Dirt & Water / Water & Sky

We'll meet where dirt and water touch,
where water and sky
are varying shades of the same theme.

Language will not be necessary.

Overlooking the water is a bell seldom
rung- given in friendship between
two foreign lands.

I am dreaming and I am awake.

As I think and breathe the sky is black,
the crickets chirp, the neighbors sleep.
I, awake, yet still dreaming.

Lost Worlds

Waking is an act of forgetting
we take as normal.

What worlds do we relinquish
What lives do we forget

by gazing through the window
and embracing daylight

I often try in vain to remember
the landscapes I have seen

before they disappear into
the creeping mist   This morning

a few words snuck through
amidst the usual casualties

Tough Kids

These words
don't play well
with others.

My mind is a cluttered museum
covered in dust.

My heart is a machine that beats
in and out of time.

My hands grasp that which cannot
be eternally held.

When a secret expands it can never contract.

What Is There

I cannot let myself look into the old closet

at the end of the hall,

not because I do not know what is in there

but rather, because I know what is in there.

Each time I think of opening its door

my hand grips the knob until 

my hand grows damp until 

I relent and let it go.

Truth is a beauty unto itself.

Winter Come

Winter come

Bury all my sullen years

This white blanket

Keeps me here


I am here

I am

Here

When It Is Late and I Cannot Sleep

When I cannot sleep I stay awake
until delirium sets in
and takes over the whole of me.

I am thinking about
all the pieces as they appear
when the puzzle is pulled apart

after its completion. It's usefulness
has been spent on those
who have assembled the image.

The pieces are once more
placed into the darkness of its box
and set on the shelf in the closet.

The season changes from summer
to fall, fall to winter,
winter to spring,

spring to summer, once more.
I cannot sleep
thinking of all the change

coming, how inevitable,
how normal it really is,
and always will be.

The Recovery

Sleep deeply,

sleep peacefully

this hot night

in your hospital bed.


Sunlight awakens

with you,

moonlight

illuminates your

dreams.


This will soon

be a memory.

Narrative Voice

There is no one narrating this
as you read it
except for the voice you hear
in your mind.
If you know who I am
perhaps it has taken
the timbre of how
I would speak to you.
If you do not know me
there is a good chance
you are hearing your own
voice reading this
back in a familiar cadence.
You might be mouthing
along to the words
and hope no one
can see you because
you would feel silly
if someone caught you
and asked what you are
reading. If that happened
they would see this
and the whole cycle
would once again repeat.

The Student

Don't ever show me the easy way
to do anything.
Let me be a frustrated fool
and bitch at the difficulty
of my task
until the obvious answer
snaps across my mind
with the crack of a towel
hitting a teenager
in the showers after p.e.
Let me learn from my stubbornness,
let me learn
as often as possible
and for all of my days. 

smart-ass

I start writing stories I have no intention
of ever finishing. There are plots
half-filled in my mind
with characters drawn
in the same definition
as a hunk of charcoal scraped
against a wall.

I write poems I have no intention
of ever revising-
though there are a few whose
existence guilts me into combing
the loose edges of words
into a respectable cut
with lines
and breaks
in all the right and expected
places
in lieu of punctuation
as restrictive as
underwear a few sizes
too tight.

I write with no intention
of ever fi

All Night

The night is so warm
that I wish to turn my music up
as high as the volume can go
so I can dance
and let my neighbors hear me
over the sound of them
having air-conditioned sex
in their homes.

The night is so warm
that I wish to get in my car
and drive up the coast
with my windows rolled down
until my car runs out of gas
and I am stranded along
a beach where
I will sleep in the sand.

The night is so warm
that I wish to drink
all manner of alcohol
with friends until
reason leaves us
at 3 in the morning and we
all call out sick from work
by not showing up at all.

The night is so warm
that I wish to feel your sweat
against my skin, in my hair,
in my mouth, until
we reach a little death, then
we'll tire ourselves once more
into a balmy sleep.

Rubbing the Night From Your Eyes

You wake because sunlight
lands on your face and warms
your skin.

I watch you toss back and forth,
your hands rubbing the night from
your eyes.

How lucky am I to be here,
how lucky we are to share this.

I am not as alone as I could be
and for that I am grateful.

To Leave

Do we have to stay here?

We don't.

Can we leave?

Of course.

Why haven't we?

Because we haven't started walking.

He leans in for a kiss
and takes her hand.

They begin walking.

Narrating A Moment

I watch her legs wobble as she crosses the street

and tries to regain her balance. A man crossing

in the opposite direction stares briefly, intensely

at her. She does not see his gaze. As he passes

he looks back to see her from behind. 

She disappears into the city as the man reaches 

the sidewalk, his right foot catching slightly

on the curb. A car cuts a quick turn behind him.

He utters a mumbled curse and keeps walking.

I see the time and empty the last of the coffee. 

The Future

I blew out a stream

of cigarette smoke

into the bar

as a fly

flew into it.

I have faith

in whatever

needs to happen

next.

Night is a creature that cannot sleep.

frag

It's not fair and don't imagine
that it ever will be.

I dream beyond this world.

No middle path.

What fragments?

Throw the stars
into the dark.

For Fresa

aching parts
wishing to break

their continual function
obstinate strength

blood and marrow
muscle and bone

the imperfect tick
of my fragile 

metronome

finding now

I don't obsess about the past
the way I used to.
From time to time I think
of the things
I held dear
and those I still do.
The sharp pain is now
a dull ache that occasionally
marks the weather.
Things are fine.
They could be worse,
they have been-
let's not talk about that,
let's find now.

this late summer

Waves are easy
when we wish to speak
of the ephemeral nature of our lives

It is late in the summer
she punishes us
with a final heated assault

Our will withers
and we find comfort
in the smallest of ways

We crowd onto the beach
the way ants will swarm
around a piece of candy

My skin burns easily.