A Grape

Modesty is to humility as mania
is to a babe learning to ask for more.
Our children are handed the future for a grape.
Be humble in the vineyard of our technologies.
Are we gods or caretakers or both?
This was all given us by a savage who also
wondered at birds.
He became the new Adam eating at the question
locked away in galaxies.
All wonder ceased.
It was as if the birds finally stopped singing
because someone bought the rights to their songs.
We drive by the play list every day,
however gas stations are not for praise,
but someday they will.
It became attractive to fly farm boys
and coal miners' sons around the great tree.
The girls would become teachers if it suited them.
Finally, the thinking is catching up with the music.
How plentiful a meal is when shared without packaging!
How would the blues sound if Mississippi
was another planet, and the earth was her only moon?

Fixing Up a Place

I'm fixing up a place next to heaven's castle.
You're appearing in the windows. I'm watering the plants.
You're cleaning the cobwebs from my mind.
We're sweeping the sawdust from the floor.
I'm feeding the animals. You're fencing in the cows.
I'm brushing the dogs and grooming the horses.
I'm keeping You close because you're my salvation.
You're my neighbor. I can see Your right arm from my door.
You're nourishing my roots in the soil of redemption
I'm polishing Your loving cup. It's catching the light.
I'm trimming the weeds from the property line.
I'm setting up camp. You're climbing the mountains.
I'm naming the stars. You're steering the ship.
I'm scrubbing the deck with the captain's verses.
I'm coasting into the output of Your books.
I'm reaching for a twist in the branch of Your freedom.

Mystical Shrine

Heavier than the pyramids is some conscience
we hold about the earth. Our planet, her sorrow,
and a sky remote in answers all call miracles to be worked.
     Take into account the bread of many,
     for answers are in all hands.
I am slow to sunder the view of the dunes.
These sayings have meaning as grass taking root in sand.
The child aspires to live.
Unfortunately for it, it is only posing as a code
for the body to unlearn. Bound to a puzzle,
locked to life, each signal in the sky betters his picture.

The greens in the salad are filling up the space in our
combined exposition. My brevity gives meaning
to your embellishment. The celery is stringing out the pith
of my argument. My humor is securing the home world.
The lowest goal will be the one that finishes.
The phases of conversation are pulling on more certain climates.

My body is useless until I wave the mystical shrine
through my embrace. Stride daydreaming into the midst
of reverence. Constitutionals are taken in the twilight
of my last endearing quip. Humor falls toward cause
in the paper of my unsaid philosophy. I am mime
to the unconditional love of my last logical footstep.
My essay is a world in which I sometimes order things around.
My poetry is a boat in the reply of my almost certain humanity.

The day unfolds. The map unfolds.
Bookmarks keep the day on course in three speeds.
The beginning and end of my life are inches apart.
Individuation is in reach if we just let the world follow us
like a little, lost dog.

All around the ranch the mice race.
By nightfall each mouse is a full fledged mouse
They are shipped to a great brain so big
it needs neurons the size of mice.

We cruise endlessly past orientation on signs always
coming closer. My goddess is just out of reach at the exit
to the next town. Finding reception is delicate, like traveling
across the radio dial. My cottage industry is fed by ivory towers
secure in their seclusion. I spin candle making wicks in the wax
of an unplugged moonrise.

I take sips of water that release tension everywhere.
The danger is that I buy nothing. The information I need
is projected around the city. I follow my favorite saying
into the night, documenting it with my camera.
Travel with your dots back to the time of form.
That is a good saying for the breakdown of the ego.
Perhaps other people are determining my life.
Let them factor in my dreams.   

One system is the beloved. The other is the wind
that sweeps him off his feet. His feet are two keys.
His shoulders are two bottles. His heart is one doorknob.
His suitor's hands shuffle the wild places of his face
and cap the bottles of his journey. My heart calibrates
the space between the lines. I bring my essay of twigs
and goodness into the house of the chief baker.
I hand him the bundle of dials.