Oh! Blithe, Enveloping Treasure

An horizonless ocean
blending into the sky
weaves, without a loom,
a mandala tapestry
as I sing Om to streaky
cotton candy clouds
languidly caressing
my beloved’s cheeks.

Conch shell trumpeters
blare out a fanfare
for a regal procession –
every drop of my blood
marches, like an army
of idolaters, an impassioned
adoration procession for her
elegance, my song of the heavens,
oh, blithe enveloping treasure!

My eyes bleed prayers…
and the answers arise –
the cold breeds the sun
as the wind hatches chimes,
the rain washes lovers
enraptured by the moment,
bulbs release tulip petals
from Hades grasp, and sighs
catch in breathless gasps.

A wild mare gallops
in the soft, impossible
night, whispering secrets
to her spring stallion.

Klimt’s painted kiss
adorns only the lips
of his sleeping Danae,
whose fiery red hair
drapes over the shoulders
of the treasure I caress
with my every heartbeat,
and the fire of your spirit
ignites my life’s passion.

In the hearth of your smile
will my eyes always reside,
and the song of tomorrow
sings in tonight’s whispers.

Flinging away all cares
I escape into the instant
And dwell there eternally.

Silvery Light Shrouds

Silvery light shrouds her with a brilliant
Halo, she stands at midnight’s threshold –

A hesitation between breaths, and concentric
Ripples across the celestial sea spiral
From the edge of eternity to the limitless
Instant: inevitability’s expectant moment.

Sculpted porcelain, crafted from chalcedony,
Reflects her radiance, glimmering ablaze
With the boundless passion emanating from every
Unique brushstroke swept across masters’ canvases.

Cosmic superstrings tune themselves
To the chords she strums, and universes
Sing into being as her melody composes
Chance’s recollection: sweet, divine music.

She calls sublime poetry to flake down upon
Bards and poets like the softest crystal powder
Fluttering out in a fine blanket; her songs
Inspire imagination, aspiration and anticipation.

My heartbeat pounds at her door!

My pulse whispers her name…

The rushing wind
Bellows glee in a tempest.

Fervor fathoms rapturous depths.

The sashayed path she treads
Opens upon the gates of exhilaration,
There would I dare to follow.

siren of electric airwaves

siren of electric airwaves
healer of the deformed infirm
butterfly on a mid-spring morn
weaver of all safety nets

under crystal skies
you open gateways
for lost souls
on the road to Elysium

angel muse
silent whisperer
clothed in brilliant starshine
revealer of the harvest

daughter of the gods
you coax ancient secrets
from flaming pyres
burning eternally

siren of electric airwaves
lead me to your island's shores
dream me into a constellation
or the sand between your toes

He Yearns

He yearns to hear her breathe in her sleep,
and gaze upon her timeless and serene features.

He yearns to nuzzle the delicate lily radiating
from her soul during the moments that well up
in the heart during quiet, hesitating intervals.

He yearns to sip wine from her lips at midnight
under the full moon, while her cheeks and neck
blush from the adoration of unrestrained longing.

He yearns to embrace the scent of her perfume
as it wraps him in the blanket of her allure.

He yearns to wander through unfenced ranges
with her on spirited steeds, unfettered by convention.

He yearns to shudder from the grace of her
finger as it grazes over his shivering flesh.

He yearns to glimpse her expressions
as she sketches a kitten and a ball of yarn.

He yearns to know what it feels like
for their hearts to beat in the same rhythm.

He’s afraid that unrequited yearning
will only drive her out of his dreams.

The Queen of Atlantis

Come with me through
the mirror into which I peer,
a reflection of the past revealing
the future, to the legend
which spawned all legends
and reveals the dream of all dreams,
to fair Atlantis, and be the queen

of tomorrow as you radiate the light
from the Lady of all ladies,
the light of the Queen of Atlantis.

