a sonnet for Manila, Calif.

13.12.2013 says dennis the small,
fist pumped, glorious, in regal repose.

these are the dreams of the fingers and the toes -
beards entangled in barbed wire fence.

it's not for lasting glory that we fix these leaks.
20 miles per gallon and all the juice you can drink.

herman melville, in a fatal leap,
makes it somehow safely to the other side.

each refusal keeps us warm -
each remnant's where we hang our cloak.

- a broken record's siren song.
- a box of staplers interrogated by a flood.

telephone call from invasive doves -
the surf's ceaseless roar, the nearer shore.

This Poem is Titled 'Emily Dickinson's 183rd Birthday.'

Here's what you do - 

Take what you have -
make it kindling.  

Chop the table -
smash the chair. 

Split the trunk. 

Expose the heart. 

Build a fire -
stand within it. 

Wait for what flies.

We follow the gull along ocean drive.
Dreams colonize.

Every beast is driven by hunger - we with an
     instinct for god's own grief and a place in 
     our breast for beauty to abide -
     a pigeon smeared across pavement, 
     with lifted head, strains to rise.

Desire is the mold that longs for the model.
Desire is the model that dreams of the mold.
From the splintered remains of yesterday's axework, 
find in the wood grain a small bird's eye.