Star Storm

Stay drunk, you; Keep worrying. Preoccupied With what’s next. Can’t sleep Without churning Sheets like shorebreak. Tumbled concrete, Husking winds, Hissing palm trees, Gravel bullets Of sky-spat rain. The hole is growing Withdrawn chill Bring out the star storm Get it over with.

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.

Goodnight Jenn

Goodnight Jenn Sleep well, sleep tight I just wanted to make sure You got home alright. It’s not that I Want to bother you or pry But I think It’d be nice If I could wish you goodnight. Just like you said This doesn’t mean anything It’s all in my head Just like everything, everything. [...]

Her Own Time

Sleep is coming in her own time. Soon, but not right now. I hear her footsteps in the courtyard And smell her in the still air. Sometimes my words fail me; I can’t think, and my poetry sucks. But keep trying, trying, trying From my blanket-swaddled lair. Preceded by gifts of yawns Tearing up my [...]

Sleeping in Here

Yes I am sleeping in here tonight. And it is true I am writing again. Attempts to communicate, compromise, Tolerate, have failed like good ideas: Practically useless and foppish. I am simply complex, and my head hurts From psychotherapy and coping. We are both selfish and immature, Egotistical bastards, spineless jelly In the face of [...]

Thee Angelkitten

A purring song of liquid honey Angelkitten, Burnished golden metallic wings, Diamond-bright dinky halo and Those kitten-soft feet to mommy-paw Your eyes shut at sleepytime, Hunting your hair, As the wind from the waves of her home, Corner-of-your-eye cat-quick paranoid spirit Of Cleopatra Mykelti kittenator flatulator, Calling-cards framing those other cats, Wrestling with an orange [...]

Realized

Three nights I have lain awake Storming through half-sleep dreams And possibilities, thoughts, Mental magical carpets, Half real, half realized; Doors half opened and swinging Smooth computers peripherally Analyzing and verifying Believing yet incredulous Of the panoramic impossibility. The stark lightning of imagination Energized and rampantly naked; Leaping obstacles with merry, nimble feet Barely touching [...]

The Pier

The pier is flung out past the surf Into the deep water Like a sleeper’s unconscious arm Idly hanging over the edge of the bed. Sunlight scuba dives for the flickers Of schools of little fish And warms the top of the waters – Where the seaweed loosely hangs Like bead curtains or piles of [...]

Sleep Dustballs

Home to yawns and pillow-yarn; sleep dustballs and quiet are my poems; they’re end-of-the-day quirks, beaten up by living them through in my lifetime: each poem a seperate jewel, a seperate study in something.

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 [...]

Nitrogen is to Plants as Poetry is to the Mind

I I love you most when you are sleeping and around the corner I am peeping, shadow in the box of light that falls from the living room; I hear the rain is coming soon from the whish of the wind ‘round the corner of the front porch lifting the edges of your hair while [...]

Living a Steady Tautness

Sort of a beautiful frantic hustle Trying to be effortless; Carrying motion into motion From mailbox to appointment To bank to work to a kiss. At home to sleep to wake early, Relax for a moment, Gather those thoughts, Hands around a cup of coffee, Half-finished for a lack of time. A free moment should [...]

Santa Claus

Between the Devil and the deep blue sea there is me and a bottle of Smirnoff™ Vodka destined to drown me in Davy Jones’ Locker. The pursuit of happiness, wine, women, and song goes on like the road that never ends, so long that it sends itself laughing away ‘till you’re lost lonely and livid [...]

Shopping Cart

One more poem before I drown into sleep, filled like a shopping cart full of food to cook and eat and explore with dreams of department stores.

Gut Feeling

Sometimes I can’t write poetry; I know this so I don’t try. so I’ll listen to you stomp around and play your Steely Dan CD. I’ll lay on my back, look at the ceiling, and smoke my cigarette. Then I’ll dream my best poems and never write them down, just wander through them like a [...]

Untitled Poem #167

I sing and I sing and I sing to you of dreams I’ve had and notions that came to me while I watched you sleeping and I sang them softly to you into the little cup of your ear which never overflows; it listens and holds all of my nonsense, but only while you’re sleeping. [...]

Untitled Poem #163

when the dew-drops poise on blades of grass I like to wait until they fall before I kiss your smooth brow when I must wake you from sleep.

Impressions

you’re a kitten curled up after a day of curious exploration, ears twitching with dreams and unconscious poise, lulled asleep by the intricate rhythm of your heart rattling in its cage. you’re two shiny blue eyes like children on Christmas day, lips slightly parted and twinkles streaming like the stars in the Milky Way, one [...]

Where You Are in the World

a star winked out in the nighttime sky and did not return my love as I cast into the heavens; a sword standing still riding my mind like the hip of a warrior. one oboe quietly mediates the tree’s disputes about who is shading who as I am walking through. there is no medium for [...]

Untitled Poem #145

you left me with a scarf which smelled like your summer rain; you had worn it in your hair and I had closed my eyes. I touched it to my face and imagined how your breath would come so close to me and how I’d hear your heart beating. you left your scarf behind a [...]

Untitled Poem #142

A shower, then sleep enables a creep to feel clean and to dream, napping soundly through the rest of the night.

The Testament of Plymouth Garibaldi

I try to keep awake and watch the street While Alan, friend and roommate, tries to sleep. We take turns every night and sometimes treat Ourselves to tugging off of something cheap. I wake up in a sweat because I think My turn to watch was now, when I had slept; And Alan knows, he [...]

Cat Hide

I am the prickle which makes your mother start and cover your eyes as if you, being young don’t know the fear of the closet. I am the voice that whispers through the crack; all that’s left when the door is shut tight, caressing you with words from a green foot-long tongue, slithering out from [...]

Untitled Poem #-14

I stopped after the rains to listen to the silver frogs chanting, who I could never find when I wanted to watch them sing. I could hear their beautiful piping from my little room, and I fell asleep to their chorus in the light of the sun setting.

Rock Breath

where am I going tonight? crowded subway train full of sleepy dreamers; it never stops, but they get off. somehow I don’t notice, surrounded by nightclothes that are empty. I fly away to a mountain top and let my breath fall to the valley, happy in sleep. beautiful bat wings, and strength, watching plants grow, [...]