Clouds drift beyond the horizon
carrying harmonized chorales
who cry to the ancient oceans;
Sewn silver seeds wait to sprout
from the plowed rows. Cover
them over with the finest
Chinese silk, woven by Empress
Lei Zu from the most delicate
mulberry silkworm cocoons.
The parting clouds reveal
Luna’s countenance as
the seeds germinate
into the sublime hopes
of antediluvian prophesies.

Plato never foresaw
a utopia of nowhere
quite so somewhere.

When one heart whispers
to another, the seas freeze still
in abeyance, the winds caress
the words, lightning brilliantly
illuminates the thunderless
pulse, all swords rust
into dust, ploughshares
carve harvests out of deserts,
and the one certain truth
in the universe echoes
from the highest Himalayan
peak: a rose without thorns.

Venga conmigo
a través del espejo que observo
el reflejo del pasado,
que revela el futuro,
a la leyenda que dio lugar
a todas leyendas,
y que revela
el sueño de todos los sueños,
a la serena Atlántida,
y sea la reina de la mañana,
mientras que irradiando la luz
de la Dama
de todas las damas,
la luz de la Reina de Atlántida.

Passion Spent Spills

Heated flesh radiates with a red aura:
rubbing up against attraction’s golden glow
in the still midnight hush, a fragrant flush
blushes urgency to flower petulantly
as the whitewater rapids of desire ply
curiosity with a provocative pretense.

Forms embody souls’ impressions
and curve-cuddle close like the lines
of fingerprints, they shadow dance
on momentary eternity’s wall –
illuminated by united bliss-brilliance
in separation’s dark desert of illusion.

The fresh scent of passion spent spills
upon quivering petals like dewdrops’
crystallized ambrosial nectar: innocence
yields like fading stars at sunrise – multitudes
burn into one radiant luminosity and blood
flows through the heart, condensing into spirit.

Splashing Passion

A soft zephyr lightly rustles barely parted,
sheer, lace curtains lapping and clapping
a window sill, a cool breeze caresses
porcelain skin - an alabaster woman's
flesh tingling anticipation. Sauvignon's
blush paints desire on rising goosebumps.

Strawberries bitten-open-blood stains
petulant, ivory lips moist, tart sugar
gushes from fruit's fleshy meat, steamy
heat oozes through sopping pores, high
tide's answer to a proxigee new moon.
Night's ebony canopy cradles pin-

prick, distorted light beams glimmer
diffused reflections against angled panes -
windows cranked ajar - shadows wildly
dance to gasped breaths' tempo, abandon
flickers on walls, a candle flame jumps
and wavers in the wind. Cascading

the room like a waterfall, splashing passion
drapes night with a moonlit, rainbow
mist: thickly scented coitus. Rocky strength,
hardened hands, seduces flesh, lightly
lingering grazes - enlightened feather-fingers
stroking, furnace stoking, eternal flames' rage.

She wraps arms around spirit, he erupts:
bodies meld. She grasps an instant, hoping
to overwhelm lifespans, to shine as unendingly
as stars, forgetting starlight is an ancient traveler,
long ago bursting, only to be witnessed, finally,
tonight: ever present, but one place at a time.

Behind the Garden Wall

I sit behind the garden wall
in an alcove, beside a solitary
rose bush, a single bud
blooming on the stem.

I sip from a crystal chalice -
only a few droplets, blood
red, wetly stain my tongue
and lips with yesterday.

A rill winds around,
bending between footsteps'
markings left in the dust
as dusk shrouds around.

A full moon climbs stairsteps
leading up to a purple night:
awakening me with a stark,
chilling breeze, fluttering.

A hush gasps fragrantly,
grasping the thornless stem
with intuitive fingers,
caressing my luminous flesh.

I emerge from a cocoon,
the chrysalis falls away,
as wings spread and tremble
my heart beyond tomorrow.

Polo Brunch with The Beatles

My fingers reach to her lips
and gently place a strawberry
into her anxiously awaiting
mouth. She grasps the berry
between the tips of her teeth.
I hear a giggle ripple out
from her throat as she closes
her lips over the strawberry
and grins broadly, a fire in her
eyes, juice dripping down
across her chin. I lean forward
and slurp the red stain away.

