Yarrow Stalk

No right answer opens 

its soul, a sleeve 

without holes, a vacant 

scroll, knurled plum, 

heavy, winter limb.

[LSS, 1/21/23]

Run-On Dream

Luanne arrives early 

in her purple pick up truck 

and plants a field of lavender

outside my front door

a rogue wave washes 

all the windows 

out to sea. 

[LSS, 1/10/23] 

Killer Whale

You can not revise 

or retitle the past.

You can only drive it

into shallow water

before you kill it. 

[LSS, 1/4/23]

Week-at-a-Glance

Half-finished tongue 

and groove starting 

point spiral staircase 

procurement team Velvet 

Underground mid week

waking up strange 

hours full size.

[LSS, 1/4/23]

 

Daylight Saving Time


Set the clocks back one hour, woke confused, sent a text message,
“I thought we turned clocks back last night. I was wrong, it’s tonight.”
“We did turn the clocks back last night. It was 6 am and light.”
 
Sunlight kitchen window, I’m so easily lost
Should I search for online self-administered dementia tests?
Should I tell Dr. Rizvi I’m euphemistically “not happy”?
 
The noticeable blur in the right eye, the inflamed synovial tissue,
mysterious once-familiar objects, forgotten names.
How it takes one hour to walk two miles, a recalcitrant donkey.
 
[RK, 11/06/22]

Ophisaurus ventralis
 
 
she finds warmth
beneath the compost pile
we surprise each other
our exhausted greetings
my yelp, her defensive posture
we forget and forget
carry on this limited conversation
year after year
 
I grow limited and defensive
at her persistent lingering
become disoriented wondering
which of us will go first
 
[RK, 10/30/22]
 
 
Half-Moon
 

That half-moon is the last thing I expected.
Garden soil puckered by fainting fair raindrops.
Where are morning’s crows and jays
shirruping their greedy breakfast orders
to the sous chef who leaves seeds scattered on top of a wall?
 
Watching the crows in disorderly order feinting the way to the roost.
“You’ll never find us,” they say.
“I’m not looking.” I’m looking. “Just momentarily dazed with wondering
when you imply here today, gone tomorrow.”
 
I used to lay out traps for the prairie dogs, now I know better.
The crows, a global avian multitude stealing my grain,
even as I rush to get everything finished
before the zenith half-moon, and night.
 
[RK, 10/30/22]

Conspiracy
 
horsefly, deerfly, wasp, velvet ant?
a sting barely felt on the face
the skin around my eye swells
that ‘old man eye bag’ more noticeable
not mononucleosis or conjunctivitis
just an insect sting, minor infection, or
periorbital edema from allergies
 
or was it from plucking and eating
wild yellow plums, which Wikipedia
tells me contain hydrocyanic acid
another name for hydrogen cyanide
once used in Zyklon B in Germany
and in the execution of prisoners
in the United States
 
look in the mirror at the imagined twenty-five
year old man, my imagination shattered
in candid smart phone photos and
short amateur video clips
where eye bags, spare bicycle tire,
receding hairline, invisible arthritis
and hypertension conspire
 
[RK, 8/28/22]
 
 
 
Horse
 
 
in 1989 we rode mountain bikes through Moon Valley north of Phoenix
the desert sparse with strawberry hedgehog cactus, jumping cholla, and palo verde
water and lunch were taken in the shade of a massive saguaro cactus
 
a peculiar buzzing that sounded like cars on the distant highway, but was not
an abandoned pit in the middle of nowhere, excavated for whatever purpose
the horse carcass was identifiable, as was the buzzing of thousands of houseflies
 
one hundred five Fahrenheit, the sun was a comforting part of the summer
drying us out without making us overheated and dizzy, how this was possible
is a sweet mystery I no longer wish to unravel. It just was.
 
[RK, 8/28/22]

Red

“Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes.”
(The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.)
—Horace, Epistularum liber secundus.
 
 
I forgot the weight of The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.
From bookshelf to desk the QL back muscles send up a red flag.
Magnifier included, I supply the flashlight.
 
The definition of the word ‘red’ takes up over seven pages.
720 is the earliest known appearance of that word in English writing.
As of this writing that is just over one thousand three hundred years ago.
 
The progressive rock band King Crimson released the album “Red” in October 1974.
As of this writing that is just under a half century ago.
I was one month shy of my eighteenth birthday.
 
Epistularum liber secundus  appeared between 19 and 11 BCE.
Horace left the world one month shy of his fifty-seventh birthday.
You can google what remains and get the apocryphal details.
 
