RITUAL ENACTMENTS

Volume 7, Collected Poems, 2008

Available for Purchase

Published by AuthorHouse®

Published, RE:AL Fall 1998

Deer hang
from the beds
of pickups.

the rigid tongues
slur words
that no longer
matter.

The eyes express
neither fear
nor astonishment
in death.

Empty air
is between their legs
and blood-stained hair,

as if they had just
given birth.

Published, Cape Rock Journal, 1967

The subject: forgotten rituals,

how in shirtsleeves
I carried the kitchen trash through brittle snow
and lit it,

expectant,

knowing the cold's first shudder
would shrink my crotch
and start intestinal spasms,

how then the wait for crumbled cinders to darken
would suggest shapes
outside the circle of fire

and I must run for the doorway
or lose to wolves.