crossroads
the black juggernaut
trips the guide wire
~

ample blue sky
a sparrow pecks
at a pebble
~

preserve with rifles
the final rhinoceros
unicorn no more
~

Earth Day
four envious planets beyond
wonder why
~

(composed last night after viewing the evening sky)

nightfall
boxcars slick in the rain
southward bound
~

The Sentry

Farwell Red planet and your monuments,
I will miss alpha particles that rhyme
overtly, before spilling their contents
in a stretch of sand, scalloped over time,

To see rock matrix plates grind - overturn,
Like targets produced from masonry,
Scar pockmarks, as brushes twirl, flare and burn
Neptunium will be a memory...

Abscond I will, no chance of enmity,
For me, there is a plentitude of room,
I wish them genuine prosperity,
Intended discovery; cancels doom,

From Cydonia rift I will arise
as a dust storm, abandoning my eyes.
~


(An entry for Bout 2: A Sonnet)

Fram crater
navigating your furrow
SS Opportunity
~

Spring haiku

a gift
with golden gilded edges
in the morning sun
~

car wash
cherry blossoms
float with the oil
~

dogwood buds
a Northerly gust
nuzzles the wind chimes
~

Easter morning
a little girl hops
in her white dress
~

moonlight
on the dogwood branches
pearl flowers

haiku

ethereal sunset
halo of blue tracks the sun
evaporite dew

---Flies

Shoe flies weightless on a bar,
Laze in heated circles - they plume,
Eavesdrop on some vague guitar,
Crucial today - locate the fume,

To foray in rotting tripe,
Buzz and target is their credo,
Nose-dive now - the time is ripe,
Burgeon with larva' torpedo.


(An entry for Bout 1: A Simple Pair of Quatrains)

reentry

Space Tramp

She flies a metallic spaceship,
Tracing endless stars
with her nuclear pyramid tip,
Intergalactic - she travels far,
Her tattoo; a spur with flower rowels,

Skipping off the atmosphere
of a million different worlds,
Her lasso captures bits of interviews,
Reasons for bombs or buying new shoes,

“Copy that,”
“Roger this,”
“Let’s roll,” roars then fades,

A thousand times faster than the speed of light,
She gathers this data, to file in her mind,

She claims no knowledge that she even exists,
As they carry on like ants on a humid day,
making every split second matter,

Someday she will decelerate - re enter,
Flames licking her wounds,
And spill her cache
of crucial clues and Beatle tunes,
She’ll seize the throats of others,
And scream her mantra -- I will survive!

Her aim, a less ambivalent creature -
Blind, with two hearts and no weapons at hand.