Spirit Lake

For many years we languished, 
our waters thin and cold

as high above us on the slopes 
the conifers thrived, using up
all the richness the soil would provide

just so they could thrust their boughs

into the apathetic sky. They left no sustenance 
behind for us. 

Beneath our mirrored sheen we hid 
an underwater forest filled 
with ghostly branches, petrified
limbs that pierced the silent depths.

Then the mountain erupted, its peak pulverized

and hurled into the air 
in great plumes of dust.

Lava gurgled, mud flowed 
and our waters warmed and clouded 
with nutrient-rich sediment

tossed from the raging Saint.

Thousands of felled trees slid towards us
in the mudslide, to end up floating 
on our surface, taunting their 
submerged ancestors

with their mercurial drifting.

Life flourished; initially microbial, 
which fed millions of insects

which amphibians grew plump feasting upon.

Everything bred 
and our aquatic factories teemed

as we commandeered the resources 
once monopolized by the evergreen behemoths. 

Enormous trout emerged from somewhere 
to rule the shallows.  
Life thrived.

In time, things tapered off, as
back on the slopes, survivors pushed
their heads up through the ash.

Seed scattered. Creatures poked their noses
from deep burrows. Deer trod 

the ruined soil, churning it
into something rich and dark, mixing it with their shit. 

The trees began to grow back, to reclaim 
their territory. Their greedy roots once again
sucked all the sustenance from the earth.

Now, as we watch the trout 
shrink in size, we brace ourselves
for the inevitable descent back 
into lifeless, lonely silence. 

We will miss the clamor, the constant flurry, 
but there's  nothing we can do 

but wait and pray to the Saint 
to deliver to us another
nourishing disaster.

Rotation sheet

Milhouse

In the end, we released him,

giving him a head start that we thought was 
more than generous, considering everything.

We laughed to see him spin his eyes

in fear, trying in vain

to spot us where we hid

behind our blind of tangled vines.

From time to time we'd prick

him with our whittled sticks, just to see him twitch

and bleed out just a drop, one tiny bead. 

We chased him to a cul-de-sac
of stickerbushes, foliage so dense
and thorny he could not press on.

He hunkered down and huddled in a nest
of vegetation rank as rotting meat.
He staved off sleep for quite a while,

but finally succumbed, and dreamed

of lying in his soft pajamas 
and resting his beleaguered head

on a pillow plump with feathers,

stained with not a drop of snot or sweat 

while we, his children, burst like pinatas

and strewed our steaming bowels like streamers
to decorate the halls of his furry jungle 

as if to celebrate some grand event,

the joyful homecoming that would occur 

when he woke up.

Pebbles & Bambam

The Innocent Pleiades

It wasn’t me, but you, that night;

your hand that crawled across her knee,

drawing back the shadow of her skirt

to expose the pale moon flesh of her thigh.

I can feel her skin as if I wore 

your fingers like a glove; using their tips
to trace her freckle constellations.

It was your name, not mine, embossed on the card

that paid for the brisket, the burgundy, the creme brulee;

I can feel the napkin patting the corners of your mouth,
can feel the pen in your fingers as you sign the check,

can feel the the wheel in your grip

as the waxed Toyota slides between the conifers.

Just like you, I know those woods 
like the back of my hand. They’re magical at night, although

you can only steal glimpses of the stars

tangled in the branches, if it's clear,

or the eyes of some animal that flash in the headlights

then quickly wink out, like cosmic embers snuffed

by their rush through the stratosphere.

I’ve noticed how poor the reception is out here,

between the mountains, far from the towers,
spots kept secret even from the satellites.

It was your name that she howled that night

...yet I’m the one they came for

when they found the car, I'm the one

whose swatch of hair they snipped.

As you take the stand, 
I think of her parted lips.

I'm surprised to hear you read my lines

as if you had written them yourself

and there's a rushing in my ears

and once again I see those beads of light

start to flash across my eyes
like holes ripped with a knife

in the blindfold of the sky 

Siskiyou Trail

Hurtling down the I-5 corridor,

we plunged through the wispy poltergeists

of two dead elks still standing stupefied

in the middle of the road

like statues carved from solid blocks of fog.

We dragged them behind us,

vaporous corpses that flapped like rags

from the rear fender

as we sped south through

the bristling Oregon woods. 

When we finally found a parking spot

after circling the block for half an hour,

we were so exhausted that we forgot

to untangle the ethereal beasts.

Leaving the apartment the next morning,

we found them

shriveled to snakeskin beside the curb,
powder to the touch.
We gingerly lifted them up,
wrapped them around our necks like ashy stoles
and sashayed along the catwalk of dried grass,

two more spirits torched

by the California sun.

Believing in God

I wake up as

a hunk of pastrami

shaved by an epileptic butcher

who has carefully manicured fingernails

and a tattoo on the back of his neck

of the Chinese character for

patience