created to bewilder anyone stuck in the prevailing status quo

  we see in your blue mandala, xenobia, riddles spinning throughout

  your creation full of planets cruising intergalactic galaxies

  carrying beauty through your rainbow universe, you create space

  inside a cosmic language your art renders, secrets deepen,

  you are an echo in the night, a blooming, cerium flower on rare earth

  in the light, when the blue moment seeps bright into a sky

  tinged with wonder, when the sun rises with a blazing smile full of joy

  inside a kind of blue sweeping musical moment, your cobalt wing

  fixed high overhead is a round kite of music, a signature solo,

  like one by john coltrane, jimi hendrix, or john gilmore

  your blue mandala circling through space above our heads

  full of miracles—rotating bicycle wheels, their spokes glittering

  like rays, lances of light gyrating throughout the sighting

  WHAT IF TRUTH CAN’T SEDUCE

  what if truth can’t seduce with rare beauty

  a wondrous sunset in the west glowing,

  pulsating with golden waves washing through

  the misting day hours, darkening now

  with regret, swollen as booming, passing clouds,

  when moments of wonder fade in an instant,

  become faces once beautiful, now old,

  wrinkled with the aging skin of discourse—

  like apples fallen from branches rot on the ground—

  truth can be questions swelling upwards, climbing

  through clear, blue skies each morning the sun rises

  above clouds, over mountain peaks breaking through

  a moment beneath storms thunder clapping

  with lightning—sword blades flashing in bloody hands

  of ancient warriors—reveals a truth as well as hails

  mysterious glory pelting in ringing words of poets

  mapping out a sacred music in sentences—

  beneath a language of sky-breaking dazzling colors

  truth there seducing full of rare wondrous beauty,

  a moment in time frozen in a loving smile

  when teardrops flash in eyes because deep love is lost

  in a time of silent death stalking crowds of people

  mowed down as a lawnmower would a field of grass—

  & a human mind can be the most lethal instrument,

  a machine of mass destruction, the deadliest ever seen—

  as in a church in charleston, sorth carolina, a club

  in orlando, florida, the bataclan hall in paris, france

  a bomb raining death in an airport in bruxelles, belgian,

  a speeding, large container truck cutting down people

  on a street by the beach in idyllic nice, france,

  all of this madness seduced by a poisonous truth

  A DOUBLE RAINBOW ARCH

  for Stanley Cohen

  a double rainbow arch up in copake new york—

  remind of the steel one flashing silver under

  a bright sun there on the Mississippi River

  fronting the city where eye was born—St. Louis,

  Missouri—but these multicolored ones evoke

  in my poet’s mind entwined twin Coral snakes

  anchoring their tails in green hills rolling across

  my shocked eyeballs in front of a friend’s stately house,

  as white clouds cruised through a blue sky laid out

  like a dinner table clothed in the same color

  filled with food activating my appetite, eye ran

  wild as my imagination writing poetry, me

  always amused at why people’s heads crane, then

  swivel on necks imitate spinning tops when they see

  flames, a different touch in a world filled with spectral,

  polychromatic people, who swirl pain in rich hues—

  kaleidoscopic—eye have always clued into whirling

  colors, various in paintings, language smacking

  idioms inside syllables, architectonic games,

  sounds sluicing through words poets speak in tongues,

  rain down through rhythms, fame, seduce our senses

  with music, games, serenade our love through phrases

  titillating our eardrums, receptacles

  as vaginas are when stroked by probing desire’s

  erect pleasure, some bodies quiver, trembling

  tame flesh erupting now like voices of great singers

  hallelujahs in the nights filled with seduction

  in a rare moment that invites glory, beauty

  here in a metaphor spreading its wings

  SEDUCTION

  1.

  it is the transmission of language through air, eased from lips,

  thrown into space—guttural, or beautiful, mundane,

  transferred to a miracle—that brings us to reexamine

  the vast silence of skies full of planets we thought were diamonds,

  when we look down into a deep dark chasm plunging below us,

  we thought we might face a pregnant moment full of possibilities

  echoing up to us, holding out mystery, wonder,

  thought we might find ourselves enchanted by seduction,

  when our minds trapped listening to those pulsating echoes

  throbbing up from the dark like strobe lights, carrying feelings

  we did not recognize or know but felt them as invitations,

  was it then we thought of stepping into space, saw ourselves dropping

  in a dream, our arms flailing cartwheels, eyes fixated somewhere

  beyond sleep, we were sleeping deep inside a moment,

  where we found what we thought we had been searching for so long—

  to meet a sacred promise we thought of keeping—

  on the other side of sleep, a doorway leading to death

  now that we find ourselves here carrying so much baggage—

  weight from the journey—we may reconsider what faith taught us

  we might discover if all the stars lined up in the dark sky

  in the shape of an arrow cocked in a bow, pulled back

  aimed at a target

  before the taut string broke, snapped in this dream

  when belief misfired, devotion wavered, a kernel of doubt flared,

  then flickered (like a candle flame there by an open window

  shimmying light,

  when a tonguing breath of wind switched back & forth

  between a gentle breeze & a fierce tongue-lashing

  an angry jilted lover popping a whip, snaking through space

  when she ran the hoodoo down to a shocked, cowering lover)

