The Marshmallow

The Marshmallow’s hella mattress; It is the phattest. I swim under the covers And curl up with my favorite actress. One big pillow, this Marshmallow, Stealthy quicksand for a tired fellow.

Chloe Dancing

A feeling I caught, awash in sand and sea Bringing back some faint, foolish memory: Chloe and stickman and rockman and I In love for an evening because we were high. Iceplant and kindling on the Santa Barbara sand A stage built for my improvised puppets and hands. Under the star-patched, moon-cloudy sky We loved [...]

Nesting

One time I found That I loved the warmth Excavated by nesting: Burrowing so far Into a pile of pillows, A weight of blankets, The I left the world behind. These were the laps Of my imaginary mothers; They were the arms Of my dream-lovers. Safe and tight Inside a womb of covers, Tented fabric [...]

For Dawn Again

Forever I wanted to please you, Hold you and keep your eyes and halo bright. I am shy of you now; Unimaginably wretched when in your sight. I shall never love another like you. There is nothing to turn my heart away. And so this hurts the most; That I was not able to keep [...]

A Current Myopic Feud

Isn’t it tragic to be so wise And profess to know the answers, Yet I help myself to my most delicious lies And avoid mirrors like they were cancer. Can’t get it right – I am still hollow Inflated, life like sleight of hand, No deserters; the blind still follow This blind man across the [...]

Big Olaf

Once, while sitting On a tide-surrounded Piece of Sunset Cliffs, I smelled boyhood, A summer scent: Warm sand, blue cool ocean, Seaweed, shells, swells, surf wax; Coconut tanning oil SPF 15. The silence of waves before they break, Bodyboard rash and sunburns, The sharp asphault places in the parking lots, Kicking sand on the backs [...]

Punch Drunk

I’m trying to escape; Now, too late To unchoose what I chose What seems like long ago. The responsibilities come Steady, now – steady As the tide churns the sand On the beach is another Wrinkle in the lines of my hand. Roll with the punches, punch drunk; More are on their way, There’s no [...]

Something I Haven’t Quite Finished Yet

To the hip-hop rhythm of my break-beat bounce I sing sun stars surf stoopid something amounts To a funky fresh freestyle flowing fast and far from the breakers to the speakers in the trunk of your car. I get a little sparkle like the wind in my eye When the sun is shining steady from [...]

A Poem on a Note on the Fridge

I forget the joy of writing then reading what I’ve written, curling like a kitten play-fighting with the same gentle hands that stroke poems from the sand of the beaches that I walk on when I haven’t forgotten that I love to be alone sometimes with my simple childish rhymes.

Pennywise as a Lover

when I am away I know that I am in love with you, with salts and breezes from the ocean that would go well with your blonde hair, helium balloons for your big blue eyes, dripping sandcastles in the reflection of the sun on the sealskin sand of the tide on the beaches. and I [...]

One Chickenshit Poet

I can imagine the surf in my hair and the chill of the air, when I stand up from the water so I don’t go into the ocean. because I’m a lilly-livered chickenshit. I’ll walk down the cool tarry sand and pretend that I’m under a wave; trying to feel the slick water bead on [...]

Important Enough to Sit Still

heated with rose wine from a big cheap bottle, I immerse myself in beach sand. full and sun-warm, like the fat flavored wine, like Mediterranean sea-air; I remember through the hiss of the surf how it was like blood down the back of my throat, that wine, and how I must have been meant to [...]

Untitled Poem #148

wherever you walk I watch from treetops still your little blue boy. my eyes haven’t suffered the same sanding that my heart has. I see like an eagle hunts and my heart heals. I see a sad Druid. the crows raise eyebrows at me but I show them my eyes and they understand. we’re all [...]

Laura Moore in Red

I damn you and your love; wouldn’t it be so much easier if one of us hated the other. I can’t hate you, believe me I’ve tried; I curse and strain but I just cry and cry, crying out for lost love: to be able to love and forgive, forget. II I could drown in [...]

My Mother in the Ocean

it is something, standing by the sea, feeling my heart and my blood fashioned rudely out of ocean-salt and the milk of beach-foam. I feel the pull of the moon on the tide standing here, examining the sky in the sheen of the wet sand, in the surface of the water. I smell the wet [...]

Untitled Poem #-19

once upon a time I was a youth, no corpse dream thing, tiny and small, but I was as big as the world, bright and unbuttoned like metal. so anyways, I bend and I breathe. the sieve of my skin leaks the sand of my cloud life; strange clouds, odd clouds for people far away [...]

Frog Haven

I the splayed hands of the roots stop searching when I walk past, but if I listen I hear them quiver with life blood, holding boulders when I climb down. unwrapping and fanning the wind into life are trees with green springtime leaves. they swept me along like sand in an undertow. I scramble and [...]

Without Trying

I I can wish as hard as I want without trying. Maybe it takes a nervous breakdown To examine the croak of a frog. A rich man tapes his hands to his sides Drowning in treasures but refusing to decide Which pearls he wants to wear for eyes. II To the grey lands to search [...]

Untitled Poem #-16

sometimes the voices get faraway when I sit in the sandbox and play. I don’t know why I pushed my trucks around, I did it anyway.

Untitled poem #-11

tonight as a dream of ocean, there is seaweed, a corsage on my wrist, sand in my nails; my window was open to the stars, mirrors to mad poetry.

Imitations of R.S. Thomas

Imitation of The Hand holding endless golden grains of sand at arm’s length – my hand sifts thoughtful each piece’s worth feeling the elemental drums of the earth. Imitation of The Island alone on an island, I build my own church to God and it was nothing because I’d rather have died.

I, Ape

I, ape, eat mushrooms in a forest of multicolored furniture all from the room of a girl I knew. the carpety grass is foaming upwards. shoes play hide and seek when I sneak around in the closet. they shut it always behind them. find them cavorting and wagging their tongues. I live in the closet. [...]

Taxi

I have killed you before in a dream and I was savagely happy with myself playing in the sandbox alone with my painted toys and turning the hose on and washing your blood from my dump truck. don’t worry if I dream without you I won’t care if you hang me by my left foot [...]

Inexplicable Love Poem

I see in you the movement of a wave slowly breaking and sliding quietly over the sand.

Hypnos

beyond the door of sleep lies Hypnos, drenched in sand. it is snowing autumn leaves and the smoke from his pipe hangs like frost, a fog which curls to shut my eyes like a child’s.