20-20

I.
There was a woman
Who I loved with all my heart.
It’s the only way
I know how
to love.
The problem I have
With falling in love
Is that I just keep falling
And falling on through.
It’s a perpetual autumn;
Storming leaves of memories,
Possibilities,
Skeletal trees.
And turning my collar up
Against the cold of this world.
Holding my hands out
To the warmth of the fire
That we [...]

Far Reaching Visions

Inside, a glowing silver sliver
A secret, a blossom.
Hush now, stop grinning madly.
Cup it, feel it, close your eyes;
Potential beading like dew
On electric arms reaching.
Promises made to be kept
Keeping on, sparks flying,
We reforge the sword
With breath and sound,
Far reaching vision,
Laughter and love.
Wave aside the old firestorms.
Bless their sighs into heat mirages.
An invited return
To my rightful place
At [...]

Realized

Three nights I have lain awake
Storming through half-sleep dreams
And possibilities, thoughts,
Mental magical carpets,
Half real, half realized;
Doors half opened and swinging
Smooth computers peripherally
Analyzing and verifying
Believing yet incredulous
Of the panoramic impossibility.
The stark lightning of imagination
Energized and rampantly naked;
Leaping obstacles with merry, nimble feet
Barely touching – gracing – the earth.
A sweeping wave of everything
Reconditioning, revitalized
Colorization by raw power
Of [...]

Hang On to the Rope

I wish I could string and sell
These beads of sweat;
They keep dripping in my eyes
And leaping
From the tip of my nose.
I can’t stop pulling on this rope –
The mine car can’t slip any further
Down those tracks.
I don’t know why I took this job
But it’s a challenge
And I hurt in every bone.
I’ve found muscles I never [...]

Fire and Frogs and Falcons

Oh how I wish I still had my voice
Full of fire and frogs and falcons,
Wisdom, water, and wedding songs.
Something is quenched within me now,
No time for me to find out how,
To prevent this erosion of my character.
Once upon a time I thought I’d never stop
I wrote until my hand would drop off
And the sun rose [...]

Rioting Raindrops

The rain came down
Like cartoon anvils,
Spending itself on the cement
In an assault on the town.
The parachute-less troops
Gathered in the low-lying spots
And took over the streets
In order to regroup.
Rioting raindrops,
Seething and churning,
Swallowing curbs and sidewalks
And the floors of a few shops.
En masse, they moved
Like a swarm of fluid ants,
Chewing up the asphault,
Around, under, and through.
They occupied [...]

Remember This in Time

I promise that someday
I will be faithful
To my journal again.
Another sacrifice
To the fires of my economy.
The poet-sap has dried,
Hardened to a cloudy yellow
But I guess beneath
This bark I’ve grown,
The blood still boils
And the words still run
Like antelopes or
Like a persistant brook.

Once Upon a Sky

Once upon a sky,
I saw, imprinted: smoke
from the pretty bonfire
of each lie, lie, lie.
I saw this thread from afar,
black and hanging from God’s suit:
my hair stood on end from the heat;
it’s burning bright like a star.
The twin scratches at my insides,
carving words in my skin,
inciting organ against organ,
organizing rebellions within.

THIS BRIGHT LIGHT

Ah, this bright light –
I was a closet Vampyre,
dancing on cardboard tombstones
with flexible skeletons
who beat chopsticks on
overturned Folger’s coffee cans
– it shrivels the flesh
and weakens the bones.
I’ve heard of the process of aging before,
from people older than I
(that was all [...]

The Blessed Heart Sacred Moon Wanderlust Spelunking Club

I am the sole member
of the The Blessed Heart Sacred Moon Wanderlust Spelunking Club
and I lead myself through the Scottish bogs
under a sky liberally sprinkled
with the Milky Way galaxy.
Wet shoes and grey spirits,
feather boa fog tendrils bathing my sock-tops,
no compass points me to my Holy Grail.
Two kittens accompany me
getting in my way and making me [...]