1.

Settled
cream
below
lemon
forms

her
hands.

Contrast
spreads
lush
in rust
hush
fractures
as dark horn
limestone
dust
blooms
primeval
through
threadbare
huckleberry
ferment
particulate.

Saltwater
skull.

It gets worse
before
it gets better.

Radiant
timber
heap
seep
behind
flannel
breeze-bounce
of foreground
chokecherries.

Fatty
ribbons
of pine sap
pop
with blue
neon
crackles
in supper
tense
of the rich
stitch
October
abrasion
radius.

Blackberries.

Crispy
moonlit
creek-water
of corner
crest
pine
flux
when
feral
intellectual
glances
warm
just under
mineral
layer
suture
mush

and
this day
is crismon
fluff
again

[and again]

when
elk jazz
burns
just a little
north

[just a little]

beyond
backroad
tranquility
harbor
of hazelnut
volume
in the scarlet
trumpeter
timbre

alluvial
in bitter
pocket
prairie-copper
so delicately
negligent.

Wind
thicket
traverse
in withered
luminosity
as sundown
is a vein
blown
over
the Snowies

second
glacial
moraine
ridge
above
three
alpine
lakes

[complete stillness]

ice-crusted
rusted
brass
tundra
at eleven thousand
feet

boulder-field
winter
hint
rattling
from
cloud-borne
Precambrian
apex.

[Revelation]

Sacred
cloven
vibrancy
as the charcoal quilt
drapes
between
blackened
tree
to jagged
topography

two
bull elk
retreating
into bronze
seclusion

each
erosion
fold
blooming
blue
as tomorrow
presses
wolf fangs
menacing
into today.

Shadowy
pigment
slumbers
in the rain

in the (cold) rain

in the dark

[in the rain].

Hallowed
by thy
name.

Hinterland
wind
snarls
ferocious
over
frost-splintered
impassable
terrain

this
lonely
beast
so near
to God.

Thy Kingdom come

Thy will
be done
on earth …

[on earth …]

[on earth …]

as it is …

2.

Great
Grizzly
of the Night
dreams
in dead
goldenrod

all
tender
with worry.

Harvest Moon
floods
hollows
of ponderosa
slashes.

Numb
blueberry
fistful
for the herd.

Neon
anxiety
grit
heavy
in wet corners

mixed
thick
with broken horn
and dissolution
in purple blood
mineral
lick
hidden
beneath
cold
stratum
with futurism
spilling
all over
Paleolithic
architecture
of aching
ossified
structures
in steady
free-fall
trajectory
through
organic
ruin.

First
light

this sight
for sour
eyes.

Wild pears
rot

a mist
of sweetness
in double
rainbow
fungal
milk
rowan
wood
burn
as an emerald
wall rune
slides
southward

dear
(dear)
sleepers
beneath
icy quartz
fleck
dulling
its edge
before
cable-knit
morningrise
strums
frosty fractals
into loam
and night sweats.

Twelve
bells
chime
when she says
she loves
the color
of her eyes
in the sun

amber
in the umber
thicket

lakeside
earth
ready
to freeze
when blackbird
clouds
tease
apart
slumber
walls
to the chilly
beat
of all the ways
this went
sideways.

White bison
in ocular grove
murmuration
and cold thunder
reverberation

[sleet against the glass]

deep
in stolen
territory
carving
dry tinder
knee-snapped
promises
in primal
nomadism
as the horizon
spits
comets
against
the grain
over
afterglow
in the under-orb

blood
dripping
religiously
hooves
writhing
as photons
rise
shivering
into the skull
from below

landscape
all splinter-core
cellular
melt
into wild
obsidian-tongue
barbarism
in cold sediment
tangerine
remnant

body
gravitational
pulling
Capricorn
nebula
dust
into
tangible
lustfully-kinetic
shallow
orbit
on the far side
of smooth
winter
curves
coming
to grips
with dawn-lit
testosterone
blaze

[all war and sex]

and
her voice
gleams
burnt-orange
from burgundy
cascades
to fox
and owl.

Trees
bleed
light
under
oat milk
and honey
moon

another
fresh ring
materializing
in darkened
circumference
near
honeycomb
caves
dripping
succulent
north
of the dream lake

obstacles
pursuing
(relentlessly)
over earth
ruins.

3.

Blessed
is the fruit
of the wolf
devouring
its prey
snout-first
to brash
trombone
crash
splendor
in quantum
cross-pollination
hate crystal
unison.

O
God

this life
feels torn
irreparably!

Transcendent
ecosystem
eclipse.

Bear Mountain
crisp
and
folding
inward

all full
of itself
as Alice Coltrane
drifts
nebulous
from dirt road
timber
vein
exhalations
so suddenly
amethyst
between
midnight
and the Fall
of Rome
in prescribed
Lithograph
burn.

Bighorn sheep
corpse
sugary
with unpredictabilities
and hinged
on expansionary
artifice
terminology
breaking
against
the Thunder Basin
like synth
bruising
beautifully
on jazzy throb
surfaces.

Ruby
mezcal
drowses
dark
in murky
wet beat
wrist
pulse
above
pink
western
constellations

creamy
with cinnamon
morning
kisses
of November
apple-
ginger
swell.

Every
coyote
screams
in pine thicket
darkness
as fear
churns
gorgon-esque
in corporeal
drainage
beneath
emerald
and crimson
crystal
roars

beastly
mountain goat
prostrations
on canyon
floors
below
rivers
of living light
fracture
curtains

holy
across
prairie
void.

A green
stream
hums
below
the bridge

a green bar
of stained
light
across
chapel
ground
as electric grids
shiver
reflexive
in solar storm
fusion
spilling
white
over
aquamarine
mountain
pools.

Flat
neurology
cracks
as old gods
devour
walls
and floors
for microbial
ingestion.

Maybe
fulfillment
is nothing
more
than purification.

Wintry mix
tangent
of society
in crisis

cranberry
and blood orange
fluid
pinker
than a salt cave
during
moss-choked
diesel drone
groan
of late November
burning
apocalyptic
as tortoises
roast
in their shells
and alligators
gather
together
at the end
in a shining pool
just now
beginning

to boil.

Bejeweled
sharks
pass
through
the net
on stone fingers
blazing
with tiger’s eye
glitter

sizzling
amber
crystal
claws
disintegrating
excess
rib cage
blossoms
beneath
frozen
wildflower
roots
flickering
explosive.

Saints

protect
their souls.

Northern fog
seeping
yellow-pink
below
torn hides
of each myth
shining
with maple-walnut
smoke
adrift
in end-of-autumn
flavors
of sweet cream
with candied
ginger
and ground
clove.

Quiet
migration
to winter grounds

herds
pulsing
down
frozen
capillaries
of waterfall
glass.