January Rain

But fetid liquor                   A fetal spirit
    I rain on the earth,               I lie coiled in the ground
        dissipate                          expectant
    in the besotted earth.             in the wounded ground.
Woven tendrils,                    A spindled soul
    tangled tentacles                  mucilaginous;
        suck at my substance,              rewound on its spool,
    my cohesion a vain defense         a vine twice-spliced
Foiled by gravity.                 Entwines my entrail.
    clotted in the earth,              I recoil at the sound,
        desperate                          extracted
    in the veins of the earth:         and spilled in the soil
A fibrous liquid.                  insipid flux.

(1992)

Islets in the Stream

Two fragments of a thing I wrote in 1992 called "Islets in the Stream". I guess these would be two islets, then. Stream of consciousness, don't ya know...

A kiosk stands unattended; the public has passed it by.
Notices posted in the past now flutter vainly,
as if straining to escape the push-pin prison.
They've faded in the sun, are streaked and stained by rain.
Those which once were yellow now are white; what were white are yellow.
The smooth are now seer-suckered; the origami has gone lame.
No one notices the no-longer-news; no new leaves are left on the heap.
What is readable is not read; the fingers that once lifted layers
now leave the wrinkled shingles alone.

. . . .

The windows are not covered by the diaphanous veil;
the voyeur can discern within the phantom forms cavorting.
Nearby, the brandy decanter stands unstoppered,
but the glasses have crashed at the back of the hearth,
sending showers of shards that glitter like fleeting sleet,
while the spirits that spatter on the smouldering coals
spray sparks in a twinkling arc.