Unfinished Matters

The word is not yet done with you,

it has an expectation that not yet been met.

Her eyes stare at you waiting 
for your gaze to meet hers. 

Three Random Things

I ache for that which I cannot have,
for beauty I cannot possess,
for love that is not mine.

Possession of objects
is a passing desire
no more solid than wind.

The substance of life
is that which burns
the aching spaces.

_________

I can see it in your face,
you are beginning to look
like your mother
at your age.

_________

We lost each other a long time ago.

________

Are we as beautiful 
as we see ourselves to be?

Permanence

When you erase the pencil 
from the page a sense 
of what was lingers on

no matter how you tried 
to remove the memory

of thoughts scrawled 

into papyral skin.

_

Modern Loneliness

Laundromat

People sit in rooms with endless patience,
moving from one to another,
space to space, changing functions.

There will be a clock hanging from a wall
marking the passage of the time spent
inside that particular room. It can move

with pained agony or sprint like an Olympic
runner. Wait patiently. Move hurriedly.

Have you ever watched time move
in a Laundromat?

Tumbling cycles, noise, faces looking
to be left alone, someone searching
dirty pockets for the right change.

A child grows bored as her mother
talks on her phone. A man enters
and thinks how beautiful she is.

Canyons

I wish to close the gap

but it only grows

further and farther

further and farther

til only echoes remain

Cartography in the Invisible World

Contemplating Zero

Stop wondering.

forget

Who can forget?

The better question is 

Who can't forget?

The answer is simple.

I want Beauty in my life.

Strangers No More

You don't care about the suffering of others,
never mind my thoughts on that.

We're self-centered, are the center of the known
universe. It is easy to see why past generations

believed the Earth to be the center of Creation.
God must have laughed but thought it best

to let us figure out the truth on our own.
On second thought, I shouldn't paint you

with such broad strokes. I'm sure there have
been times you have shed tears for those

you have never met, mourned those you
never had a chance to meet. I'm thinking about

you right now, who you are, and wondering
if you know me and the contents of my heart

as it beats. I fear much as you do. I love much
as you do. I am as vulnerable and strong

as you have proven yourself to be. Perhaps
I love you. Perhaps I wish to be near you.

It feels good to think that we are not alone,
that perhaps we have just made connection.

A Moment of Beauty

I don't wish to be vague
so I'll be specific.

I'd like to write about beauty.
Let's not concern ourselves

with the philosophical
discussion that has plagued

us since time immemorial.
I'm thinking of the time

I held someone I loved
in my arms. We were

alone in a way we had
never been before or since.

Sitting on a couch
and watching the lights

stream into the darkened
room. She didn't want

to leave, or at least
she said that, and I didn't

wish her to leave either.
There are other details

that complicated our lives
at that moment, but I still

remember us sitting in
a light that not many

have seen or could
understand. I'm thinking

of her, us, that moment
because it has passed.

It is past.

A girl named Luna

is telling me

to go to the door,

that a package is waiting.


It sits atop the mat clothed in

boring brown. I take it inside

and she asks if I know


what it is. I tell her, I do not.

I set it on the kitchen table

and begin its autopsy.


Cutting along the packing tape

I soon pry its chest apart.

My hands reach inside-


who would have remembered?

who could have known?

Even time had forgot.

Suburbia

How do you escape

the mundane

when it is all you have

ever known?

Boring streets

with paper doll depth,

voices too tired to cry out,

home is here,

here is no place to call home.

Grind down the sidewalks,

make your own sand.

Unfinished

I woke up this morning

and asked myself,

how will I continue to live?


The answer wasn't sitting

there waiting to be found,

I had to set off in its search.


Evening is a cool touch

calming the soul. I see

something approaching-

Don't Wake The Neighbors

An alarm is going off
in an apartment
across the way,
it is the morning after
the summer solstice.

Are they going to miss
an important meeting
or other appointment?
I hope not, that would
be a shame.

