A New Year's Eve Admonition to Poets

An automatic poem

always sits in the closet

and waits......while

the conversation burns.

If you (foolishly)

happen to open the door,

it will spring out,

bold and bluster, but quickly

it melts into submission

and the backdrop suspicion of walls.

Maybe it will slide out as a boat

in the night, drifting

without sound; leaving no trace,

weaving water and sky,

like the blue moon

of two thousand nine.

Likely it will stand

inflexible, inexcusable

blocking the path to the door;

a pile, an edifice,

a cairn stone marker

for your fear of alcohol,

and the apology

you owe planet Mars.

It could sprout albatross wings,

be a cheat thunderbird,

circling above the cliffs by the sea

while new winds are born howling

through rock, over wave,

and gray haired snowfalls

pine hush memory.

In the morning it may lounge,

a lost lover’s lash filtered gaze,

wishing you had knocked

that lurid merlot

across the perfect

table top failure to contain

your elbow percolator wit.

Snowly

Snow has me thinking

about the tight white mantle

keeping summer warm.

Absent sound, without flurry,

I dream of undressing her.

Manifesto (my laptop attempts a poem on its own)

We always write about the moon.

Why shouldn't we when it rises,

like a big orange Caesar -

hailed by the armies of bare

trees under winter's blush.

We always write about the moon,

her smooth yellow arc across

darkening amaranthine.

I always want to tear the cover off,

pry it open with a blunt screwdriver;

peer inside to the clockwork

and the fulcrum that balances pain on sting.

I need to know what is red about red,

what is wet about ocean,

and what is blood about sky.

We always write about the moon

because she has seen everything.