Perfume Leaving The Opera

Stairway apparatus,
Enfleurage, fat and flowers
From which alcohol
Dissolves other days,
Words sublime and absurd,
Song and the feel of sound.
Even a long grind of wheels
Against the curb obtains
A tincture, refined
After music, laughter
By a better mind.

West Coast Halloween

Differences recede in tules--
Black branch? Leaping dog?
Fish swim past in opalescent fog.
Doors slam muffled, it begins.
The delta begs to be let in.
Ocean sends its sunken ships,
On mist, inland, silent.
Silence --so loud--breaks
On earthbound clouds.
I whistle above voids unseen
And my skeleton, dragging weeds,
Returns, climbs back into me.
Sometimes all things, even bones,
Need out to play alone.