Fingers (I)

can be eyes and mouths-

Probes open for the touch & go in while upon.

But mostly they are dumb, innocent of their own eloquence,

too busy for listening even while asleep, clutching,

un-clutching insight, the R.E.M.s.

How I'd like to catch that flash, hold & sing

what you're dreaming even though my voice

is burnt by cigs and my eyes by too much smoke.

Hey, this is no way for fingers to communicate,

caught like a just-born junkie's babe. Soothing

hands come in, transfusing an understanding,

yet unable to define what it means.

Tide

For some: the oldest story.

For many: the only.

Know it. You do,

you whose shoes strike sparks,

echo on asphalt; you the some,

you the many, solitary on night streets

in a sea town whose houses 

wink out early for Orion…

Then there's the clouds between which gulls flap,

their cries mixed with certain boats creaking.

In each wave meeting black there is that resonance:

absence meeting presence, then flowing back on…

And all the lamps carry this,

lamps in the towers bonging

midnight always as longing

in our cruising wide-awake-hearts.