Out from the ice cooler, she
pulls a bottle of champagne
and two chilled flutes. I rip
soft slabs of fresh sourdough
from a round loaf and cut
cheddar wedges as she pours
bubbly into the glasses, leaving
room for a single strawberry
to adorn the flutes along with
a freshly snipped mint sprig.

In the warm, Pacific Palisades,
spring morning, Rita Wild spins
vinyl, remixed, Beatles' platters
upon which we serve our
brunch with The Beatles.
We snuggle close together
on the picnic blanket spread
across the lawn on a knoll
overlooking the Will Rogers
Polo Club engaging in spirited
chukkers on the turf below.

The salty air from the nearby
beach barely finds room to drift
between our goose bumps and
mesmeric gazes while our soft voices
cowl thickly around our mingling
auras. Electricity flies between
our fingertips as The Beatles
urge us to spend our innocence -
encouraging the trampling
energy the strong polo steeds
liberate across the grassy
polo field - raising our passion.

Beyond the Last, Elusive Chimera

A red haired goddess stalks my lucid dream
from a land beyond the last, elusive chimera;

her fair, honey-dipped skin - an eye-catching raceme
of lilies of the valley - opens like a spewing caldera

as she closes her eyelids, darkening blue pools
as if an eclipse blotted out clear morning rays;

a shimmering misty shower reflects jewels'
faceted starburst glitter-rain-induced daze,

and she lays claim to the fading, but still-glowing,
ember that yet hums out a zesty, soulful tune

in the wee, haunting hours of autumn, plateau rising;
leaving a mesa, color carpeted with leaves strewn

into a blanket, radiating a softly inviting bed
upon which we lay, nuzzling, cheek-to-cheek,

and I smell her ambrosial breath dance: a thread
marking the seam leading from valley to peak;

then, a skein of yarn unravels autumn's sparkling scheme
winding along a dusty, meandering path to a new Riviera.

This poem has been selected by the editors at Osprey Journal for publication in their July/August 2009 issue.

Her Drummer's Native Chant-Dance

Venus radiated like a glowing porch light,
her diffused brilliance swam across the pitch sky
in the moonless, pre-dawn hours, draping my gaze
with her alluring, fascination-dripped countenance.
As a warm spring wind buffeted all around me,
the haunting specter of a familiar, feminine face
filled my half-awake, heavy-lidded eyes' field of vision
with her full, pouty lips and big, dark, cavern pool eyes.

As a breath rasped between my gaping lips,
I recalled moments from my now-ancient past,
requisite recondite glimpses between flashing
flame flickers licking from a candle's lost longing.
The rhythm of my heart pounded to the beat
insisted by her drummer's native chant-dance,
furtively howling into the vast star field expanse -
a black-robed, velvet-throated sacrificial oblation.

A still silence eternally coupled us like links
in a macrocosmic chain as intimate confidantes
in a realm beyond tactile encounters, where spirits
soar on wings of fire and bloom like lilacs, alone.
She challenged me with chants from her erotic
Demiurge to weave stranded patterns of golden
light waves across the sands of time, and to unlace
the bonds of ignorance, permitting salvation's reign.

The waters of my world froze solidly and ceased
to flow years ago, after the current of our magnetic
dynamism spontaneously combusted in the fusion
of cause and effect, dispersing our electric charge.
In the pre-dawn, solipsistic hours, her silent chant
beckoned to a long-dormant, fissile facility to strew
gnosis' seeds upon fertile ground, and heedless
of benediction's constraint, I returned her gaze.

Bluebirds

A four year old boy and his caged
parakeet enjoyed the back yard sun -
the blue bird chirped freedom's song,
the melody regaled the child; an itch
willed the cage open. "Birdie
flies away, Mommy!" His glee
erupted. "Oh, no, it can't
survive on it's own," she
cautioned. The boy's little legs
churned after the bird, standing
perched on the warm sidewalk.
The boy bent down and reached
out, but the blue wings flitted
the parakeet just beyond reach.
Again. "If I step on it, birdie
can't fly away," he pensively
considered. Splat. Cradling
the lifeless bird in his hands,
the boy bubbled, "Look,
Mommy, I saved birdie!"

