Toteninsel

I have sailed dark waters
felt the storms
lash my back
seen monstrous shapes
circle slowly below
lurking in depths
or snuffing the currents
of my life

Now I see the black shore
all foam and rocks and bones
the riptide turning
drawing me in, 
no matter a backpaddle
I can't see if there
is an island beyond
or just great grinding
reefs

All the women of the world

Am I a Gide, to spend
a prodigious blaze of life
prising all of life and
experience out of my
bed of death,
with Ainsi-soit-il?

Not even in the finest
of self-praising daydreams
my reach does not span
so wide or my prose
so fine, so what do I

reflect on for the breaths
before passing? All the
women of the world is all
that fills my eyes, still


Women loved:
women lost (so many!)
women seen just a moment
in the sharpness of their eyes
or the shape of their laugh
women held close
bonded in our hearts
women unseen,
whispers on the wire
women in full fury
righteous or wrong
women remote
as planets untouched


It's no Fruits of the Earth
just the home of
my fleeting moments
of completeness
'Perhaps. At the last moment, to add something again 
... I'm sleepy, it's true;but I do not want to sleep'

Houston

when I feel I've withered
all the gardens around me
ashes on gusts
thrown in my mouth
crumbling bushes
falling around me

then I find
there's a tendril
of green
curling around
my fingers