Early Summer

What they say is true

You have to die a few times

before you really start living

I have lived long enough 

to start seeing the patterns

in my thoughts and actions

almost as clearly as strata

in a canyon

I am not as unique as 

I once thought

I am as human as you

I am as human as 

everyone that has come before

Memories

Old pictures

Music from another time

These things at once part 

of me and yet separate from 

who I have become

How much younger we were

How much older we are now

Everything as it should be

Everything as we chose

Two Pieces

Is the view from here always so clear

How far can we see

Can we look into forever

Sun and breeze flowing 

This is the feel of life

Let it fill each breath

Do memories haunt or do they linger

Are they welcomed 

or are they interlopers

What is the lesson

What is the gift

they wish to bestow

Ask them

Expect no response

Figure it out yourself

Feeling so in love
With the memories of us
To hold you once more

Infatuation and Love

Memories of the first woman I was ever infatuated with
leaves me feeling embarrassed at the thing.
We were barely teenagers
And I can't explain it aside from
My mind and body changing so wildly
And attempting to reorient itself.
She was a sweet girl to have put up with
My adolescent yearnings.
I hope she is well today.

Infatuation is a creature that rears itself
Into our consciousness at the oddest of times
And can disappear with the same speed
With which it appeared.

I remember the first woman I ever loved.
It began as sudden attraction.
At this point I was almost on the cusp
Of age 20 or so.
I can remember the soft warm features of
Her face and the way her smile seemed to be
A source of light unto itself.
Her eyes were joyous with a gleam of mischief.

Timing was never right
Between us but we were friends and
I felt a closeness to her that I have yet
To find matched or replicated.
It is unfair of me to compare
One love to another.
No love deserves that.
It is better to honor and remember
That which was.

Time passed and we had our own partners
In seemingly alternating succession.
The day came that she had to leave
And traverse an ocean to be with the man
She chose to marry.
The last night we had together
We watched the lights of the harbor
From a darkened room.

What can I say of the words exchanged?
Nothing much except
We love each other still
Though our lives have charted
Differing waters.

I feel as though I have learned much
But am still a student humbly
Learning from life.

There is no end to this.
I am thinking of love
And I wish for you to know
That it lives inside you
Even at the point
When everything has broken.

Ghost Collector

Some of the ghosts in my car have been there
from the start, others are recent tenants.

A few have left tokens to remind me
of our time once they have moved on.

A polaroid picture, handprints on the
windshield, a Valentine's card, an old lighter.

I could dispose of these things but they
have ceased to be mere objects.

The distances I have traveled are measured
by more than the ascending odometer

or the progressively tattered upholstery.
These ghosts don't wish to be forgotten,

they want to live on, even if just for a moment
every now and then.

Mileage

A pair of handprints pressed into the glass
on the passenger side of the car-
smeared ever slightly,
a handmade Valentine's Day card faded
in a rarely touched nook,
a polaroid picture slipped between
scraped and scuffed cds,
accumulated ash and dirt
from driving miles
and miles with the windows
rolled down,
my youth draining
into the climbing numbers
of the odometer.
A car as weathered
as my mind.
It carries on as though
the check engine light
hasn't been staring at me
the last fifteen-thousand miles.

The View From The Hill

Crouched on the dark hillside 

by the gas station, cars sped by 

not knowing we were watching.

Drinking tall cans of cheap beer,

the intersection of hope and delusion.

He was a drunk, his bandmate

was a sweetheart. I still see her 

from time to time.

My friend, how quickly 
we became past tense.

Memories of the Dead

Fading Yellow

Light enters through the lens
and captures the image on
the film stock.

The form is captured in the
way it existed in that moment
and will not be so again.

That moment lives on in the
relic of memory, a fading
yellow picture in hand.