RAIN*

The rain flings

from slobbering dog jowls

It plays and sprays

with drenching pants

providing new opportunities

for the urban chic to accessorize

*with apologies to Mr. Sandburg

Pursuing Pinkness

smiling as I spy

a stranger's passing fancy

coloring my day

Alighted Wisdom

Icarus was an idiot.

The price he paid for ignoring sound advice was plummeting to his death, wingless and flailing in a flurry of feathers coated in melted wax.

No, If I had wings, I would have sense enough to avoid flying too close to the sun. But I'm not so sure I could resist remaining aloft, exhilarated to the point of exhaustion before Icarusing to earth -- same fate slightly different ignorance.
Which is why I spent the day studying winged things at rest. Perhaps I could learn how they can resist the temptation to remain permanenty aloft.

Even the Vulture, able to rest on thermals alights for stretches -- foregoing the regal demeanor he commands in the air.

Of course, wing beings have to eat, sleep and procreate -- things better done alit than aloft.

But I wonder if it isn't more a simple matter of being born with wings makes flying more mundane, less a dream and therefor something that one is not compelled to do to excess.

Perhaps a bit more study...

Aloe There

aloe blossoming

bold beneath the summer sun

poised to soothe Sol's burns

Urbaned Cowboy

A knight of the range

missing his mesa

bedrolls, bad coffee

and the coyote's call

poor restless wrangler

in transit by taxi

impatiently ferried

back home to the range

A little R-E-SSS-P-E-C-T

Seen slithering silently from the corner of my eye, she stimulates my reptilian brain stem sending secretions of norepinephine between neurons inducing panic and an innate fight or flight reaction.

Despite my initial reaction of panic, I must admit to being somewhat addicted to the feeling I have immediately thereafter. The pleasure following the panic is in no small part a sense of accomplishment for using reason and knowledge to conquer the millions of years of evolution that bequeathed my ancestors with the survival advantage of an immediate avoidance reaction to a possible deadly hazard.

Panic, relief then a third reaction – an appreciation of raw beauty, the grace in form and movement, Her rhythmic undulation, the symmetrically smooth overlapping scales-- each aesthetic aspect combining to cause a secretion of dopamine and serotonin to mix with and wash away the norepinephine. A chemical rush on the cheap – and legal.

Svelte sister serpent
sibilantly sings
her sweet song of woe
“fear not beyond reason
but tread wary
on my trails
malign me not
with false history
retold in old tales.”
“S” shaped elegance
undulating through grass
who’s pairing with evil
we should perhaps now let pass

Peru -- lives in my yard

an alien dream

Peruvian elegance

blooms outside my door