ravens, planes and angels, oh my

Higher Things

He waits to crush them with his weight;
my eighteen pound cat stalks sparrows
at dusk. A great white rock with a tail,
until he makes his move, awakened
from his trance by frantic movements.
Despite the fact he’s fat, my cat flies
through the air like the birds he’s lately
after having upgraded from fireflies
and moths. I admire how he aspires
to higher things. Maybe next he’ll hunt
ravens then planes then angels. Makes
me thinks I should too. Not prey
on things that are black, that crash,
that invaded my childhood room at night
and promised everything would be all right.
Aspire to higher things. Aspire, aspire.

For Mac

A dead starfish on a beach
He has five branches
Representing the five senses
Representing the jokes we did not tell each other
Call the earth flat
Call other people human
But let this creature lie
Flat upon our senses
Like a love
Prefigured in the sea
That died.
And went to water
All the oceans
Of emotion. All the oceans of emotion
are full of such ffish
Why
Is this dead one of such importance?

--Jack Spicer

my rabbit-peep-Jesus hero

I hurt no one

Hurtles Faster

My eyes are wide open.

for Dennis (who has miles and miles and miles to go)

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

--Robert Frost