19th Shot for Dylan Thomas

Original,
word-wielding,
whiskeyed Welshman,
stuck his mitt
into cold crystalline drifts
of time gone by,
came back with an open,
fistful of enduring,
ringing rhyme.

Faithless for Now

Fer Crissakes, make me a believer!

Hew my hate in halves for splicing.

Give me
exponential growth of ire
that'll ne'er
or nigh expire.

Groom my most gruesome,
egregious, gut-born bile of
proud prejudice into
crude, for profit,
ultimate unctuousness.

Egg Yolk Daybreak

A bombast of sun

greets the dream-drunk fool.

Sleep's been thrashed thoroughly.

Crowds of careening clownish, cartoons

populated the place-

some blown about by rash winds,

others abruptly absorbed by

quaking, liquefacted lands.

Consciousness gurgles up

through slumber's

punctured, enveloping membrane,

leaves him groping, grimacing

graceless toward

where the windmills whir.

Charlie's Blues

Two score four to choose

thisthatother ...

embrace, eschew.

Algorithms

for angst avoidance

scrawled scrupulously

on stained scraps

tucked into

charcoal sketchbooks of

Sodom and Gomorrah.

Native hue,

sad as a

crushed

fur-felt fedora.