Into the Core: Many Pilgrims Here

Hand turning the lathe of the poem
in the furnace. Feeling the heat.

License to burn away the irrelevant.
Permission to breathe life into the core.

Dark

At times the dark
is self imposed.
The argument,
a summer storm;
lightning as you 
sit alone inside 
your car.

Horizon is but distance.
Windshield as armor.
Lightning that will hit
or miss. Sometimes 
the dark is 
self imposed.

Requiem

we say remember
remember but soon forget
stillness repose thought
escape into evening
fade into dream
no time for memory in morning

Enduring Vertigo

In your right ear, Mother, impacted lymphatic fluid
roars, sings to you the familiar strains of Carousel
and the carnival barker 
absent until the end when
he comes back to earth to bring his daughter a star.