on canoes again

The greatness of a canoe is measured by her spot at the dock.  The favoured boats stay out front in the calm and in the lees when the waves roll down the sound.  Of them all, the Princecraft has to be the best.  The aluminum has aged into a fine battleship grey and the interior powder blue is classic and timeless.  With the sharpest welded seam prow and a tacked keel, she tracks well despite having relatively high gunwhales for the wind to buffet.  And the rise of the stem lets her cut through some serious chop like a gem.  That soft double chine adds to the effective beam when loaded down and she becomes even more stable.  Alone, floating, in a dead calm, the Princecraft almost isn't touching the water at all.  Like magic.  

Every morning when I wake up that canoe is the first thing I think about.  When I get home I will grab the fishing pole and place the rock in the bow and take the storm paddle and head out onto the river.  Don't look for me at the breakfast table.

visions_versions__d__

if the
wind blows a
nest from a tree
the flight path sticks
on their own will take
to level become ground
asterix lighting strikes again
dumb lids descended even then
over ever all that stood has gone
and what decision is not one wrong

and didnt it rain

the rain blasted the yard all night into mud and the little craters as if the lufftwaffe flew over and over and over and knocked on the window even and dropped the entire arsenal at random remained when the sun came out.  even there in my bed under three wool blankets with my eyes closed the flashes showed me the meaning of ultra violence written large written into the very everything that the earth is and always was and always will be.  and it comes as no surprise that in the light of day even the squirrel will get up the gall and go after the rabbit. so i step out in sandles made from dead steers and from the bark stripped from a tree now left in the spanish coastlines influence naked to the gibralterer's gaze and out into the yard.  the yellow flowers and the blue flowers are closed up because everything is closed these days by order of the illustrious leaders.  the steps are wet and gritty with debris.  from the sidewalk i can see the smoke billowing from the chimney and smell it too.

waterproofs

the forks are all washed
and with my
fingers grab
the ziti
and watch the water
fall off 

the plains of spain

a hand in the clock 

is worth two in the pocket

the ticking the winding

who needs that

these trying times

dont fit so well on

a century of american

gloating and bloat

even though the numerals

arent roman any more 

doesnt subtract from the sum

what isnt done is dumb

afloat

almost as soon as we get out there the waves try to drown us.  they despise us. and our efforts to crawl around the headland like a bunch of australians escaping the sinking prison and the stinking crocodiles in the sorry moat and they lash and stuff the very ends of the water the tops of the waves down our throats.  and they lie about why.  that is the worst of it.  the waves roll and foam and they pitch and throw and we swing and always keep trying to keep from being missing and to keep course of course.  maybe that it is that the water envies the wind so much more fluid and so much more useful to the birds (except penguins, cormorants, loons, gooses, ducks, pelicans, ospereys, kingfishers, ibis, herns, terns) is why the medium is lacking a message less than in all instances menacing always.  spraying rainbows or black and gold under the moon or in the tinsel of december.  and the closest the water got to getting me was when they saw a channel cat and went after that and left me standing on the top of the spear pinning a big large mouth bass to the bottom of the river and the waves tossed into the snorkel and it was a miracle in the end.  the devout ask where the miracles are all these days and let them point at me swimming around some more.

semaphores

in which aisle is
the martyr
who has the gold
egg
in the carton casting
an effervescent hope
onto the other legs
that will never grow

the people light up outside
inside they line up
in a semblance of one
this is america after all
for isn't that the scheme
con one con all con all you can

splinters of the true cross

a sliver of the husk
an onions characteristics
so like a christian's hell
in layers and the outer most
is dead and under your skin
a totem prized from the earth

constants

a congregation about
a thousand yards out
but discernible as gulls

floating on their pride
immutable

hannibal on cyrus on the alps

out on the ice the breeze takes on a particular murderous and absent minded look.  the noises of the town are as far away as the open water.  the growing pains of the ice announce the time of day.  it is cold and my skates make the wind rise to the occasion to burn my nose and bite my ears and start my eyes into fountains.  this is how hannibal felt crossing the alps on the back of an elephant perhaps named cyrus. seeing the ice hang from eyelashes and watching the sun shine hang there in an agony of imploding hydrogen into helium from right here in this vaccuum of a january noon that he didn't turn back is something that i completely understand.  out there on the ice there is a feeling that there could be no where more cold and that it isn't going to get colder and that i need to keep moving and that the alps are high but its all downhill from here.  down there is roman baths. 

whence the wind

When the wind cleared the sky of all the junk bonds and brokered deals, finally we could see and see far and far enough to step safely off the front porch or through the back door or what have you got.  In one bounding leap would I make the back of the yard and stopping before the tower of split and nearly perfectly stacked silver maple and yellow hard fruit tree would I turn on a muddy heal and plant my toes into the ground where in another couple weeks some orchard of all that is implicitly great in the world would be growing and throw my weight back forward to the other yard out front effectively being in both of them at the same time like a phonon in the ballistic regime where heat isnt merely trasnferred but is really truly felt. 

on paths

steps into the street leaving
mud lingering in treads
an epidemic of the thaw
economics personified
what was wrought is wrung
what was wreath is wrack

its spring again

hardly and far from
the madness of the earth
but bursting forth
nonetheless is one
yellow flower
the emblem
spring
again
 

out there

here on the frontier
and there twice
warm according
to the early bird ben
franklin who said of i
splitting wood mincing words

oak logs

singing in the rare sun
throwing the eight pound
limber in the heat
feeling the future burn

visions_versions_be

as strict as the cardinal
isnt with the top of the tree
the bee is with the sun's dial
the indicator far from burn
the spin of our earth lunges
into spring into and out of
the clutches of most
of moths and the listless
the flyers lining up
from today to the day
they die

fleurs

asking whats up
the land sends us
short lists of green
things peakaboo it seems
hinges leaf springs
bringing for the forseeable future
eyes into the light
eventually nice

on solid ground

tracing the frost line
to the horizon that time
fine as the sun rise

on green oak

the wedges sit and sink
from one to four or so
until the fifth flies down
and they jump back
into my hand again

on wind

starboard larboard
port tack to harbor
the waves pitch
the knees list
fish tryst
in this

on sun

on a sunny day the key
to thinking is to think
like a king stinks
of fish and drinks

out there

take the canoe for scale
the wood piles up to the bow
like busted ice in april
or breaking white caps
spending time in my eyes
cold hands dipping into lows
holding on to the crest hello

this yard is a pen
and the river is far from when

feb_fisher

there the fishers sat
and pondered
as evident in the snow flat
as wide as their fat ass
is the thoughts of ppines climbing
blind to the leaps and bounds
found out behind
those cutthroat and fine
black eyes all the ridges wide

there they go

over the snow and some
under in steps summed up
the even numbers of feet
add to that mine

goldenrods

inefficient is the wind
insufficient is the seed
at leaving the crevices
where on goldenrods
all whats next is known

Next morning I will, after I wake up, shake the coffee cup to my eyes and drink up the sun and venture outside to feel the miles reaching out as far as they have been ever and ending here at my skin and ultimately my mind.  Then I will look at the broken goldenrods and finish their work.  What works best is to break them off at the extremity and walk around to the soft spots in the yard and knock them against my leg to get them all to let go.