  then the sacred vow we swore to keep might shilly-shally,

  falter, torn between philosophy, religion, need, shaken by greed,

  money, trinkets, the lure of sparkling diamonds on fingers,

  necklaces around necks reminding of nooses—a hangman’s glory—

  the allure of wonder in the swaying back & forth dance of a cobra

  flicking its tongue of invitation, balancing beauty & horror—

  could be a perfect metaphor of contemporary seduction

  framed in this slender body housing life & death—

  might tempt us like so many lovers who once felt

  the exhilaration of language coursing sensuously,

  magically through every touch, their eyes always on each other,

  the heat of lips pillowing deep in soft flesh, pressing imprints,

  tongues entwined inside bellowing furnaces of their mouths,

  their lovemaking sizzling with aching heat,

  lust, craving to please, then too feel all this appetite

  dissolve, dissipate, suddenly gone like the candle’s flame

  snuffed out when an icy wind knifed through the open window,

  like a guillotine dropping its sentence of death on a neck

  2.

  what is it then we thought we saw or knew in an instant blessed

  with ricocheting syllables, echoing language, reverberating, breathing

  inventive through a poetic line, shimmering in space in the cat eyes

  a sweet woman holds shining golden in the darkness,

  was it music you knew you heard playing so wondrously in her

  dancer’s body, moving hypnotically with pulsating rhythms,

  scintillating control, evoking the lover you wished for in your dreams,

  her honey-heated vagina sweet as an open mouth sucking you deep

  inside her luscious twin gifts—the lure, sweetness of it all—the heat

  bringing you here seeking consummation

  before your imagination exploded with the miracle

  you deeply felt when release coursed through your body,

  your spirit opened as a flower, as when great music is made

  then heard in space, the beauty & power of words

  when poetry suffuses with dreams, a suite of longing

  3.

  it is time you look deeply into moments when events come

  surprising you with wonder, what did miles say, “play above

  everything you know,” you might enter a sacred zone

  where creation becomes improvisational, necessary

  you can enter space inside yourself where magic soars,

  risk-taking is imbued with mysterious powers,

  you might not recognize the allure seduction brings to the table,

  after all the failures, struggles, love involved in great invention,

  even when surrounded by silence of the deep dark hole,

  the invitation where you might be standing over, even now,

  you hear something calling, seducing your spirit—some call it suicide,

  others call it life, art—something on the other side of what you know

  perhaps there is a new music in the vast silence of black skies

  full of planets we thought were diamonds brings to our ears,

  what is heard in the cat eyes of that wondrous woman

  you have been dreaming of forever, know as a poem, beckoning you

  with a language beyond literary metaphor,

  a visual rendering full of inventive new rhythms

  your imagination has never heard, nor your ears recognize the sounds

  inside the colors of vivid paint strokes, stevie wonder’s music of plants,

  voices pure with mystery, magical—duende?

  beyond seduction, yet seducing you anyway, in this moment,

  your eyes, ears informing your heart what beauty to love

  USAIN BOLT’S FINAL 2016 OLYMPICS

  1.

