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 [...]

Ray of Light

There is a hole in my heart, and I can’t contain the light that is pouring out. This is the brilliance of truth and the refraction of soul. This is the damage that is done to a human being when you are betrayed, blinded, backstabbed, and belittled for trying to be more understanding than is [...]

Listening In

Sometimes I try to identify
The vehicles passing beneath the windows
By the sound their tires make
Through the twin dips of the intersection.
Smooth ride or clanking trailer,
Singing brakes before the stoplight
Or acceleration hum to beat the amber.
Twenty seconds to guess at the conversation taking place
Inside the latest idling monster,
Before the green light sends them away.
A shred of [...]

Lights Out

Lights out – time to go to sleep
That delicious feeling of getting horizontal
On a marshmallow futon,
Under familiar blankets,
Next to worn dinosaurs and bears;
Room to sprawl and do battle
In the night realm of dreams.

Crown of Twelve Trees

Returning from the western desert oasis,
I have found the autumn fading
Gone into the palest blue sky of grey vapors.
I smell far off snow on this blustering wind
Spraying the later leaves from the hardwood branches.
Twelve trees are a protective crown around my cabin;
She’s enchanted to see me back again.
Fill the heart with hot soaking embers
And sign [...]

In My Basement

I am trying to find god in my basement.
In my own house (well, that I rent) –
To tell you the truth, it’s money well spent –
But in this wash of club fog,
These hyperkinetic lights,
This irrepressible sugar pop sound,
It swears to me that life is sweet.
Maybe only in moments like these.
But in certain spiritual lyric coincidences
I [...]

Floodgate

Closing my eyes against this real light,
I see warm red through my eyelids
And if I stretch my hand out blind like this
I can imagine caressing your face,
Turning your chin up to taste your full lips
And the salt tang of the sea
That has faerie dusted them.
Hanging out in trees and lagoons;
Spray-painting abandoned concrete;
Stacking records on the [...]

Becoming

A winter white sheet covers me
As I sit in this chair, unmoving.
My breaths are shallow and I can’t see
Whether to move or stay very still:
I am hung on that decision
Like a meathook.
The longer I wait, the more my weight tears me
To get off is still more painful
But there is no mistaking impalement
On the pike of [...]

A Dream on My Couch

In a dream that plucked me
From the couch that I slept on,
I walked, ant sized, through the growth
In my garden,
Shaking nasturtium stems
To feel the dewdrops like rain,
And climbing mountains
And ferns
Like a child with no friends.
Reminiscing like a fool,
These dreams torment like reminders;
Gleans of silver behind the tarnish,
Cigarette smoke fanned out the window.
When waking I walk
Through [...]

coming calling

The snow has touched the mountaintops
And the leaves drift on the ground.
My breath is grey before my face
As I’m walking into town.
I left my car parked in the drive;
I wished to go on foot.
A whim the moon brought to my thoughts
When I laced my father’s boots.
When I come calling at your house
I’ll check to see [...]