I do not know their
name, only that,
like me, they are alive
and in need of going
about their day.

Its sound pulses.
How much longer
until they heed it?
Will they or
is it far too late?

My heart

is a Riot

for you.

Chambers

There is so much empty space

within the chambers

of any medical illustration

of the heart. Space 

enough for the undefinable.

Haunted by nothing-

what fear remains?

Which

Because I'll never love you.

Because you'll never love me.

Which is sadder?

Just Calm Down!

Calm the beating
in your chest

I know you're anxious
about the message

you just wrote
it's only words

what's the harm?
they could change

and challenge you if
they were to come true

why worry
why let your chest race

from the inside
it's locked into place

varying tempos
thoughts

are running through
making you dream

breath in deeply
calmly

what is there to worry
about anyway?

Careless Writing

write careless at first
then continue
with the pace that outstrips
the speed of your hands
let thoughts unfurl
narratives
images
bound by nothing
existing to exist
beauty
to the eye of the creator
structure / form
a scaffold holding
order as well as it can
a system by which to view
marvel at our works
think freely it is much harder
than you would imagine
the voice that nags
the voice of doubt
the voice of restraint
the voice you are trained to hear
the voice that becomes your second consciousness
the voice that tells you
how unseemly that break
was the voice that needs to stifled
the voice that needs to be removed
if you wish to find something better
the voice that must be silenced
if you are ever to find anything
worth saying on your own accord

Change is not possible

without the work

to realize it.

I don't worry about worry

don't have the time to speculate

on future unhappiness

on possible misfortune

After The Run

sweat beads down my forehead


trickles down my nose


splotches onto my clothes

A Slew of Lines

We were beautiful when we met.


Aging is the toll we pay

for the greatest gift.


Walls are nothing without a roof.

Shelter is a creature comfort.


My mind waits

for inspiration,

my hands write

without hesitation.


Fragments free of worry.

Hello[ ]Goodbye

fill it with jokes

fill it with promises

fill it with silence

fill it with embraces

fill it with tears

fill it with long days

fill it with short nights

fill it with beating sun

fill it with waiting

fill it with music

fill it with kisses

fill it with shared meals

fill it with evenings at home

fill it with your body in my arms

fill it with time

fill it with nothing

fill it, or don't

it doesn't matter

it will be

will be will

be

First & Last

When I wake the first
thing I do is look
for the right song
to play as my day begins.

I do this because
there is a tone that must
be set, though, this is not
always accomplished.

Some days deviate
wildly from the stated
thesis, others stay on mark
like an A+ paper.

As I get ready for sleep
I repeat the process
because of my belief
that music will effect

my dreams. I am not
certain that it has any
bearing on them but
I like to think it does.

In Her Room

She kept a painting of Christ, and the Pope,
on the wall opposite her bed.
Things had been hard,
the answers were always wrong.

How brave Christ was to die for us all,
but how did it help her now?
She was not yet dead, though, she could
feel the rot take hold.

Every now and then the Pope would
be in the news, the footage of him
would often be of him in St. Peter's
square delivering a homily or blessing.

How strange it must be to be the Pope,
she thought. No one else would be able
to understand the loneliness of divine power.
How often did the Pope hear God' voice?

What if that voice stopped speaking?
She prayed for him daily.
She always wondered if God, the angels,
and saints could hear her.

Affection

What will
possesses us

before we 
abandon it 

for a new 
whim?

I want you to feel beautiful.

Boundless Arrow

creating belief

Improvise a memory 
and write it down,
pass it off as truth.

Create the scene,
remember the tear
before it rolled down.

Tell everyone 
the story, fix narrative
into firm ground. 

Forget the truth of your
fiction, mourn deeply.
Illusory state of being.

You're too pretty to feel insecure.

We have grown older

but we haven't aged.

Selling The Past For Profit

Welcome to Summer

It was the first heat wave of summer to hit the city,

windows were open everywhere there wasn't an AC

unit. Fans recirculated hot air.


