When summer comes
And night is but a shadow
The rain falls hard
And the streets smokey glow

I'll be under trees
With my shovel in the mire
Digging for some gold
But I'll settle for fire.

       If I find me gold
       I'll roam where winter's not so cold
       But if I find fire
       Roaming will not be so dire.

And it is hours
Before all those who are sleeping
Lift their eyelids
When the sun comes out creeping

And I'll be resting
On the sand of a damp beach
Staring at a moon
That is fading out of reach

       And as it melts in the light
       I watch it leave behind the night
       And thinking the moon's Heaven-sent
      I wish it took me where it went

Are you lost or missing?
Its been a whole lifetime
since I last saw you.
But you know how busy
a day gets.  I am a
completely different man
than I was when I was
laying in bed this morning.

And now it's morning again.
I'm no where near bed
and further from you.
I'm a harder man, now.
This morning I was soft -
wouldn't stand up to anyone
for any damned thing.
Now I would rush to face
an entire army
if there was anything
worth fighting against.

The milk carton seems naked
with your face on its broad side.
I remember seeing you
just as naked a year ago.
I would fight against never
being able to see
you naked again.

I knew the old man was a ghost

because he smelled like dirt.

If a ghost smells like anything,

assuming the body is buried,

it would have to smell like dirt.

We know this because our keen senses

don’t pick up on the ephemeral;

The scent must come from the body.

Just as when living,

the body responds to the Love of the Soul.

Of course, if you don’t believe there is a soul outside of the body you aren’t the kind of person who believes in ghosts anyway and you may have just thought the old man was a gardener or something.

I will always think that your hair is red,
though it isn't nor has ever been.
It is like sitting in a room
With a pack of savage art students
and not knowing how to be relevant.

Apparently while most paintings
represent something in the world,
Some paintings represent nothing but themselves.
A brushstroke here may represent
       the gentle curve of a woman.
Elsewhere there is a brushstroke
that is nothing but that brushstroke.

       I am puzzled.
Will your hair forever remain red
as a thoughtful interpretation of what I like
or is it nothing more that your brown hair
       entering my untrained eye?

He said that it is spitting out,
but this is not spit, it’s rain.  
Spit is more of a heavy globule
that is thrust at the receiver
with such force and anger that,
even sans actual saliva,
the action itself would be
       described as vulgar.  

       But this rain, right now,
       is very pleasant.

One thing that makes being human strange is existing outside of nature.  Having come from nature we have travelled worlds over to become displaced from it.  And yet, we still have tendencies and needs that we inherited from those early days.  For instance, we still may get territorial, even those with the luxury of not needing to be.  

Every summer I will go on a canoe and camping trip or spend some time out in the woods and think how wonderful it is to be a natural creature.  But I’m not.  There are still some people out there that are.  I am not one, nor is anyone I’ve ever met.  We can live on this planet without ever needing to acknowledge it.  I imagine that this must make humans feel alienated from other earthlings.  I still, however, feel a need to walk by the water every day, and I always get a burst of energy on the mountains.

From the train this looks like a different place.

And so has changed, too, the sky’s hue and the cloud’s trace.

And so far, the railroad car is different from the street

Though its strange, the cities have changed from my window seat.

A veces, puedo ver las estrallas colgar,

Casi puedo ver sus hilo oscilantes

como los tallos de la hojas

que rechazan caer

de una rama cubierta en hedada,

Eres el arbol blanco y grande

del cielo de la noche.



Si no me crees:

   Mira de que forma mas torpe

   abandono mi lengua.

   Mis palabras me hacen un extano.



Por ejemplo:

   En tus oyos veo la luna nueva

   devolverme la mirado.

   Mirar a tus oyos es como ver

   las estrellas en el desierto.



Lo siento si parazco deshonesto,

demasiados hombres escriben de la luna,

pero ellos lo hacian augue la luna

no respondia.

Los comprendo bien:

   permaneles en el cielo arriba

   antes de y despues de mis oyos cierran.

My hair began falling out when I was 17.

I thought it meant I would die sooner.  

Now I know that I was wrong.  



These days, when I cut my hair,

I notice some grey pieces in the sink.  

I believe it means I will be dignified sooner.

You love the Japanese cart the best.  
It loves you, too. Typically it seems
so indifferent to us passer-bys,
but the way it lets you draw it, my G-d.
All of its grace and delicacy,
maybe it considers you kindred
and it gives you the gift of itself-
a creation to a creator.
It’s filigree, for a single instant,
entwines with your red hair, forever.
Admittedly, it is a stark contrast
but the cart appreciates your traits
it has always prided in itself.
The cart stays youthful despite years
and journeys.
               And it stays so still for you
and your notebook that it seems like
it was just made for the very first time.

"I have been in limbo for some time now," he said.

How do you like it?

"It doesn't get any better," he said.

Does it get any worse?

"No," he said after thinking about it.

It didn't seem so bad.

Your mouth is a pipedream
breathing circles through my eyes
while my breathe lingers visible,
a cordless kite
free of tangled limbs.

To inhale from your lips
could keep me sleeping for days
and keep you up all night
like blinking coal beside my bed.

Your scent would musk my musky room
and, still, I would keep the windows shut.
I would isolate the world outside
from my cosmic head
and levitate sleepily
orbiting your imitation of the moon
like a confused planet.

Your imagination dissipates like a bomb
to release your sulfuric face.
Are you really charred?
Do you feel like burning?
Could I hold you in my fingers
like careful glass
that only appears breakable?
When you turn to sleep
are you breathing smoke without me?

