Blooming Man
I.
Your fire next to me
On a chilly morning
Gets in me like a small sun
As we hike away from the cold
Two hermits disappearing
In free green mountains.
We begin as strangers,
I get to know you deeply
As the day passes.
We pursue a welling spring
Starting in a trickle,
Giving into a creek,
Then a waterfall
Chanting for our climb.
The furious water
Warns its danger.
To take us.
We puff ahead
In surges of inspiration
Up through early mountains
Warming from green to violet,
Stopping by clear pools to drink,
Wading knee deep in swirling ponds.
Bees dusted in yellow nectar
Bum honey from flowers.
Oil of pine scents our fingertips.
Your sharing starts mine.
Our hearts merge in a single star.
Shining white for hours.
II
Meanwhile, loitering in the West,
The coming night waits like a Tomcat,
Arrogant in a cave by the sea
Attracting fainting spiders
That scramble from webs
In damp crannies
To ask for poison.
He massages a cold serpent
From icy blue to hot black tar.
The relaxed snake twists around
And looks in his eyes
Flicks its forked tongue,
And hisses, yearning for another bump.
Hunting down the day,
Hijacking the earth,
To grunt its heft
Away from the sun.
Coal dust gathers in the sky,
Blocking sight of hope
For the day going blind,
As night begins.
III
Black mist settles out there,
Haze ambushes oceans,
Light rays through crystals dim,
Green elephant ears, freckled tiger lilies,
Waving banana fronds disappear.
A flock of day birds shrieking madly
Murmurs to silence
In a steamy tropical garden.
A slow-moving shadow
Falls over croaking frogs,
And insects rubbing out a call,
It creeps over iguanas
Hard to the touch,
Inches along pyramids
And lost plantations hidden
Under matted jungles.
The black bird goes over paths
Hemmed in by sticker wire
From post to rustic post.
Towards a silent graveyard
Behind rusty gates
Where your grandparents,
Younger than you are now,
Read, in disbelief, their epitaphs.
Shade obscures ripe red berries
And gooey figs on sticky branches,
And muddy rivers swelling up summer banks,
Mossy oaks blur into swampy bottoms.
The advance continues,
Past desert highways
Leading up to watermelon hills,
By pregnant vines sucking up afternoon showers.
Finally, to sturdy pines dripping amber sap,
The tallest guardians of the highest peaks of
May,
Young man trees yearning to poke holes in the
sky.
IV
The wind arrives at our retreat,
Blowing in after hours of pleasure
Passed in a minute.
We’re like children unaware of time,
Our brains are honeycombs
Of sweet thoughts,
Our hearts sugar,
As we lay back on
Glazed green grass,
Talking and eating white clouds
Seeing beauty through
Your brown eyes.
As dusk orders curfew.
Nags down primary colors and rainbows,
Pulls curtains over iridescent peacock feathers,
Stops the pomp of strutting turkeys,
Censors cock tails and low hanging fruits,
Conceals grapes from my grabbing hands.
V
Behind us the past camps in Autumn by the shore,
Naked boys jump in the water and feel fine.
Exercise flushes their smooth red cheeks
Fading as time moves away.
Dramatic sweeps of valleys dim,
Jillions of unseen leaves flutter
Across the border of night.
Flowers paint the last scene of the day,
Until the sizzling colors of sunset
Blend to muddy gray.
The sun’s glassy sparkle on the lake
Disappears.
Doubt enters my brain,
and reproduces in darkness.
I squeeze the climax of our union
Until rivulets of molten gold
Flow out of us.
As the last spot of sun
Sinks below the horizon
VI.
Later, a daydream explorer
Discovers a warm memory
And picks it up, rubs it against flint.
Sparks fly and it catches fire
Being remembered.
A musky vision rises out of the blaze,
Part sun, part man, part goat
It’s your ghost from that perfect day!
Alive and relaxed in afterglow.
Then your apparition withers in smoke
Changes to charcoal,
Finally, to a diamond chip,
My blooming man.
Obsession
It blows around my mind like a trapped bird
Trying to fly out my eyes like windows,
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