He was sick of sitting around the house and feeling

sweat for doing nothing at all. He put on a pair

of sandals and a shirt and walked out the door.


The key slid into the car door with no effort.

A small rush of hot air greeted him as he sat down.

The seatbelt clasp closed as he let the parking


brake go. There was a stretch of empty road by the

beach that was going to be perfect for this drive.

The dashboard said 11:16 p.m.

Losing Everything

The house collapses


like a punctured lung.


Wind scatters the remains.

When Present and Memory Disagree

We were young together
and then we were apart.

We are now old, though,
we are still apart.

Your beauty was a passing
phase, my vigor dissipated

with the years. My weathered
skin is best suited for use

as a handbag. Pictures and
memories turn away

from us and wonder who
we could possibly be.

Night Skies

A mechanical predator cuts through darkness,
hovering loudly as it scans back and forth,
back and forth, it's eyes peering through streets
and alleys as it hunts.

It wants you to know of its presence, wants you
to hear, become fearful. It's eyes will see what
it wants, will find its prey through direct action
and pure chance.

More Than Human

My skin began to itch one day

and I thought nothing of it.

I scratched for some relief,

but it persisted. Days

marched in file until they 

became weeks. I began 

to scratch harder and harder

until I drew blood. Soon, 

even that was not enough. 

One day I began to scratch 

past the pain of the blood, 

my skin began to crack 

at my arms. A black sheen 

peered back. I pulled my skin 

only to see more and more 

of it underneath. I touched it
and felt a furred luxuriousness.
I tore at myself until I could see
a pile of skin at my feet as
my body felt the ecstasy of relief. 

Every collapsed Utopia.

Boa

Constricting flesh

and air, 

the scene turns

to night,

falls away

to permanent

darkness.

She Is Not Your Wife

Faded pictures were scattered across the coffee table,

years and places reordered according to no chronology.

The half-empty glass was mostly filled with melting ice

that had diluted the brown liquor, the ashtray next to it

had not been emptied in days. He finished using the rest

room, flushed. He threw the old girlie magazine onto 

the couch, a few pictures blew off the table and landed

soundlessly onto the carpet, he didn't bother to pick them 

up. His back ached as he reached for the glass, his left 

hand shook a little. It used to worry him when it first

happened, now, he tried not to think about it. He poured

liquor to the brim of the tumbler before setting the bottle 

on the counter by the refrigerator. The couch was soft 

and yielding as he sat down, for a moment, it seemed 

to sigh. He dumped a shoebox full of pictures last night

after coming home from the tavern, he had been there

since he had left work. In the light he could see years 

spread across like confetti spilled out of a broken pinata

at a child's birthday party. There was a kind face that 

looked out from many of the pictures, an earnest smile,

eyes that spoke with precise clarity of heart. Children

were beginning to walk home from school, he could 

hear them outside. He locked eyes with a picture of her

at the beach, he could no longer hear the children.

     

Birth

This is a facsimile of thoughts

from a specific date on no specific

subject. The thought is incomplete


because the writer had planned on

jotting down a few words in hopes

it would jog memory the next time


it was read back from the hastily

scribbled piece of paper. Instead,

moments of frustration bloomed


in lieu of a full-term child. It could

not cry out, only move its grasping

hands for a world beyond its reach.

Always Lost

How did we lose Paradise? Was it through clerical

error? We weren't so good with bureaucracy and

paperwork, it often got in the way and made things

easier to be lost and forgotten. How did we not notice

the difference between the mortal and the divine?


Would we recognize its gates if we were to ever

pass through them again?

Write until your fingers bleed

and then keep going.

Uncertainty

I don't dream every night.

Have you heard

the fable of the dog

who stared at his reflection

in the water? He held

a bone in his mouth

thought to get the bone

in the reflection.

How foolish he was

to lose it all

for a passing complexion.

What am I saying

to myself right now?

Am I dreaming

these words,

the sensation of my hands

moving in time

with the words

in my mind?