Death #3

beachcomber lucks out with a metal detector
reorders sand grains, superbly trained
rearranged to precise atomic clock
second hand sweeps, second hand news

newly fledged, fleshed out with bottle tops
fishhooks, oxidized grommets, gravel by now
frustrated, not finding the golden horde
heard from in heated diatribes

tribal, too loose Toulouse-Lautrec places
a bottle of absinth before the unsuspecting model
a girl, actually lured to the lost and
languid corner of the café

the alarm beeps, she’s found the gold
she tells, she told this story before
the land her ancestors ploughed, long before
buried metallic promises became de rigueur

[RK, 7/29/22]

Death #2

Everything devolved into the
interior of my physical body and
the implication of distant galaxies

forest fires scorch Earth’s surface
the cosmological constant is a beautiful equation
and the radio telescopes are silent

social media connections are sub-par
postage stamp prices keep rising
and entire forests are chipped into toilet paper

the statistic of eight billion humans
barely depleted by four hundred
fifth-six thousand annual murders

Poe was prescient in equating a raven
with death, here at the edge
of the known universe

[RK, 7/20/22]

Death #1

there is no symbolic figure
comprehensive or tall enough
to contain each errant cloud

this becomes a problem when
faced with a feast of exoplanets
with changeable atmospheres

I could fall back on a
melted-face skeleton with
a farm supply store scythe

a bureaucrat from human resources
who keeps checking a smart phone
during the exit interview

the green and blue of Earth’s
visible radiation spectrum
says “look at me!”

red maple tree seeds
whirlybird their way
into my heart

RK [ 7/17/22]

Mid-July Bonfire

The fuel 

of two lifetimes 

twining 

a dying tree.

The cartographer 

grinding the ashes 

to make 

a new map.

[LSS, 7/10/22]

Unrhymed Couplet

The memory of inscribing the first lines

on the map of an unknown world.

[LSS, 7/7/22]

Burial Ground 

What happened was that the sky

opened a door to another room

empty of furniture 

and you hadn’t noticed 

the deer in the corner

grazing on summer grass.

[LSS, 7/4/22]

Recovery

Charting the progress

of the fledgling robin

as it climbs the ladder

of apple tree branches 

after stunning itself

on my bedroom window.

[LSS, 7/4/22]