The Falls and Others

The Falls   — one  of the seven wonders of the natural world, right there all those years. I can’t even remember the last time I was there. – Quartz-foam, emerald-water, rainbow-bridging, mist-blown, spirit-voices in a wake of white cascading, first quickly, then slowing, then almost frozen on the way down. I sat for a good thirty minutes at the rail while the girls were peeing and feeding the bub, just listening and watching, then hearing and seeing. I took a lot of good shots and some panoramas.

I imagined that the mists were a herd of wild horses, their prismatic manes splitting a spectrum out in arcing rainbows; and that the sound of the falls were their stampeding hoofs beats. Each horse forming out of the mists, locomotive for an instant and then fading back into the chaos of the spray as soon as they had attained form – fleeting as they were – ephemeral constantly – life is just that; a fleeting constantly, a still moving river  — everyone falls.

All lines 

diminish to a point —.

The balance and pull

of a child near crawling.

A minor sustains

ending a slow scale—

an orange chord hung between walls.

Lightning cloud to cloud, hazel-mauve.

The child goes plank

forging backward on his

spring–rain–hands.

Loaded Question

Under the yellowed mattress, it slept. Alone.

The sad red shells, a leather strap, rusty brown.

Once a month I’d shadow-thrum the barrel

trembling at the sight. The creaking stairwell

was keeping six, he never heard the latch

or had a thought that hung or took him back.

Until the limp-sick thud, the bagpipes sound.

The muted prayers, the shovels in the ground.

Pushtoke Dawn 

Smokers sketch-out on the corner 

and sirens beat the flickering air

like frantic hands. Peeling posters

gone sepia over time. Blank stares.

Head for 20 bones. Void

transfers twist. The gutter leaves

illicit fear. The paranoid

pick up pirate frequencies.

Shadow-wars under the cars,

prying eyes in every tree.

The Jesus complex streaming in—

God’s trigonometry.

In fetid naves they smoke and pace

figure 8-balls in their heads.

Jokers, knaves, hookers, fakes.

When dawn dissolves they crack their necks

and flail their pockets for a piece:

scrape and trick and steal or pick—

Anything to hear god's voice

while sucking on the devil's dick.