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 [...]

Leaded Skies

Wrench me from this zombie state Use power tools if that will help I want to sleep as soon as I wake The wake next moment by doggy yelp. This oily film suffused my eyes And cannot be washed away today Something matching these leaded skies Draining hues turns all I see to grey.

Cricket Machine

It is cold in this basement Cracks in the casement Windows leak whatever warmth To the suckling of the cold. Share! Share creaks the air Of that many mouthed night sky. In a forest of bare breasted trees, Their raiment mulching around their knees Winds a path I build when I first got here Now [...]

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 [...]

Pine Tree

I climbed up as far as my courage And strength would take me One day in the life of a monkey-boy; Those branches were spaced With a long-armed youth in mind – A kind encouragement Beckoning boys to the heavens, That grandfather pine tree still stood As of the date of this writing, And it [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

For Your Majesty

I I can imagine a perfect spot to have a picnic with you today; the sky is a wee bit grey at the edges – I caught as many clouds as I could with my butterfly net (I came in wet early this morning from the rain-dew on the unmown grass stems). II I’ve found [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Sunflowers

as the heart withers like a cut rose, days old, the adult in me grows stronger, builds the muscles I wear like a bear hide, wears the callouses on my dirty-nailed hands. so stands the brown and broken-necked sunflowers, seeds pecked out like eyes by the crows of these grey skies, so stand I, roots [...]

For Dawn

I know I could live without you here, but it wouldn’t be something I’d choose. My bed is empty; I’m tired and lonely, my blankets worn like the soles of shoes. I miss you madly, your cotton kisses, your blushing smile, and sea-blue eyes. Only when you return to love me will I enjoy these [...]

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 [...]

Two Ten Penny Nails

I know that my heart rests while I slog Through glaciered halls that know of no such frogs. I tire and watch my halo and my wings; They start to melt away like borrowed things. The nails sunk through my heart like lovers’ frowns Reach steely through the clouds into the ground Below me where [...]

Cozy Up the Rooms

I thought this building was so strong but I don’t have enough furniture to cozy up the rooms. Soaring to the sky, perhaps; a beautiful glass and steel structure but these changes are not a home yet. Now I’m desperately searching for cheap end tables and green-glass bowls, wrought iron chandeliers and wall sconces for [...]

Dowsing

One man walked through a cracked, dry land dowsing for the cairn of a woman. his spirits circled him like many wrestlers, fanning the wind into slight eddies, stirring the dust raised by each cautious footstep. one man seen alone with a forked stick walking away from a dirt-streaked car, a door hanging open like [...]

Cliffs Look Good in a Certain Way

the most damnable thing is that I’m wistful, how it could have been; a cliff by the ocean, powdery earth and a fistful of the tough grass to keep me from falling into a grey-green sky; an ocean with waves and tarnished sparkles to lap at the leaden bluffs where I first remember dreaming of [...]

Rain Song

I I pray for rain nowadays when I see Those dark clouds splayed above me, threatening. I can’t always tell what rain will fall Or what tears you’re crying to comfort me. When the sunset’s burning and crowded for space In the sky with your pain so apparent, Your heart is tearing apart with these [...]

Triangulation

one tear that came from the corner of my eye balanced on the dry skin of my cheek; I picked it up with my thumb and forefinger, a prism of sadness in which your picture lingers. I drew my eye near carefully enough wondering if the force of my gaze was too rough, then placed [...]

An Ever Renewing Canvas

a bottle of wine and a sunset, a beach a place to sit; this is what I’d like to do with you to believe. I believe you can summon dolphins and that you’re a spirit, an angel. I know of our fears of demons and of blue bathroom windows, ouiji boards and my piano playing. [...]

Untitled Poem #152

big and small and sometimes with a tail that is clutched by twisting hands of nervousness I try to write like you do. no starting out with an I but statements that swing through the sky and sometimes like tuning a guitar they’ll rhyme.

Untitled Poem #149

A Druid has stood In the green of my woods, A forest of lines of verse. The light from her eyes Has given me my eagles Which soar through my nighttime skies. I hunt for the words As mice run from an owl And stand them in bowls; Bouquets of flowers to please me.

A la Skinny Puppy

standing and staring alone at the clustered skies …crowded with high rise… terrain made human by the wind blown newspapers and the heaps of old trash gravel in piles and A-frames knocked aside a car rusts away with one door open wide grey prestressed cement leans over and oppresses the air from the streets I [...]

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 Valentine’s Poem

I give you handfulls of candles to set your skies ablaze with stars at night. they’ll make you create and burn your hands they’’ make you scream with hurt and let you fly away into their flames – your mind. do you think you’ve driven me so far away that I won’t think of you [...]