Once Upon a Time…A Story

Once upon a time I wrote a story Which caressed the face of the girl I love, But the real life situation Is untenable. She has lost sight of what I once was In my prime, in my heyday, And this stubborn pride Speeds my fall. Once again, the impact will wake me To a [...]

Run to the Grunion Run

I ran across the street with a golden-haired girl to watch the grunion run. She’d never seen it before – I’d never touched one, always too scared – but for her I wrapped one in seaweed, careful not to touch its skin, and I returned it to my Mom, the ocean.

Wading Through the Cattails

I went to find my childhood buried in the morass of my memory; discarded in a moment of adolescence trying to be an adult before I knew what that was about. So me and a shovel and a dream go wading through the cattails and the frogs, looking under lilypads and scouring the undersides of [...]

The Prince of Spring

for all of my twenty years I have had one healthy fear: that Love will find me cold and dry for being a Prince and held so high, but my heart longs for fiery blood, wide-open eyes and Love, true Love, not courtships played to gain the hand of the Princess with the tracts of [...]

Untitled Poem #161

no sleight of hand by any season could console me for the loss of your smile of girlish enthusiasm if a trick of my own has caused you some fleeting delight.

Japanese Poem Imitations

I when flowers bloom in many fiery colors, I imagine the bright sparkles which I, in your eyes, no longer see. II bamboo grows along one part of the lagoon beach where the iceplant twines below it, a dress around the feet of a girl. III at the end of this I recollect the times [...]

A Fight by my Apartment

I I jumped into a ring of people with a big friend to save the girl who was elbowed in the steeple of her nose – on purpose by some insensitive ape (the kind that argues justifiable rape) who was full of muscles. hit in the eye, though I ducked, my buddy got up and [...]

Lying in Wait for a Reaction

a little girl lies in her room at night and she thinks of me. who can it be? I know who but I’m not telling; I have the secrets but I’m not selling. it is whispered into animals ears – they hear and clap their hands because they understand.

Journal Chills

and I never thought that I was one to spend all of my time writing dumb things about being in love with girls and how they mean more than the world to me and even then some…

Untitled Poem #146

I am free of ties to glide the skies and romp and play like a colt in a field of clouds and grass and care no less for life is a packet of sugar I eat while chatting with a pretty girl on the sidewalk where an ice cream cone has fallen and looks like [...]

A Short, Balding Dwarvish Bard

It was a time of Dragon’s fire; Twas then the souls of Kings were born From darkness, fear of Demon’s ire There rose a hope for those forlorn. The simple men whose lives were led With doors barred shut and fires high: Those women who did fear to tread After the dark had seized the [...]

Rabbit Girl

wet rabbit girl, where do you go? know puzzle piece fits you and my rainbow glasses miss you when you’re gone so long. private poetry to roll in and chew – a mouthful of wet paper, foam caught on a branch in a river. I stand as a boy with both hands up and out, [...]

Dream Girl

I SAW YOU [believe] run pitter-patter run hide away, waterfall or column of flame; run along dream girl. I caught you this time (in the echo of your flowered footprints)

Untitled Poem #-22

bad girl stole some bones and feathers to control the weather; to send the clouds and the wind to smell out what her boyfriend was doing.

Laura Swings Her Skirts

I will sing you a song softly of a little girl I remember dreaming, who would wink into the faces of the flowers to see them smile, perfume tickling her nose all the while as she would wander secret places. this little girl I did love as I seemed to quietly spy from the trees [...]

Imitations of Akahito

I the wet skirt of a salt girl looks a lot like maybe, a fruit roll-up. II the salt girl with the wet skirt is Madonna. I think of you always. III it is a pretty picture, but now this salty girl, whom you have thrown in the ocean with your poetry, must go change [...]

Second Story Raindrop

I saw a raindrop hang from a second story rooftop. as I watched it drop, I saw the face of a little girl in one of the second story windows. when I looked up again, she wasn’t there. I’m sure she never was.

Mind Shaft

he didn’t need to be shown how to do things; he was good at figuring them out – taking them apart and putting them back together. he read a lot when he was innocent and believed too much for his own good. too many times he became impatient and cursed himself for imagined wrongs, blaming [...]

Melanicus by Phone

Yes, Melanicus came to me With a hacksaw and my jugular vein He said that these belonged to me Then smiled and said my girlfriend Kissed him just last night. First I said thank you for my hacksaw And apologized for his neck wound Second, I offered him a needle and thread; He said “I’m [...]

The Late Night Michael Channel Goes to Test Pattern

Traipsing around With Jesus Christ, Shit, and fuckin-a. Finding vitamin B-37 In liquid form with uranium, Molesting the gals in the seaport Village soap shop, Seeing summer at the taste of Hawaii Shave ice shop, Decisions at the bathroom Hand drying Methodology offered, encountering (twice) The dreaded and extremely rare Elephant-eating white fleshy tree fungus [...]

But I Missed

I’ll cry for her I’ll die for her Yet she sits there, deep in thought. How dear she is How near she is But it’s all…it’s all for naught. I can see the rain Streak the windowpane Like the tears glistening in her eyes Anything I say Makes her turn away As she stolidly, silently [...]

A Lost Glove

A single red mitten Lay upon the new fallen snow Freezing. Without the inner warmth Of a radiant child’s hand Lonely. So I rescued the glove And off to the lost and found it goes Recovered. A little girl inquires And receives her lost red glove Reunited.