COTE NORD

The sky wrapped blue
round the hill's dark green.
The road curved left, right
hiding, then revealing
the shore embracing the bay 
and the ocean kissing
the white arm of a village.
You curved your arm around me
and our laughter flew up like sea spray.



COMPARISON

Before, I had a lover.
When he wrapped the long sinew of his body 
around mine
I cherished the constriction.
When he kissed my cheeks and lips
bruises surfaced on my heart.

Now my heart's unblemished
and my mind rests in peace.
Around my limbs, only the snakeskin.

BIOMORPHOLOGY

The spiral staircase
near neckbreaker of the ultramoderne
or liner of ancient castle towers.
Were humans meant to move in the same
tight circles that they contain within?

The corkscrew
elicits an elixir
penetrating by stealthy insistence
then gripping for the pull.
What other form could so function?

The thick metal spring of a car suspension,
rigid with resistance
yet in the end, giving and giving and giving again.
Is there anything a spiral can't do?

It goes up and down at once,
moves both left and right
tense with potential
carrying the message of ourselves
nested in our cells,
DNA coils 
that both divide and multiply,
as in "Be fruitful. . . "

WEATHER POEMS

Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.  I decided to take action--to write a poem or two.   This was upon finally encountering real weather after two years of unrelenting sunshine in the Persian Gulf.  

ESCAPE

The white world without
the world of black-and-white photography, 
simpler it would seem
and purer,
stimuli arrested
snow contouring all forms.  

Within, the white walls of my bedroom,
the shining white of the cabinets
reflecting less than pristine deeds.  

Be grateful for the swaddling of the world.
The brief constraint of daily irritants
violence cooled into abeyance
viruses frozen into harmlessness
even the sirens muted 
in the snowy hush.

Take that cold and climb a ladder to the frozen stars.  


THE ICEMAN GOETH

Winter's sere hand
is loosening its grasp. 
You can see it in the assertive new angle
of the winter sun,
in the gutter rivulets running under cracked ice,
in the poised expectancy of thin-armed boughs.  

For another week or two, sit crouching by the fire, 
gazing at the ambiguous flames.
Revel in the bracing and the briskness,
the quick painful walks around the quarter-mile block
under the stabbing winds.  

Soon spring will 
insinuate her saps and stirrings
coax leaves from the trees,
seduce the earth into pressing out white blossoms,
extend the gaze of the sun,
and banish the Iceman for his next nine-month's gestation.