Retrograde

Fattened Cassius croaked awake-
at hours deemed ungodly by his
previous, more profligate life.

Living, now,
among the vines
his ample, if only venal,
appetites ran almost amok
for the first few months
of a tumultuous matrimony-
made waking most nightmarish.

Careened he toward dissolution,
of mind and marriage,
and stung by schemesters
on his honeymoon,
he was plagued by paperwork,
creditors loomed, darkly large,
circling in his immoderate imagination.

He sucked slow, thick coffee
on the way to work,
scowling silently,
steeped in stupidity,
himself upbraiding unrelentingly.

Detritus Dance: A Prayer

Cassius nearly cooed,
then actually crooned
with unexpected pleasure-

well-read, unaffected poetry
miraculously piped into his car radio
while he wound his way through
the sensuous and undulating hills
of Sonoma County on the way to
visit his bosom brother and
his wacky new wife.

And there amid the new grass,
the striking sun now unstuck
after a three day rain,
a calf suckling sweetly at the udder,
and farther along a plastic bag
dancing fleetly and forlorn
in a barbed-wire embrace...

then ..

something akin to rhythm
drove his inner voice.

It was the first time
in many months.

And he was happy-
gave prayerful thanks
while rain clouds in the distance,
toward the sea,
gathered, darkening.

Choo-Choo Cha Boogie

Breached our Cassius
forcefully from the cold, dark
briny deeps of dream-
as if drunk and by a
cruel and rage crazed
Sandman cudgeled.

Wearily wobbled he
into the relative warmth
of more common consciousness,
his psyche shaken and bruised
by the blunt blows of imagery incarnadine.

Ill-lit and rattly trains transporting
fearful families into vague danger,
some grappling with grim Big-Brother types
dividing the desperate alliances formed
wordlessly, instantly, wild-eyed
and, in the end, weakly
against the true, inhuman terror
of the unspoken destination.