Like So

Like so, breathed from a flute
Or struck from a drum
To hang in the air
And move slow or fast
Pitches as timbre would have it.
Sounded, whelmed, evoked
From skin or wood or brass
Shivers of torchlight drawn nigh by beat
Early evening mists rising
Called forth by the horns of hunters.
Resonation of hearts and minds
Against the thin foil of the ear’s [...]

Neverlove

If my eyes are full of stars
Forgive me, love.
This swell of sinew in my heart
Squeezes magic through my veins
With each breath I take
Thinking of you, warm and laughing.
My once resolve to neverlove
Is so many ashes in the seabreeze,
For eager puppy I
Can only long for another look
Another touch that burns alive.

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 [...]

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 Chloe dancing, sticks, rocks, and I.

Seagulls

Sometimes the surf sings
Be a seagull and fly!
Along the crests of the waves
That lap at the land.
It is late at night
And the mist of the sea
Slips on to the streets,
An extended arm of tide.
My bicycle spokes churn
Through the streetlamps’ gaze
Until the darkness under the pier
Brings me to a halt.
It is there where the echoes
Of the [...]

Home

I should listen to the sea
‘Cause I’m never turning back
I’m not who I used to be
And I’m never going home.
I’m so hard upon myself
I cannot seem to learn.
At the bottom of the well,
I sit and shiver in my bones.
I really don’t know who I am;
I’m busy being someone else.
Trying on my different masks,
I lose my [...]

Treaty

I’ve hated myself for so long
for other people
other opinions, other lives:
here goes my hair –
look in the mirror,
watch your steely blue eyes wink:
lighthouses to steer ships by.
Bring them home.
Home is the sailor,
home from the sea,
and the hunter,
home from the hill.
home to your heart.
Quit renting the space from yourself:
laugh and languish
with the rest of the apes [...]

I Can’t Breathe

why can’t I
just be another guy?
but I’m a person
with a snake-sharp tongue
and I’m a ripped flannel…
I shoot my mouth like a shotgun.
riddles and rhyming and rhythm,
not taken seriously enough to stay honest
just another number in the GTE phone list.
I lie and I lie and I lie
to convince you all
that the poet is just another human [...]

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 am the mist
that crawls in off the old pieces
of the sea that were [...]

Hush

you asked me once upon a time
if I could hear the speech of the sea.
I said yes and that
was where are agreement ended;
you heard eulogies, laments,
cries of change and supportive flesh,
the echoes of watery hands
drumming on cliffsides,
rolling rocks into its stomach,
a maelstrom of creative fury
controlled and unleashed
by the whim of the innocent moon.
But when I [...]