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.