Will a plastic storage bin of my writings end up in a used books shop?
A curio for the future? Amazing how a singular life is reduced
to piles of paper with smudged or fading ink. Such a pity.
 
[RK, 8/26/22]
 
 
 
The Three Stages of Life
 

        In the beginning there was confusion involving the chronology of the La Brea Tar Pits. Researchers embroiled in carbon-14 dating published scientific papers I never read. I was too busy pulling saber-tooth tigers, sloths, and mastodons to safety. Who could be bothered to read about fake timelines and productive oil fields?
        I excelled at confusion and strict adherence to the rules. I learned to break rules. Only self-appointed authoritarians paid any attention. They showed me the book. Fixated on external appearances, time became a shape-shifting quantity. Artwork became artifacts, writing became a sacred card-turning ritual.
        “I’m doing as little DIY as possible. I can’t imagine living here in ten years.” That’s me prevaricating again. Sledgehammers will crack open the concrete slab, entomb my oxidized memories. Solicitous acquaintances will wrap me in a winding sheet woven from the fragments of a life that could be anyone’s life. It’s that simple.
 
[RK, 8/26/22]

Five of Cups

upset and loss, sadness and confusion, disappointments or arguments
forced to deal with whatever life throws your way
 
weeks pass
text messages are exchanged
through the dark glass, clarity
uncertainty lapses, lackadaisical overarching lachrymose
my blasé reaction and attitude misplaced
a work through it thing
blasted Buddhist epigrams that are good
for the rich spiritual advisors
 
dogs request scratching the tops of the heads
bank balance says hoo-ha
internet connections and software applications
tacitly behave
two cups remain upright and unsplit
positing the aid of family and friends
 
[RK, 12/1/22]

 Der Himmel über Berlin
 
 
we believed we had awareness of the other
that was true in many beds across the few years
pop radio music floating down the alley
brought elusive poignancy to my solitude
 
housecats pissed in the potted plants
the bulbs sprang forth untainted
I took the single flowers outside
believing insects would opt for pollination
 
and behold the red lily formed a seed pod
packed with tiny black spices, I cannot recall
if they were planted, or if they were viable
or what happened to the haunted greenhouse
 
what happened to the housecats, or the pastel
colored sheet that served as a curtain above
the tank-like futon frame, nights when the city
rested its dust, cars, sirens, and rare gunshots
 
we intuitively believed we understood the
meaning of existence, what healthy individuals
unscored by war, famine, or despotic regimes
feel when they wake up to jobs they love
 
streets they call home, utility bills timely paid
pets, random jaunts into the partly unknown desert
and topographic maps notwithstanding, I cannot recall
what lined the crackled asphalt highways
 
what the night sky over South Mountain looked like
lit by heat lightning and microwave relay towers
the Salt River channel dry as any newly scraped
landscape readied for a tough as iron subdivision
 
We drove across the city to Scottsdale
the only theater showing foreign art films
my friend in L.A. said you must see this
it’s in black and white, color, subtitled
 
I admit to being moved, changed, inspired to be
a better artist, person, lover, or friend
the movie house smelt of rancid popcorn butter
outside the scent of orange blossoms cloyed
 
moths swarmed parking lot incandescent lights
we leaned against the side of the pickup truck
we intuitively believed we understood
we believed we had awareness of the other
 
[RK, 8/12/22]

 
Ellen
 
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, Edgar Degas places
a glass of absinthe before Ellen Andrée
perpetually lured to model in the lost,
languid corner of the Nouvelle Athènes
 
the alarm beeps, she’s found the gold
she tells, she’s told this story before
the land her ancestors ploughed, long before
buried metallic promises became de rigueur
 
[RK, 7/29/22]
 
 
 
Witching Hour
 
four a.m. and just past the witching hour
no rustling leaves, no owls calling
 
air conditioner runs like horses, jacking up the utility bill
will the President cancel part of my loan?
 
the garden by porch light rests in abeyance
tantalizing moths and beetles, no whip-poor-will perched
 
morning songbirds and anoles will take their rightful places
lacking given names, they become interchangeable and generic
 
[RK, 7/30/22]

Whirlybird
 
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, or 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]
 
 
 
E.A.P.
 
Everything devolves into the interior of my physical body. Here is the implication of distant galaxies contrasted with forest fires scorching 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 is 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]

Declaration

Less is more 

no more; 

wanting more 

all the more, 

more and more.

[LSS, 1/3/23]