Welcome to the undertow!
There’re eight ways to freedom,
but only one that you can go.
It’s down, down — while spinning ’round,
feeling the stretch in the struggle,
though hearing not the slightest sound.
No gasping. No gushing. Just blood rushing
to the fear center of the brain
as water’s weight feels more crushing.
Surely, you’ll surface in due time
though, maybe, miles-and-miles away.
They’ll tag you: “Victim, sans a crime,”
and go on about the live-long day.
There was an old man from Kazakhstan
happy to hear of the testing ban.
His house didn’t explode,
but sometimes it glowed.
&
Despite a lead vest he still had a tan.
What’s leached the life from these lands?
Winter snuck in. True enough.
But that doesn’t mean a bird can’t hoot, caw, screech, or titter.
We may be too deep in the season for lizards to dart, or even schlep in tailless bluntness.
But surely squirrels, fluffy-tailed rodents, should be out, shoving aside leaf litter in search of sacred acorns?
I don’t trust my mind in a soundless forest —
it leads me to believe that I tumbled back into the recesses of my mind, and only noticed [too late] that I forgot to load the soundtrack.
There was a beautiful woman of Japan
who was never without her folding fan.
She seemed to play coy,
but it was a ploy.
Her saké breath could kill a caveman.
I
two tall pines —
one bends more in the wind,
lean-in for kiss
II
the tall grass
lunges and retreats
with wind gusts
III
in springtime,
breezes, gusts, and gales
affirm flower’s view
There was a gregarious girl from India
who was bonkers for Bollywood cinema.
With great happenstance,
she’d break out in dance
in classrooms and clinics across India.
Under blue skies, the live oaks were just trees — hearty and expansive trees.
But in the feeble light of waning days or the frequent forays of morning fog, the rangy and sinuous moss-draped limbs became a Lovecraftian monster, head stuck into the damp loam in an attempted retreat to the underworld.
And if one stood still enough, those limbs just might start to writhe.
There was a young man from Hungary
who always wore his blue dungarees.
In summer they fit;
in winter not a whit.
Kürtőskalács made his rump “rumper-y.”
And when the darkness looms
we wander on our way
deep into the forest
and from the path we stray.
A lonely way to go?
I’m not sure I agree.
No lonelier than a bed
far from the nearest tree.
Not blocked from the agents
of Death or of Decay —
perhaps, we feel the Web
more than the fear of prey
as we stagger that last mile.
I
beware the wolf
wearing sheep’s clothing,
but – more likely –
you’ll meet sheep wearing
wolf attire while talking shit
II
light green leaves,
in early amber light,
flare brightly,
drawing the eye from
mundane forest greens
III
a lone tree,
standing atop a hill
doesn’t feel lonely;
a nexus is assumed —
invisible or not
