pebbled poems strewn along the shore of this life

First pub. in The Houston Review



utah bolder

eye widening rock
pastels bold in harvest's sun--
basalt garden wonder

--

dying leaves fluttering
scarlet
oaks and aspen into glory

--

at the park's bat box

my grandson scooping up handfuls
of dust
and swinging it loose--
fogged clouds
lighted by sunshine
that disperse
back to cleated ground

--

gull wings
lightly spraying over gray clod fields

6-year drought--
so 'irrigating'!

--

photo:lkaklimited

--

date palms swaying up
in crimson's sky
feather dusting
dusk


--



Lapping Ideas

Backstroking across the ceiling
white gulls of light arcing
wing refraction

from the high intensity bulbs above
that shekel-flash on the blue body waves of the pool
bright incandescent—dare we say transcendent—lights

swimming in this liquid marble
strikes of lightening broken
and broken on the waves
like archetypes that shimmer in this cavern
and electrify under water across the blue cement,
chimeras of our mental synapses;

After the swim, stepping out the glass door
into the brilliant sunlight--

Shades of Plato.

--

shadowed mail box
overwhelmed by green, purple
bloom jungled wonder


--


Morning

a trail of dashes
translucent on our red brick--
night's telltale caller

--


lines, no white clothes but
birds black in a row clothes-pinned
to telephone wires

--


starbacked

starbacked night, coffee-drunk sky:
rows of cars metal
at the red orb,
anonymous

a lone skateboarder foot-struts,
waiting for the flash of sage green
his board-wheeler a bill of adding
getting a toehold
from the faceless

hidden in their dark auto glass
street
fathomless

when all dreams night
into marred perception

--


Fog rising in the west
Watercolor washed
Horizon faded jean
Sky filled east
By the blazing sun
Over
Our
Central Valley

--

falling like cold ash--prayer in our last hour

--

dusked stars, galactic stream--shimmering in twilight

--

snow falls to crystal
path deep white over my knees--
light inside my head

--




ice melts
clear splashes on the teak matt
our heat,
'tinder' intense caresses
and our slushious kiss

--

warped fence boards in sand
lean askew toward green windbreak--
old gnarled cypress

--

horse trailer rattles
by curved eucalyptus leaves
that skit to gutter

--

yellow-beaked birds perch
in the wind-shifted branches
clamorous squawking


--

Cambria fire

green vines wind up fences
bursting with succulent grapes--
but dusted in ash

--

crinkly gray strands caught
in my black brush of bristles
approaching heir time

--

Up Early

In the gray-hazed dawn
Pale light blossoms
Softly explode from a violet tree
Rising by a jade-green hedge
Birdsong morning

--

Night Watch Psalm

Walled granite
Moonlight
One mile
Down
Below the rocked rim
In the rusted Canyon
Rushing Colorado
River russet copper;
Nearby in the evened dusk
I lay ‘stilled,’ a silent psalm
In the shine
Of that lighted granite
Eyes wide in the dawn
Of that Night


--


Misplaced?

Lost?
Seek the moral compass
Round the world ringed
Compassioned--
Don't pass by on the other side;
Be passionate
And encompass
Love's Sphere
Found

--

starlight
when one doesn't
see the dark

---

Some poems first pub. in The Green Silk Journal, Stylus Poetry Journal, Idlewheel, ink sweat and tears, 4 and 20 poetry, Full of Crow, The Cherry Blossom Review, etc.

In poetry's lightness,

Dan Wilcox

Shimmering Pebbles in the Light Stream

wind shimmer

dying leaves fluttering
scarlet
oaks and aspen into glory



-Daniel Wilcox
--

Lapping Ideas

Backstroking across the ceiling
white gulls of light arching
wing refraction

from high intensity bulbs above
that shekel-flash on blue body waves of the pool
bright incandescent--transcendent--lights

swimming in this liquid marble
strikes of 'lightening' broken
and broken on the waves
like archetypes that shimmer in this cavern...



First pub. in The Centrifugal Eye,
Canada,
also in Front Porch Review
--


red ruin

red canyon
below a forrest rim
beneath that arch of power
in the monolith of rock,

a sheer cliff
and beyond,
breaking down
in the abyss
of history




--


walking the night

saplings blacken along
the sidewalk against the misted night,

a refracted light sky over
wrought iron candelabras on stands
lamping
in the coasted evening


First pub. in Writer’s Ink

--


surreal morning

bulky morro rock f l o a t s
heavy on the narrow gray
ocean fog strata, sedimentary air

while the ocean's soapy crashing
churns combustible froth
and advances up the shore;

the sun, orange
in the fogged foam below

the floating ghost ship


First pub. in Erbacce,
United Kingdom

--


Human Imitation

North of Duluth
I muse, mentally drooling
Over lake-shrouded woods,

Jotting scribble notes and
Fumbling with my camera lens,

Then I spot the enormous moose.


First pub. in Bigger Stones

--


Cambria in Gray

Down the fogged
June of ocean
Road gloom,
Through
Smog of a coastal fire,
Sparked mistake;

Black and white flakes
Confetti ash down,
Cover our hood and roof
Gray ‘mourning’--
Dust to dust,
Ash to ash


First pub. in
The Houston Literary
Review

--


sunset beach

on the beach street,
date palms stood up
in the crimson sky
feather dusting
the dusky night

--


A purple jacaranda
van-goghed our clay yard
violet-peppering into paint,
splashing
'landescape'


--


Rock Life

White-capped wind roars around
Huge volcanic buttes swimming north
Off the Oregon Coast

Like asymmetrical gray whales
Leaving splashing trails of white water
Behind in the slate green ocean

Yes, waves churning around
The behemoths, frothing


First pub. The Houston
Literary Review

--


after the loss

all my nerves torn loose
in the streets dancing jangles
staccatoed electric wires
ripped loose from our telephone
souled dangerous lightning night



First pub. in Mad Swirl

--


her strands

lighter than hair plain
her cascade of sunned strands--
his flight of calloused hands


First pub. in Writer's Ink

--


our ranch bed

icebergs in puddles
by her wet cowboy boots--
our global warming

--


shadowed garden

in the long backlawn,
ansel-adam shadows

grow in the late afternoon
extending across the grass,
shading the steel dog dish.

the hula hoop, and wagon--
a one-dimensional garden
slowly tended
by the leaving sun
only to be hoed under by the dusk



First pub. in
The Green Silk Journal

--


Southern Utah

finger-painted
eye-widening rock,
brilliant sheened sharp
pastels bold in this sun-lighted reign
of million'd wonder,

this rock garden
ecstasied
sandstone temple of
Absolute Being


--


Live Branch Reach

Writhing twists of growing
Corded effort stretched
Out westward

From the knotted
Leaning
Shadow dark
Trunk,
Bright sunlight
On the contorted
Slow-year braided flow,

Tribulating
Over
Dry boulders,
Stone-strewn
On the sand-creeked
Streambed;

Stretched wooden waves
Driftwood
Wrenched,

Intertwined effort
Convoluting,
Live branch reach

Tributaries
Flowing west with new green growth
Behind and above
The under shadows
On that barred river sand,

Living driftwood river


First published in
Western Friend Magazine,
also in Willows Wept Review and
selah river poetry collection


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox