A golden jackal steals no fleece

A young jackal whose coat

                          shone gold, glistened in the plain

evening embers

raises his canine

                          nose in the air

just as the lion catches wind scent

kit for cat

and both beatific beasts,

                          noble in their respective

domains

                          deferential of each others persona

pride and posse appropriated

or clash

wearing naked constraint

                          acknowledged by the other, unseen

for each aristocratic hair,

stranded

adapted and august all ways.

In the crevices that morph

                           the middle meets them

converging

                          with coats and charms

a prey of allegiance.

In times of treason

the mice sail the ship

while the jackal giggles

and the lion sleeps

shudderlessly.

Composed 9/19/15.
Image By Thomas A. Hermann, NBII [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Side-striped Jackal. 

Parental Guidance Not Suggested

My grandmother told me
                            smoking leads to
                            heroin
I asked if that's how Wonder Woman got her strength.
She told me, women don't do the saving.

My grandfather used to say
                           you must make time,
                           for killing time,
since time flies, times a wastin', times are a changin',
and time heals
all of the time.

My mother said she wouldn't leave
                            the house without
                            her face on.
I asked if she lost her mask.
She told me there are no second impressions.

My stepfather warned me not to follow
                             in his footsteps.
                             They left no impressions
anyway he was right.

My father, I met once.
He said he wasn't sorry.
I never asked, I said.



Image By CBS Television (eBay item Photograph: front and back) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Rope a dope

Frayed and delaying fate
unwinding, spinning more
the less is there
strung out, on a thread
unbinding, falling free
of the ties
that binded we
centrifugal source
conceiving inertia
in knots.


Image By Popular Mechanics (Popular Mechanics Magazine, February, 1917) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A Rabbit in the Hands

Take this

I relinquish my contents

to you

Trust what's inside

these cupped hands

touching Venus

where it is read

the light rapes.

A rabbit in the hand 

is worth more than a litter in a hat.

Image By anilkuzhikala (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

DeLiberation

Disappear
is a simple enough
request of such a pret-ty little word.

Pass
this test
of strength without kil-ling
this too

Walk
it off, putting thoughts
in some order, neat-ly notice
all the lit-tle things
in the path

        Above
Rise

Sleep
time taken
in an alternate real-ity
vacation and breath

Find
moments, like this
to feel
(me)
Charge
up, forward, through
the r-evolving gates of Dis
                   never
                                              falling
behind

Time
to think
about things
like pret-ty lit-tle words
like 

These.

Composed 9/9/15.

Image By Sonia Sevilla (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Patina's Purples

Remember-
Under the light of dusk,
when our eyes are quiet;
wordless, we watched
pink crests crowning purple clouds
passing by on the pale canvas sky...
Grey grabs all with its notes
taking the lead
.

“I want to see a new color,” she said-

I remember, “but there are none left.” 

Instead

Imagine a new blend, a color made from none of these

I pretend it cannot be seen, but better felt-
inside closed eyes

like blue

or a red
Aura

“A new hue,

another shade made of you.”

“I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror,” 
she confessed.

You ripen while you rest. 

And thus this innocent request

was bestowed.

A complimentary color, 
a gradual gradient 
evaporated and echoing
the tone of dawn

a radiant hinge on the fringe
of the rainbows wheel
angles ajar
prismatic and enigmatic.

Image By Anonymous [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Flammarion Woodcut, c. 1888.

Mi casa es su casa

You dwell in poetry-
A vulnerable Place to linger-
Barbed wire Words on windows
Galvinized steel-for Definition-

Of Places inside, nested under Forest-
In seas of Autonomy-
And to the Horizon
Poetry meets the blurry eye-

Guests-the wandering-
For chance-serendipitous-
The unfolding of another Dimension
Fused within Imagery-

(A mimicry of Emily Dickinson's #466 I dwell in possibility...)
Image by Peleg, Wikimedia Commons, March 2008.