A little while later, the boy
turned 18 and attended college,
where he met her - long, brown
hair, always barefoot, soft
voiced, in blue jeans and
blue work shirt - a calm
dove. Picnicking in the rose
garden, hearkening to bootlegs -
Springfield, especially "Bluebird,"
the line "Do you think she loves
you / Do you think at all" always
drew fidgety facial portraits
out of the notes in the sky
between them. His Venice
Beach hippie pad, awaited
her arrival one summer day,
but his phone failed to call
in time; an accidental motorist
suffocated her mortal flame.

On a February afternoon,
the boy became a 37 year
old man, as he tended his
garden planter. A parakeet
with shimmering blue
feathers, alit at his feet
and hopped right into
his cupped palm. Perched
on his head and shoulders
they spent years together,
though occasional business
trips took the man away.
One December, a friend
asked to stay at the man's
home. When the man
returned, he found
the blue bird entombed
in a small box, which
he buried in the garden.

As the boy's 56 year old
back bends with time's
passing pain, and organs
fail one after another,
the blues of his loneliness
elicit new words for
those Bluebird lines,
"Did I say I love you,
Did I love at all?"

The lines "Do you think she loves you / Do you think at all" are from Bluebird copyright 1968, Stephen Stills, and appear without anyone's permission.

One White Dove

Today, one white dove wings
Its way beyond the horizon;
Meanwhile, perched on a nearby pier piling,
An albatross blocks the winds
Which would billow my sails,
Or else my ship would bound
Across vast oceans
To greet my white dove.

Where Withal, M'Lady Sighs

"Where withal," m'lady sighs
"No wherewithal can assuage cries" -
So gleams of beams
Enliven dreams
As hearts pound in heaving chests,
And cheeks, so tenderly caressed,
Say more than words can convey
Revealing life's right-of-way.

A whispered breath teases ears
While passions' muted gasp reveres
The tangled sheets
In hushed retreats;
"So slam the brakes on hurry
And dissipate human worry,
Which, wherewithal can't revise.
Where withal," m'lady sighs.

"Where withal," m'lady sighs,
"Assure the sun its right to rise."
The secrets bared
When living's dared
Crystallize introspection:
"Remove haze from reflection!"
With our masks' disregarded
Artifice lies, discarded.

Look at lilies in the night,
Petals bathed by diffused moonlight:
There find revealed
When truth's unsealed
Our hope sings in embraces.
As my finger, her face traces,
Showing wherewithal unprized,
"Where withal," m'lady sighs.

Camelot Still Stands

Camelot still stands so proud
On mountain tops, above the clouds;
The place reigns over dreams
Inspiring wily childish schemes.
You see, that's where I and friends
Made real the games which we'd pretend:P
We played tag, cops and robbers;
I slugged long balls like Duke Snider.
Also in my mind lived hid
Wyatt Earp and Billy the kid;
Slain by I - T-Rex and dragons,
I rode west in covered wagons.

When I reached ten, the games changed,
My reveries were rearranged;
Paired with the fair Stephanie -
Rather than climb, I carved on trees.
I Arthur, she Guinevere -
From two to one we did cohere:
Secret thoughts, new ideas
Were exchanged with glee between us;
Hand in hand, our gazes rapt,
Her head upon my shoulder napped;
Arms circled around her waist -
The love we shared mature, yet chaste.

Laughter once rang in our ears,
It whisked us off to distant years;
In the morning of our days
We glimpsed a future, smooth byways.
Elegies chirped by songbirds
Were melodies we set to words.
Elusive time, adrift in space,
Dared not to part our sweet embrace.
Dandelions in the sun
Dispersed when we exhaled as one;
Swing sets soared above the bar:
Those interludes we shared, we are.

