2:59 a.m.

Night sky circus parade cash drawer red star bare root egg shell bowling ball hypochondria machine.

[LSS, 2/27/22]

Instant Messengers 

No raptors on Raptor Ridge yesterday,

just two evangelicals handing out 

trillion-dollar treasury notes with their 

secret path to heaven scrawled on the back.

“Some kind of performance art!” 

you insist the moment before the mountain 

falls away beneath them and they simply 

disappear from the view.

[LSS, 2/25/22]

Craft

There are instructions

in that medieval book 

for carving ten 

thousand spearheads 

from one polished 

mirror.

[LSS, 2/24/22]

Beach Find

A guest at its own party,

breathing difficult, gills

tarnished by life spent 

infantilized by fear 

of the open ocean.

[LSS, 2/24/22]

Raptor Ridge

The destination we’ve chosen 

for tomorrow’s training hike 

and another chance to practice

our sky burial.

[LSS, 2/24/22]

Obsidian

I walk away from imaginary problems
created by those who crave being lauded as the heroine

subsequent to fixing and solving
creating discord is unreliable at best
harmful at worst
you say: let go of clinging, expectations
desire, and extreme emotions

here is an ancient mirror
shaped from polished obsidian

[RK, 2/24/22]

2%

98% of the dark night of the mind
spent flicking the pinball into bumpers and bells
2% spent arranging mysteries into neatly separated categories
pasteboard boxes replete with
cross-referencing and unassailable chronologies

what causes that nagging feeling of wrongdoing
when you say ‘tedious’ and ‘despise’ in a phone conversation
how your suggestions are really veiled opinions
lacking ownership and commitment

hesitant and hard-wired
for creating problems and solving them
seeking credit for selfness actions
undeserved
and suddenly, at 5.30 AM
unacceptable

[RK, 2/23/22]

Tuesday, 2/22/22

Mung bean spring 

tails, snail shells,

a blessing of limitless 

time in a line  

drawing with no 

boundaries.

[LSS, 2/22/22] 

Bless

chartreuse palm fronds
coffee steam, mockingbirds
vegetables gardens
old dogs, leaf piles

moss, dirt roads
beets, raisins, rice
islands, cemeteries
oxygen

forgetfulness
broken clocks
icicles, rust
rivers in winter
when the water is low

[RK, 2/22/22]

Conundrum

My right eye lid 

has been quivering 

for five days now, 

but whenever I lift 

the hand mirror 

I’ve been carrying 

since morning to witness 

the quivering, the quivering 

stops.

[LSS, 2/19/22]

Perhaps

the quivering is vision 

finding a new way out.

[LSS, 2/19/22]

Percolate

loose garden soil shifts with the passage of a mole
or the vagaries of late winter wind
this image billows in
the east end of Little Granite Mountain
a blustery overcast summer day
the exposed dirt more a mixture of light brown and fine dust
punctuated with neat piles of moist chocolate colored intention
pushed up by mountain top gophers
a metaphor for what lies under

our surfaces dingy and washed clear of meaning
and sometimes the verities and epiphanies rise up
percolate into our lackadaisical day-to-day complacency
awareness that shocks, stuns, or seduces
by insidious degrees
this windswept memory frozen in my mind’s eye
attentive to the knowledge
that buried things will eventually make themselves known

[RK, 2/19/22]

Chiasmus

You read the book,

the book reads you 

can change right 

in the middle 

of a sentence.

[LSS, 2/18/22]

Disappearing Act

It won’t work if you have 

no map. 

You have to have 

the wrong map to be 

truly lost.

[LSS, 2/18/22]

Ground Hog Day

While I was reading 

the ashes, the ashes 

were reading the map

left under the rusted 

bridge and the cats 

were burning the list 

of things I need to do

when I wake up. 

[LSS, 2/17/22]

Snow Moon / Hunger Moon / Storm Moon

once again I've burned my intentions
like stereotypical bridges
however those steel I-beams put in place
at the beginning
remain
opting to slowly rust away

[RK, 2/16/22]

I Said

What do you mean 

you’re not going into 

the water? 

After you’ve set your hair 

on fire how can you 

just stand there and watch 

my entire library burn?

[LSS, 2/15/22]

Reading Room

On difficult days 

the furnace door

is much too 

heavy to open.  

[LSS, 2/15/22]

Choosy

She said: Oh, we’re rich.
I thought: What does that entail?

[RK 2/13/22] 

She Said (The Boy Who Cried Wolf)

She said:         
What does ‘barmy’ mean?
Are fairy penguins real?
Some sugar is okay.
I’m tired when the count is low and
tired when its high and
tired in between.
I’m not going in the water.
You need to smile.
Just smile.
All right, that one turned out good.

[RK, 2/13/22]