apparition

Pink clouds of cherry blossoms levitate
upon a sea in countless shades of green
a challenge for the mind to contemplate
within three pounds of squishy wet machine.
If clouds wax pink, why need a sky be blue?
and must your lexicon comport with mine?
The frequencies reflected set the hue,
but conversation's tinted by each mind.
The qualium evoked when you see "red"
might differ from what I call by that name.
I can't know what goes on inside your head,
'though lazily, I treat the two the same.
A vernal contemplation en pleine air
is pretty, 'though I can't be sure what's there.

Noach N

A year elapsed, his ark rode out the Flood
distinctions were erased from high and low
to run aground at last, when all was mud.
A new Beginning, where a world might grow.
New Separations! This time, based on hue
like a the first, when God split Dark from Light.
Now, Noach sees distinctly red from blue
no more undifferentiated white.
Erratically, we struggle to progress,
and only information's really gained.
Material subsides back to the mess.
But--incrementally--the world's explained.
Ten generations on, He'll try again
this time, selectively, with chosen men.

formal constraints

One hundred forty syllables suffice
for those who'll spend the effort, and the time
to choose each word with effort (not with dice)
within constraints of meter, and of rhyme.
Communication takes two of a kind
whose inner lexicons contrive to synch
but certainty that there's another mind
rests more on faith, than arguments one'd think.
Elizabethan sonnets set one norm
for Dryden, Shakespeare, Coleridge, and Donne.
Ideas run wild, while hewing to the form.
But some seem unconvinced this could be fun.
Some other life, I may be one of those
content to dream in monochrome, and prose.

on a Grecian Urn

pink clouds of cherry-blossoms float within a sky of green
as if I've misinterpreted the frequencies of light
as sweet a harbinger of Spring as any I have seen
a Through the LookingGlass effect that some say can't be right
convention links one spectral band to one specific word
but other languages define a wholly diff'rent map
my expectation that you'll understand must seem absurd
between two minds, I can't presume to ever bridge the gap
yet still, I feel compelled to share this vernal scene with you
and trust your inner lexicon to correspond to mine
a vision of such loveliness I must believe is true
what can't be proved deductively must hint at the divine
a sky of green, a cloud of pink, on earth as up above
a poet's faculty's deranged when seasons turn to love

roll on

basaltic palisades hem waters in
Columbia traverses the Palouse
a dry state's fever-dream of sapphire gin
illuminating cities with its juice
mere yards away, high desert's all around
no drop's distracted from the distant sea
blue garter cinched around a  world of brown
where water's scant but solar comes for free
while Portland dreams of such a sunny day
in John Day, all the leaves are Pleistocene
a landscape all composed in brown and grey
strains to remember  vistas painted green
from Great White North to hipsters, high to low
the ever-changing river's waters flow

reborn II

the compost-bin makes loam from kitchen dregs
whose nutrients make yellow daffodils
and bunnies strain to lay those pastel eggs
as longer days dispel the dark and chill
the monochrome of Winter yields to Spring
and blossoms blaze where there'd been slush and frost
botanic gems bedeck the hills with bling
to lure a pollinator, damn the cost!
the resurrection's played out by the Earth
Persephone or Mithras fit as well
as Christians' tale of death and then rebirth
and no one needs to ever rot in Hell
let's dance for Easter but dispense with Lent
life's far too short to be so grimly spent