt mounds

and falling into

the freshly dug

basements of suburbia.

     This is a trap!