Seven Presidents.

Driving on a road I'd been on hundreds of times
in the crevice of the past,
but never alone.
Its sea-misted cement runs with me,
edging me to the final release of
perfect calm.

Waves of gulls stretch their hollow wings
in the rushing wind
as I spread my arms and feel the lifting
of my soul's feet to the ocean sky
and slowly touch back
to the sifted sand.

The water's currents break in
unnoticed harmony.
The birds' quiet song, an opera.
A water-colored cloud filters divine
hues of light, and the cold bites
the refreshed skin back to civilization.

The shore nods in silent understanding,
the gulls cry again.

Advice.

Standing among the rows of labeled vitamins
clutching at my back-
months of ignored strains.

Up walks the dark haired deity,
smiling and feeling, sharing,
my pain.
"Stand straight, eat bagels, and feel your muscles
dance to health!"
She smiles, rolling on the balls of her feet.

And then!-
Out the door, into the shower
of headlights and winding night road-
forever.

Small.

A movie runs its course in my thoughts.
The hero awakening on the moving island
of dirty science.

Exploration leads to monopolies and Walmart
in your home town.

Pater sympathizes with little evidence or cause.
Invasion of dream, psychedelia,
and summer.

Phone Calls From the Family of Nobel at 12:16 AM.

The clock has long been sleeping,
snoring my minutes.
R.E.M's a thief!

Animals are composers with organs
and mescaline.

Songs of soul and simple life whisper
into muddied reality.

Slow moving time revs a motor-
sneers at my habitual nocturnal trips.

Swan Lake.

'No Parking' read the sign, as we quietly pulled in.
Walked up and around, anticipation and a grin.

Across the bridge, there it lay, a river of soul-
Swans lazily abandoning their busy patrol.

Suns reflect across the whispering stream
As we cheer our success as an All-Star team.

Zarephath

A marathon on the interstate today;
us versus the gold medalist lane dividers.
Through the northern forests and mountains
where the clusters of ice cling to the rock
that shadows over speeding eyes, to rivers
reflecting the sun, shining under swans
and their songs of vernal winters.

Appalachian hikers and territories of deer
come together and spew out the skylines
that we drive along. Symphonies narrate
the landscapes building around us. Cities
gasp their deaths and the country finally
can take a breath. And those plains of foot-
marked snows and visionary constructions!

Bridges engineer our route as the cleansed
sky is patrolled by the birds of surrealist
dreams, themselves incarnates of Icarus,
breaking their wings in Limbo. We rise the
elevations and wish for intimacy with the
genuine population of the north, bearded
and with a pack on their backs.

Cross into modern Amsterdam, as biblical
heads watch from their hanging perches. The
setting sun blinds us, and we turn back
to the homeland that we dread, the fingers
at the ends of the branches waving us goodbye.
Parkways shoot shuttles to our doorsteps, and
to conclude the adventure, we smile.