  a lightning bolt unzips the black night sky, looking

  like a miracle zigzagging through space

  inside ether, flying at an otherworldly pace we can’t imagine,

  in dream, a human zipping past our eyes this fast,

  but there went usain bolt seducing us with sheer propulsion,

  urging his body forward to reach immortality through speed,

  drew our attraction to him—metal to magnet, bees to honey—

  locked our eyeballs onto his every high-stepping move

  whatever bolt did from this moment on, running track

  was special, despite his playfulness, serious aura, the chameleon,

  mysterious, deep magic of his nature pulled us to gawk whenever

  he put on display his prowess, otherworldly dominance,

  exuding complete control over incredible power,

  the bullet-like thrust powering this lean, tall jamaican’s

  roadrunner body, long legs wheeling as he sprinted, leaned,

  dipped into curves, piston legs pumping hard & fast down a track,

  while the other hapless racers—also known as speed-demons—

  strained to catch him, flailing arms in futile desperation,

  faces grimacing whenever he bolted by them,

  left them all feeling his gusts brushing their skin like a tonguing

  wind, he was a lightning strike, when it was all over after

  he crossed the finish line first again, flashed a 1000-watt smile,

  struck his cocksure signature pose resembling a lightning bolt—

  one arm cocked at the elbow, the other stretched out

  as if he were shooting an arrow from a bow up to god—

  it is the trademark victory stance worn on his apparel—

  perhaps he thought of himself as of a lightning bolt too up in the sky,

  flashes we all viewed in our lifetime, he seduced us,

  all those shutterbugs popping camera lights up in massive crowds

  packed in like sardines inside huge stadiums, cheering him on,

  it’s crazy to witness all this adoration—women twerking, others looking on

  in awe, wonder, perhaps a touch of jealousy, envy—men mostly—

  in all this devotion, delirium bordering on worship, cult

  everyone hoped he would see them, acknowledge all that love

  streaming tears down multitudes of faces in all this bedlam, clapping

  thunderous approval, showering applause of what they saw

  each & every time he set golden shoes encasing his feet

  on any cinder track all over the world, when he bowed in a swoop

  while receiving their affection, he smiled, then waved back,

  his long, sinewy, sleek muscular arms shining with sweat,

  when he rose up his glory beyond all those who came before him—

  winning triple-triple olympic gold, three straight games, without one loss—

  his legacy was cemented forever, exploded into myth, legend

  2.

  in august 2016, when he reached almost god-like reverence,

  a level of holiness that symbolized the ultimate glory

  for bulletlike speed-demons—with him being the fastest of any time,

  because no other had ever reached this glorious height—

  bestowed in these haloed games, stretching all the way back

  to ancient greece, this sleek black jamaican man sprinted into history,

  then he said he had run his last olympic race, so perhaps

  we will never see him run again, except in our dreams, perhaps not,

  maybe we will not see his likeness again, perhaps so,

  but this eye know each time eye look up & see a flashing

  lightning bolt ripping jaggedly bright across a black night sky

  then eye will always think of him smiling, will think of usain bolt

  zigzagging through darkness, sprinting his way to glory

  HINTS OF SEDUCTION

  seduction is sex, passion,

  the allure of temptation

  driving hot fast flashy cars,

  swooning as sunrays slice through

  a muckrake of pure darkness,

  seduction is lust, kisses,

  fixated on love, fashion,

  a chain of sweet encounters,

  probing soft lips of the mouth,

  grooves entwining, sweet, sucking

  tongues of candy, slippery,

  phallic, probing vaginas

  swamped with soupy saliva

  seduction is the pursuit

  when mystery is thrilling

  deep suction of a wet kiss

  caressing tongues of language

  oscillating back & forth

  feeling a body moving

  swept up in perfect rhythm,

  a great dancer’s sculpting art,

  a supple invitation

  pursues what is magical

  as the elixir of breath

  sings pulsating poetry

  caressing hearts bring voices

  lyrical as spring winds, birds

  trilling, trebling violins,

  feasting, eating, godiva

  chocolate smearing fused mouths,

  oscillating tuning forks

  electrical connections

  arouse primal desires,

  seduction is a lit bomb,

  pursuing war for money,

  greed, insatiable drug, pooh,

  people seeking attention,

  power, another venus

  flytrap ensnaring, craving—

  again—desires, longing,

  addiction to language, sounds,

  watching basketball games, dunks,

  swishing jump shots, cross-over

  dribbles, addicted to faith,

  truth, however you see it

  looking at a man, woman,

  the color of their skin, eyes,

  texture of hair—locks—silky,

  waves back to you when breezes

  become caressing hands, make

  strands of mops lift into dance,

  kinky naps lie flat as rugs,

  sporting shapes of quo vadis

  before seduced by afros,

  greasy, oily jheri curls,

  then false wigs waved once again

  from halloween bobble heads

  perched atop robot bodies

  seduction is sleeping late,

  a fabulous plate of food,

  eating ice cream on hot days,

  con men & women macking

  silver tongues slicing clean through

  words—knives through butter—create

  new neologic phrases

  like “bomb cyclones,” meaning cold

  “bombogenesis” weather—

  words never heard before now—

  brings attitudes of terror

  to dress up like eskimos

  the pursuit of composing

  poems, music, painting, acting,

  science, politics—good, bad—

  reading a great book, walking

  to “get out of your own way”

  like bono sang, be seduced

  by fragrance of fresh flowers,

  lovers walking hand in hand

  searching for sweetness in eyes

  in central park in springtime

  in all that deliciousness

  EACH OF US HERE

  for Beata, David and Wieslawa

  each of us here for a moment in time, dances

  in the air, the smell of love, beautiful people,

  those who are ghastly occupying the same place

  earth spins through light towards darkness

  time moves leaves on trees, stevie wonder’s voice,

  tomasz stanko’s spare trumpet licks echo miles

  davis’ choices in krakow, poland, where footsteps