Shore Walk

In a fierce flair of mist 

      a foghorn aches its throat;

The wind-rasped air screams 

      through the quarrel of day,

Scrapes the tip-toed waves 

      Grazes the grey lug-wormed sand,

Brusque-blows tablecloths

      of dust off footpath tables;

A float of gulls flashes 

      white-silver in shock-stalled flight,

Chirping like strained cellos 

      exorcising bass sounds;

Jag-points of hail needle

      ruddy hands and faces;

Objects blur like newsprint 

      in the wrathful shower;

The stones of the wind wall 

      are stronger than our heads;

Our breaths are twisting stems
      freezing into the east;
As wind-rage spreads the day,
      we head home. Hands hinged;
we wrap our morning bodies 

      deeper in the cold wild
            of hot desire.

Crab Apple Tree

Hoar frost nips buttery daffodil coronas.

Slender blooms quiver yellow in otter water.

The fleece of the fat fretting foot-sure lambs is lank.

Finger-cold winter tries hard to snub fluffing spring.

The black yellow-eyed cat teases a tabby tom.

Nesting crows bend deadfall twigs to their beaks;

They caw harsh collective complaints at the furry flirts.

Mottled mackerel clouds crest unmown hill meadows.

Brush-hairs of sunlight varnish the tree barks with gold.

The oval ruffle-edged crab-apple leaves open,

Pointed to tip, fresh keen green upsides dappling stone.

A fringe-stirring wisp lifts milky-cheese undersides.

The buds surprise us with crimson and salmon pink.

White-pearl and yellow centres clamour for the eye.

Bees will buzz soon to full voluptuous flowers.

Branches promise scented summer pendulousness.

Autumn’s ripening will bring apple-wrestling robins.

The sun-bliss of lake sings Spring's soul-song to the sky.
Ripples rush through the reeds, restless with love's longing.
I am restless, like water on the feathering edge
of an oar or a boat on the rise of a turning tide.

out of

out of the damp ditch
souls of ash ghost up
their mist wraps us wet
under the blood sky
where pillars of fire
taunted the heavens
we holds hands
to feel flesh
aliveness

Balaam - Speaker's dummy

Balak of Moab hired Balaam, son of Beor, to blast the Israelites.

The soothsayer’s talking donkey shied from wronging the divinity.

And ran into a field.

God did not heed the soothsayer but alchemied the curses into blessings.

Poetic praises streamed like pure waters from gold and silver buckets.

Balaam wasn’t the spring.

So Balaam the buffoon predicted a victory star and blessed Jeshurun;

He sang of palm groves, riverside gardens, and cedars on watery banks;

He was a speaker’s dummy.

In the larynx of truth he was powerless to spill his plotted imprecations,

To harm the wandering people on their slow march to Canaan,
To do his dirty deal.

      I wish I had the gift to alchemise the throats
      of Balaam buffoons
      Whose hate speech and raging fists strike out
      to knock down worlds.

What will I do, Bagritskii?

What then will I do

at this late hour?

The tide teems

with sparkling lights.

I will gather

the silver and gold

into the hiker’s bag

of wind on my back.

I will tease in Yiddish words,

stretch like a sentence

on an eiderdown of letters.
And read Bagritskii.