shadowed garden
in the long backlawn,
ansel-adam shadows
grow in the late afternoon
extending across dark grass,
shading the steel dog dish.
the hula hoop, and wagon--
a one-dimensional garden
slowly tended
by the leaving sun
only to be hoed under
by the dusk
1st pub. in
The Green Silk Journal
Sunday Morning
I linger over my cereal,
Newsprint on my fingers, printer’s ink
From photo faces of skin and bone,
Children on our Times’ front page
That I used to wrap the garbage in;
At the sink I wash my bowl and hands
And leave for church.
1st pub. in The Other Side
Magazine;
then, Quill & Parchment
all my nerves torn loose
in the streets dancing jangles
staccato’d electric wires
ripped loose from my telephoned
soul dangerous lighting night
A Wake
Wake
Up and suit yourself,
Into the floundering pattern-mudded
Consciousness of this our finite skin---
Into a being 'berthed' bemused, beseemed morning
So, like the proverbial hog, the typical sow of the round
ring
Who as life's suitors are led about by their snouted
'knows;'
Beshrewed, besotted, bemired so we instinctively grunt,
Following our sensual, careening awareness
Or our dutiful grind-stoned routine,
We press our life's suit 'til evening
Or wallow down
To our suited
Wake.
\1st pub in Moria Poetry
ever hear
of the absent-minded poet
who plunged his teeth
and flossed the toilet?
eternity stark face
Is there beyond pale existence
a golden place
Or does death snicker?
I turn
to an odd scuttle--
a hard crinkled leaf
wind-blows across street concrete,
scraping staccato--
what if I step on it?
lost goals
superficial routines, rigmarole;
I throw lifelines out;
they flunk down but skitter back empty--
treading time
within the circle of the wheel
from the rim steel spoke
of each other spoke
how inferiorly shafted
but the hub laughed and laughed
falling from branches
dead leaves scatter to the wind
cold cartwheeling
Old glory’s stripes
swirl, grasp, hoard
blood drums silently
red
god, damnation, war
flag grins skeleton
white
cloud, demise, end,
music moans noted
blue
lost
death comes at a slow run
down the rotted streets
life’s ruts
old age clocks my days
in a time duel
frantic in the anxious crawl
I’m misplaced
grasping for the
ruby clasp of felled beauty
used coins of time vanish
after the upward toss
life’s illusion
death comes at a slow run
his dream a collage
in the dark rapidly receding
swallowed by the hard edges
of the night
her long cascade of
sunned strands;
slow intimate
touch of his calloused
hands
Jesus, crucified one,
on a crucifix of theologies—
crossed into history;
who were you?
my hours drip away
no way to stop that dark leak
empties to ‘pail’ death
topsy-turvy cold
crave depth and intensity
stranded dream death
marriage—a woman
with her back turned leaving--
the receding car
memory honey--
stored from a dancing past be
but now jarred empty
maybe facts are paints
perception mixes and brushes--
gray stain or violet
son of man cursed,
forsaken, hanged felon but
crossed history
fall leaved trees shingle/ in that fall, sun-jaded trees
left
leaved rainbows, zagging down in wind/gusts
jagged among the branches
yellow, orange
maroon—a fingerpainted horizon,
then shingled down zagged from the black
wrought branches—a kaleidoscope of assaulted color
cardinal Rorschach/amber/scarlet/crimson/orange/coral/
crimson thunder/thunderous color
sliced by the steel plow
black clods glisten, sun's mica--
potatoed paydirt
winter camp
blanket snow without
but inside--in our tent, my
and thy-deep ardor
rainbow gum
on the road to Hana
Maui's painter trees
Streak in tempera
with uneven vertical
stripes
in plum purple
orange, light green
and pale yellow
natural artistic standups--
rainbowed bark,
fingerpainted
striping
pastel peelers
pine branch, morning light
stems with translucent tips
heavy rain last night
side of road
gray shadowed mail box--
engulfed by green, red-purple
bloomed jungle wonder
sip by sip, any bottle
becomes an Imp--
[sprite)
ty
brown daddy long legs
scampering part way up tub--
white porcelain trap
icy stream rushes
bucketing the grist mill wheel
cups of returned splash
her long black tresses
cleaved, the broken comb of youth
our grayed lost ardor
Face-Overs
Broken glass from his mug
Glints on their withered lawn,
The mush of dirty snow,
Law brief’s scattered leaves,
And dented Coke cans
Spewed fiz empty—
After their split
1st published in Mouse
Tales Press
at the park’s bat box
our grandson scoops up handfuls
of fine dust and swings them loose--
fogged clouds
lighted by sunshine
that disperse
to cleat-punched ground
hot summer fun, 1956
we kids in new shoes squish
squished sun-hot street asphalt
hot blacktop to rock n’ roll--
tarred--feathered by folks/parents/dads
OR
our ‘checkered’ past
we three sons in new shoes squished hot
sticky blacktop that veined our street,
so many cracks–twisting to rock ‘n roll,
but then encountered our ogre parent;
“scrub off all that!” we got told.
i countered, “it’s the other sun’s fault–
chubby-check mate!” with a twinkled glint.
we got railed and tarred down
to that asphalt sin
on our outer souls.
uncivil war 1934
Spanish soldiers slay--
wear heart patches of Jesus,
while they count dead foes
port san luis solo
6 pelicans sleep on huge guano’d pipe;
another takes off flapping
its wide wings
but an 8th 30 feet away
in a crowded car lot,
hunkers alone,
sleeps unconcerned
in the drive through
solo dangerous/dangerous solo
Lapping Ideas
Backstroking across the ceiling
white gulls of light arching
wing refraction
from high intensity bulbs above
that shekel-flash on blue body waves of the pool
bright incandescent--transcendent--lights
swimming in this liquid marble
strikes of 'lightening' broken
and broken on the waves
like archetypes that shimmer in this cavern
and electrify under water across the blue cement,
chimeras of our mental synapses;
after the swim, stepping out the glass door
into the brilliant sunlight—
shades of Plato.