38 Autumns

A tiara woven
from baby's breath -
a luminescent shroud
glitters from behind
sparkling eyes -
Lake Tahoe's color
on September afternoons.
Natural child,
snow daughter,
barefoot goddess of ivied halls -
not Mediterranean,
Eirene, nonetheless.
Long tresses,
amber-honey hued
shimmering right
through closed
lids; outta sight.
Apricot lips part
with seductive grins,
ripely fragrant,
demurely inviting.
Unlit candles
illuminate a dove's nest
on starless nights
as olive branches
caress a frozen
pond's stillness.
"How can
38 autumns
pass without you
listening to even one
Neil Young song,
without me
enjoying
your laughter
or feeling
your smile?
I'll share again
your whispers
soon enough."

Breathing Her Scent

Two long-stemmed glasses stand
erect, beside pinot noir's nosegay,
blood-red dark against immaculate,
white linen. Rich and full-bodied flavor
perfumes a trembling zephyr breathing
in the space between two auras
listening to the dusk. As one lays two
long-stemmed roses before
the other, he opens the bottle,
and splashes a few wine sips
into the glasses. His eyes
never leave her gaze. As the man
hands his lady a glass, their fingers
linger close - static, electric. Drink's
first blush passes over her cheeks
before she even sips the crystal chalice.

Glasses clink.
Lips open.
Tangy flavors elicit
a chilling shudder.

The way he cocks his head in conversation
and her penchant for hearing more in his words
than he thought spoken, draws a warm bath:
a luxuriant reverie, laughter filling the night.

Warmth's glowing aura,
a surrounding steamy haze,
rises from their
conversation's spa.

Eyes sing in harmony, he grasps
her waist in an arm's crook,
whisking her onto life's dance floor.
Dizzily twirling, their hearts thump wildly
and they fall into night's embrace.
Stars surround them, winking approval.

A nightingale's soft voice
cuts through silence
with a soothing trill;
and silvery streams
falling to Earth from the Moon
glimmer upon sparkling eyes.

His chest wells up
a bloody bead,
the heart's teardrop;
and as she sighs, contentedly,
into his slowly rising and falling
torso, he circles his arms
around her silky flesh,
breathing her scent.

Forever, Ripples Echo

On the shoreline I have pondered,
watching wave after wave -
each rare, each undulating
against the moist sand
in unique arcs - and savored
persistent insistence underlying
individuality's eternal expression.

I only dared sneak
close enough to water's edge
and immerse myself in the icy
cold exhilaration tingling
within a few ocean fingers.

As the shadow across my sundial
creeps days' hours shorter,
my crystal ball exposes a time
when the waves will cease
lapping up near me.

What did I ever offer
any watery beachcomber?

Forever, ripples echo
from toes dipped
into the tide pool.

Blistering Up a Longing

She arose to singing skies,
like a butterfly emerging
from a cocoon -
strawberry-blonde tresses
waved in the wind,
a tie-dyed rainbow.

She posed in cartwheels
for a painter's motionless
brush. Her freckle-faced,
alabaster flesh stirred tsunamis
from tremors and quakes
which shook loose reverential
ardor's stampede,
piercing the hearts
which beat
her clinging throng.

She glided upon the breeze
as if ice skating,
wearing Mercury's winged
sandals, eternally
under my skin -
blistering up a longing
time has never healed.

Our Shared, Gasped Embrace

We traipsed along the shoreline,
her hand engulfed by mine. Her eyes -
shining, sparkling-tipped
waves - rapt attention spanned
every luxuriant, eternal instant.

Wingless, we soared on updrafts,
our childlike innocence billowing
the same sails which navigated
Pelagius' course.

Excitement rose as bumps
upon her flesh as she strained into
our shared, gasped embrace.

We sat in planetary
alignment's warm
countenance, visualizing
the same, single yearning
in the electromagnetic afterglow
shimmering on an august, harmonic
convergence. Our souls
mated on the clouds.

The sky, blushed sunset
witnessing our passion and turned
its eyes to the roaring surf,
which insisted wave after wave
to crash in foamy
splashes. Quickening pulses
lapped at our cold, wet flesh
until our nakedly unashamed
stardust entwined into
our shared, gasped embrace.