No flowers--

no flowers - by request

no viewers please

allow my soul to bury

its own dead

the corpse of all

my pride shall lie

beneath rock and stump

a private funeral

I wish to grieve in peace

5/18/00

Idiot

I have never read The Idiot

by Dostoevsky

I speculate

what it’s about.

I imagine a heavy Russian novel

filled with psychological innuendoes,

a short story focusing on disillusion.

Am I an idiot

for living?

Are you thus labeled for

the act of death?

Is this book

     (more mysterious by the moment)

written for “the common man”?

the proletariat

the bourgeoisie?

its view

Nihilistic?

Fatalistic?

Atheistic?

Mystic?

someday I will know.

Now that I am old

And know regret

I pause to think...

I have never read The Idiot

By Dostoevsky.

7/18/99

(I was experimenting with forms, ok? I don't remember what I had been reading, except that it wasn't Dostoevsky)

I shall lie hid--

I shall lie hid in my hair

swept in a golden glow

warmed by the breath of my mouth

There is a door in the flame

a cavern within the candle

I will pass through

the door is too far

I close my eyes

There is a door in my mind

a flaming spark behind pale eyelids

I will walk into the light

the light is too far

I weep behind my hair

2/2/01

Gulls flying in--

gulls flying in

over the gray-gold sea

fiery light

burnished copper feathers

create winged hope out of the night

4-11-1999

(There are no gulls where I live in Texas. So I didn't realize they were noisy, greedy, disgusting birds.)

Everything broken--

Everything broken,

shattered

scattered

beams of light, torn by leaves

rainbow colors, light received,

strands gleam,

golden

olden

memories of thought,

shattered and bought,

as songs.