1st pub. in The Centrifugal
Eye,
Canada,
then, in Front Porch Review
Human Imitation
North of Duluth
I muse, mentally drooling
Over lake-shrouded woods,
Jotting scribble notes and
Fumbling with my camera lens,
Then I spot the
Enormous moose.
-1st pub. in Bigger Stones
A purple jacaranda
‘van-goghed’ our clay yard
violet-peppering into paint
splashing
'landescape'
Cambria in Gray
Down the fogged
June of ocean
Road gloom,
Through
Smog of a coastal fire,
Sparked mistake;
Black and white flakes
Confetti ash down,
Cover our hood and roof
Gray ‘mourning’--
Dust to dust,
Ash to ash
1st pub. in
The Houston Literary Review
below our ranch bed
icebergs in puddles
next to her wet cowboy boots--
our global warming
End of a Rope
Last week in stark finality,
A reality TV star of us all,
Wanted by the American cops,
Hanged himself
In despair or regret
At the end of a rope,
So unreal in the darkened motel
In Hope B.C.
What an oxymoron of factual news,
A final exit show in
This small fairytale town
Below snow-capped peaks
And evergreen, cliff-ledged majesty
By the River Fraser rolling past time;
Strangely last Fall,
Bordering on the edge,
I, too, clung at the end of a lifeline in
A brightly lit motel down that same road,
But now I thrive in this troubled life
Far from the ledge of loss
Because last year when peering
Into the bottomless abyss,
I roped across
Despair
To the ageless Rock,
There in Hope, A.D.
1st pub. in The New Verse News
southern utah
finger-painted
eye-widening rock,
brilliant sheened sharp
pastels bold in this sun-lighted reign
of million'd wonder,
this rock garden--
sandstone temple of
geologic time
Live Branch Reach
Writhing twists of growing
Corded effort stretched
Out westward
From the knotted
Leaning
Shadow dark
Trunk,
Bright sunlight
On the contorted
Slow-year braided flow,
Tribulating
Over
Dry boulders,
Stone-strewn
On the sand-creek/ed
Streambed;
Stretched wooden waves
Driftwood
Wrenched,
Intertwined effort
Convoluting,
Live branch reach
Tributaries
Flowing west with new green growth
Behind and above
The under shadows
On that barred river sand,
Living driftwood river
1st pub. in Western Friend Magazine,
then in Willows Wept Review
and
selah river poetry
collection
liquid lead
rising from
the insurmountable
depths
of
the
chasm
earth;
the sea was a molten mass.
the sun a marble balloon
buoyed in the ocean’d fog
then
descending into nothingness
False god—my chain length rabbit’s foot
odd talisman, clutched in minded pocket
awed fetish, grown from childish root
mental fetter, tarnished locket
petted stench chain--
damn your reign
the burst of scarlet red fall—
how do newly dead leaves
bring trees such glory
but the autumn of our life
leaves us pale and bereft
all down and failed up?
then fail on without ceasing
so much edged over
to failed forward victory
than ceasing without fail.
a twist of words
dangle, dawdle,
malice in wonderland
the swimming ‘porpoiseless’ of it all
only a mat of matter
said the mad hatter with natural
selection’s wand:
what’s the sma0tter?
why do the theists get
up their ‘datter’?
let them walk on water
tottering
laughter
Retreaded, not yet ‘board and carded’
I’m retreaded but road-tired,
Rolling across cantankerous land
Though, thank heavens—knock around
On pavement
And redwood,
Not yet sent off to a ‘board and card’ mansion,
Rehearsing....
You know where decks and bingo
“Was a dog…” chips or
Markers
Define the tokened measures of your/our life--
Or where, too
Reclining and breathing entertain you/us.
Or tipped-wobbly with 4-wheels and unfeeling-ed feet
I walker about at Morro Strand beach-coast
Staggering in wonder...
Here
Until my brief spark of awed experience embers out
Gone...
Yet Reality--
more than energy and matter
of the trillion-starred cosmos--
Ultimately
Transcendent
There are 3 collections of Daniel's past published poems,
Psalms, Yawps, and Howls,
Dark Energy
and selah river.
All 3 books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble,
local bookstores, and coffee shops.
For Daniel's speculative writing, futuristic poems and
stories warp over to http://lastthings.weebly.com/.
Other websites by Daniel include
http://lightwaveseeker.weebly.com/
http://planktonpelican.weebly.com/
http://infiniteoceanoflightandlove.blogspot.com/
In the Light,
Daniel Eugene Wilcox