If you want me to leave, just say please
Ill grab my hat and take my keys
I’ll get off the floor from down on my knees
Baby it tough when you got the lover’s disease

I walked 6 times around the town
And I picked the trash up off the ground
I thought it might make you want to come around
Now the town is clean but you can’t be found
So I went to a bar where I could drown
in my lover’s disease

I’d really like to run away
But time will tell, I’ll probably stay
I’ll watch the leaves fall down and the sky turn grey
Then I’ll watch the leaves grow back again some day
Waiting for some girl to take my brain away
from my lover’s disease

Now you may feel a little bad for me
How you left me pining out to sea
Without oar or compass to navigate me
But before you take responsibility
Thinking you made some ass your donkey
Let me just say it’s not you, it’s me
I’ve been going out of my mind
with the lover’s disease

My phone rang but it was just a friend
Asking if I wanted to meet at the same place again
Exact same where, exact same when
And it was filled with the same old men
Crooning and writing with worthless pens
Words of being young again
When they had the lover’s disease

Now I’m stuck, can’t move a muscle
I got mowed down in the daily shuffle
By the men that cheat and the women that hustle
And the cough I make sounds like when leaves rustle
And I’m hacking up a lung that could fit in a puzzle
Next to my blindfold and your dirty muzzle
That makes a picture of my lover’s disease

Your mom aint lyin when she tells ya
Junk food’s gonna spoil your suppa
The monsters that are in your tummy
Want healthy food when they are hungry

When she says don’t run up stairs
Best clean the dirt from out of your ears
If you wake the critters underneath
They’ll bite off your feet with their sharp teeth

Ch:
Your mother has some good advice
If you don’t listen it could mean your life
Your mother has good intentions
Her stories aren’t all her own inventions

When your mom tells ya to make your bed
Get it through your thick, dumb head
In your closet an old man sleeps
And you don’t want him in your sheets

There are gypsies that know a hex
That kills you if you smoke cigarettes
And there’s a goblin under your rug
Just waiting for you to take some drugs

Ch.

If you don’t take the garbage out
The rot monsters with their snarly snouts
Will crawl out the barrel when you’re asleep
And have themselves a late night treat

If you don’t do your homework on time
Your teachers will use your spine
To suck the brains right out of your head
Spit ‘em back in when you wish you were dead

Ch.

You should write your mom a nice note
Tell her you listened to every word she spoke
Because if it weren’t for her you’d be eaten
The world is filled with hungry cretins

Yaaaaaaaa hoooooooooo

Your limestone face
seems smooth & tempered
by the stream
I dunked my head within
that promised eternal youth
when all I prayed for was beauty.
The oils on my hand
should not damage it.

Your Spanish voice is small.
It gets lost atop
Highland mountains.
I want to hold your delicate
and nearly visible breath.

This island is named for a bird.
Its mountains are
a red woman
who lies naked between the shores.
I want your curves to rest like her's:
not hidden and
warmed by wool.

-Isle of Skye

The tree dies like a flower
blooms from silence. Leaves seem
redder among the hanged berries

but decay with spots and fall to
the nurturing ground which sucks
all artifacts dry of color.

The receding landscape prepares
for death, turning grass to hay
and hardly coughs. Everything

dies so gracefully that it lies
unnoticed, except the ruby trees
which scream for life so silently
and burn to cinders for entire weeks.

Some nights I just let the sun go down.  Then my thinking becomes sharper as the moon grows brighter.  But my mind wanders as waking stars scatter.  The lightning crackling on the northern horizon is distracting, but the low-floating cloud is overwhelming & comforting, sailing against the back drop of scattered stars & the full moon hanging in a sky that is darkening.  The water in this ocean is different than it ever was & I feel my life changing while the shore stays the same.  And my parents are crying & I feel like sobbing but my feet feel like wondering though my heart stays the same.
The spider webs on the back porch will be spindled next summer and the plants that my dad grows will blossom again.  Oh, my house feels so lonely as I sit outside it though antiques cover the floorboards & light fills up space.

The smell of wet rocks hangs in the air
The wind’s a siren from the sea
Within the wet leaves it is singing clear
Before it sucks the trees all bare

Warm the breeze breathes through the night
Smelling of ocean salt sweetly
And though the moon holds on tight
Swept through the sky goes its light

Wet grass in the wind shivers
Rustles for dawn impatiently
When the sun will dry its cold quivers
And ignore the dead and bless the livers

But wind and night don’t ignore a thing
In the air, on the ground or underneath
Yet stillness of the mind they softly bring
When the night is warm and sirens sing.

When we all fall, fall for your beauty
Our praise fails and neglects our duty
For you are moonlight in a cage
The sweet aroma of the bluest sage

And our awe insults the wild mind
The sweetness masked by the melon’s rind
In so doing we forfeit our keep
Becoming lousy jackals on a midnight creep

But how was I to know your bold wonder
Without making that same common blunder
That sends me from your heart’s desire
Or leaves me behind in sticky mire?

Should I have known you were so deep a brook
Without inspecting nature’s wondr’us look?
Could I have blessed the uncaptured shine
Without noticing first your body’s design?

Heed these words:  I’m no simple rake
I do not long just for beauty’s sake
It was your skin that was the stinger
But it’s the offing that makes me linger.

Walk to the woman who wails-
She has a beach.
My friend told me back in the 1700s
She was a bodacious babe.
A real Marblehead girl
getting plundered by pirates

She writes a yearly memoir
on sandscript about the same thing.
She strikes me as one-dimensional,
but I hear she’s gorgeous.

I listen to her from the docks of the Landing
sounding like docks being squeaky on cold waves.