the impotent salmon


i am the salmon swimming upstream
misguided by instinct to spawn an empty dream
confused by the simple, blinded by fact
i struggle to die, never look back.
i am the salmon lost in this creek
dawn to dusk, i forget what i seek
in water cold, thick as december,
i race to a place i don't remember.
i am one salmon, tired, alone
who longs for still water, moss on a stone
blink, and another rapids is near
where shallow water runs quick and clear.
i am this salmon, my destiny -
to conquer a fate of futility.
i'll jump the falls for one chance to reap
seeds i cannot sow, and could never keep.

© Mark E. Dougherty

soon, clouds.....


1.

soon, clouds will cover the sky
like an infection, grow dark and burst,
drops of clear blood will crystallize,
swirl, float like stuffing from a pillow
to settle in my yard, diamond dust.


2.

a rabbit fast as a blink
scatters stillness across my yard,
unzips the earth's decaying hide;
leaves which dodged november rakes,
grass frozen in an emerald lattice,
and deeper, mud hard as sidewalks,
suffocates the worms.


3.

soon, this glittering white skin,
allergic to the sun, will break out in a rash,
a quilt of sepia and white.
trees stand like majestic antlers,
squirrels play tag with unsuspecting birds.


4.

a cardinal i know lands softly,
folds his wings about himself
in a silk robe of winter air;
blinks, turns his head slowly,
pretends to be an owl.
twisted maple fingers reach for a feverish sun,
cast Chinese shadows on the snow.


5.

soon, darkness will close its lid on my horizon.
a dog will cry at an opal moon,
set in shimmering obsidian surrounded by the stars.
through a breeze thin as cold tissue,
i'll hear flowers bloom in the dead of night.


6.

two silver teeth take bites of earth,
cover the dream with a blanket of dirt.



© Mark E. Dougherty

the japanese bumblebee


i've often wondered if it really was
a honorable way to die:
leather tentacles bind you
to your seat, the plane grumbles
as it knifes through
a billion gallons of cold, blue wind.
up there, between white mushrooms,
you stare through scratched goggles
and a dirty windshield
at your target, green tongues of water
lick at its sides,
you clutch the flaps and the throttle
so tightly your knuckles turn bone-white;
you watch your nose dive down,
that cold steel womb pregnant
with death you must deliver;
in an instant, you wonder
how honorable it is
to be a bumblebee,
why honor twists your stomach like a wet rag,
paints your tingling skin with sweat,
why honor makes your heart beat faster
and faster and faster and faster
and then


© Mark E. Dougherty

the motion motif


down to basics, seeking
fundamental forces.
that which is,
moves.
speed is time from here to there
measured from a point of view,
here.
that which is,
moves,
and that which measures it,
moves less.
all that matters are the patterns:
the earth spins, another day,
summer comes, another fall,
the tide rolls in,
you get the point.

prufrock wore his coat
quite cautiously.
mine is made of motion:
it make me quite
invisible.


© Mark E. Dougherty

last train to Delphos

night is still, cold. clouds hide stars, moon.
air is lean as weeks without paychecks.
a dog barks, symbolic.
thin strokes of wind carry train's fading horn.
ground carries thunder of its churning guts.
it's going uphill. i know because
where i'm at it's all uphill.
i roll, day to day, a marble in a bowl.
i'm a snail, i crawl up polished walls by day,
slip back down at night.
i'm the rock Sisyphus pushes.
i'm a man who beats his head on rubber walls,
and i know that train is bound for Delphos.

blink and i'll be an ornament of flesh
crouched atop it's engine,
flipping off an empty sky with one hand,
clutching a hollow ram's horn with the other.
and i'll ride that mammoth freudian phallus
into every virgin night, full speed.
and you'll hear my horn before my journey's end
because if the moon weren't so shy
he and i could be good friends.

© Mark E. Dougherty

rock garden


i am an old man, now, and tired:
all my friends are being strangled
by the roots of weeds.
days go by unnoticed
on the little plots of earth
they now call home.
maybe one day in a year
they are disturbed
if someone remembers
and the weather isn’t bad.
some days another stranger
joins their ranks
and is forgotten.
no one would ever know
except another rock
has sprouted from the dirt.
months go by unnoticed.
from their point of view,
there are no seasons:
forever is no time at all.
years go by unnoticed
except on faces
of the oldest rocks.

every now and then,
a memory will float up from the dirt,
drift into a rock and pop:
a heavy breeze ruffles blades of grass
on a hill in san francisco,
ice cubes clink in a nearly empty glass
of august lemonade,
tiny hands grip new handlebars
with pink streamers
so tightly knuckles soon turn white,
shells whistle from the night sky,
rain clumps of earth on a cold, steel hat,
a lace veil lifts,
uncovers two blue diamonds
well worth looking at a lifetime,
spunky’s bark echoes
off an april moon.

cars whiz by the chain link fence,
oblivious.
their occupants might glance
in secret terror at this garden
since the living have no future,
only moments of the present
which pop inexorably
like the tick-tock of a clock.

© Mark E. Dougherty