despite howsoever your tamora

checkered shadows in a glen
or human tailored light on baked and fired sand and mud
floating in air on hands to lips
seeming happenstance
your spoken mind to others assured
now found
in your mothers fucking love
the geography illusion
through barren vale
ocean and sky fusing into ruthless vast and gloomy
beasts of manner and prey
her nest scratched in black time

(of course shakespeare was a racist, he was a christian)

marriage henry and margaret

first cry me a river
was a marsh
iris ensata
circles in the water rippling out
y is war juxtaposed with paradise
hoo invokes some ghost
wow the dancing in the streets the bonfire the feast the banquet
same chill morning breath in waving greenstrapsea
pigmentation due to anthocyanidins is reinforced by the presence of other colorless flavonoids
places are destinationless
unselfish unoppressions unframing

was iris

cast –
long jawed spider  
chorus
catbird/blue flag iris
george
oro and pablo                                        
mulan
perdida

                            
long jawed spider –
i walk and weave
over by water offering
streaming silver
to suns and moons
 
chorus –
they find places 
pools in circles fountain
pipe stone maple lily
berry hyacinth reeds
 
long jawed spider –
high wire to darkness and daylight
stepping here
 
chorus –
or there or here
stoneflies midges
whir tapped waiting web
eight times many hands unfold
 
long jawed spider –
i sail into shade
over this pool
then evening
odd to see catbird just there close
 
chorus –
they poise eight stringed
breathing kite
 
catbird –
you would pass here
undetected
 
long-jawed spider –
i am a traveler
offering silk

catbird –
hide your prayers well
earthbound
walking in air over water
you become me in moonlight
 
chorus –
when ice begins
to still the dew
 
catbird –
i will
mind your prayer
 
chorus –
so it flies away
and into a tall magnolia
 
 
long-jawed spider –
now this night
dew bejewelled
i am not hungry at all
but thirsty
 
chorus –
they pass around the water
back and forth
unencumbering
a leaf falling in gentle wind
 
long-jawed spider –
here in the bush
over a wet stone wall
reeds near the algae
probed by fish
 
a maple
where nothing lands
under the fringe tree
in blackening ginger leaves
 
chorus –
eight are the places
for cloud-like sacs
 
long-jawed spider –
as suddenly as i thought it
catbird perches close
 
chorus –
they stretch their legs
straight out in front and behind
 
catbird –
summer was good to you
and to me
 
chorus –
now the story
of two hundred thousand moons
they stand up stretching
wings outspreading
 
catbird –
you do not see me crouch
as i launch into the air
all around you
soaring but not moving
 
long-jawed spider –
my prayer has summoned
blue flag iris
 
catbird –
now I fall like
light into the pond
 
chorus –
so much breathing sun
lighting dark space
feathers radiate
dissipate
 
falling like fire works
into murky water
sinking floating coalescing
luiminesce
 
blue flag iris –
with the roar of a fire unheard
i swim near the surface
 
chorus –
their luminescence flows
thru one fish two others and next
 
george –
i am ghost-like
many shades of our moon
i am iris 
first sprouting
 
blue flag iris –
from earth to air
edge of small water
large forest
just lovely now in always
 
oro and pablo –
i am fiery silver gold
i am bold dabs black orange
we animate as one
swaying blue in green sea
 
blue flag iris –
what beyond woodland
in forever mostly empty place
 
mulan –
I am all colors
of every fish
watch closely
every lumen bursting fading
 
blue flag iris –
life of eight thousand flowers
as catbird we might see
 
perdida –
i am mostly black mostly white
i leap from the surface
as blue flag iris
shimmer into new morning shadows
 
blue flag iris –
flying as catbird we see
once is something never lost
just once woodland flowers
consume you spider
 
chorus –
they shake the web
a glowing drum
flower of smoke spiraling
something that was here
 
long-jawed spider –
is gone
yet i remain earthbound
 
chorus –
orb weaver sac spinner
wind flute sunlight eater
 
blue flag iris –
our fading blue song
grey wings dark eyes
exhalation toward
swirl of stars

paint over

around a bay-filled gorge sand water clay mix old older mountains volcanoes
clouds tarmac black red all around
ships in port engines on shore steel boxes circled squared
stacks spires brick glass walls towers cylinders cranes cubes stadia in shadow
silted water bubbles up paved over and over war
grey birds flash the yellow sun behind horizon
early morning lightning purple blue white
sweep thru waves
water radiated energy

looking back east from park avenue
(looking back east from park avenue in 2019 – how will a once-inventurous city profiteering from slavery, oil wars, and declining human health look after most of its current life is extinct)

soundteller

ocean distills in drips of
wood brass steel animal vibrating
as the teller felt
warmth and light in dark
shape
islands into whales
seahorses into mares into colts
birds and fire
notes dying dancing step
turn toward
mountains diving down into sea
shifter
running with tiger soaring walls
flickering cave

sculpture and symphony hall at sunrise, preston and howard streets, baltimore

(marin alsop began leading the baltimore symphony orchestra in 2007)

mountains of freak

i thought they might stay but they didn’t
fortytrillion oxygenflowers suddenly exploding
shards roaring through me
burning me toward sun
laughingsuffering vaporized
sinking floating swirling
theyrwithme iamwiththem
remaking painjoy in lonely

time

space

touch and touch deeply thems you love

and that will be that

from mount freaky deaky at sunrise
(from some places in some cities you can see a thousand years)