When the soft Knoxville summer
Slips it’s way over the Smokies
Ghosts through Gatlinburg
And passes Pigeon Forge
We opened all the windows
And made love in the mist.
I jumped into a gorge
Naked and full of expectation
Washing the sweat that
Only conquering mountains
Can conjure.
I erupted from the water
New and fresh and clean.
While sullen hazel eyes
Watched water drops
Trace down my *******
A siren drying in the sun
On the rocks.
The trees were dying
White and blanched
In Everest emerald green
While the mountains cast shadows.
My love for you much the same
As the quick moving summer.
A lifetime turns into a blink.
Your body pulsates on a rock
Next to the wild Obed
And you are just as untamed.
You had a past you never mentioned
But always remembered
And a father who forgot you.
I collect stones from the riverside
And dream of you being happy.
I lay in a bed of purple honeysuckles
On a mountain bald
And share a bottle of bourbon
With a man hiking
the Appalachian trail.
He tells me he is
Almost famous
And I laugh at the word “almost.”
He plays the trumpet
And moves souls
With every utterance of his lungs.
He continues on the trail
And I never see him again.
We get late night ice cream
And my cotton shirt sticks to me
In overwhelming humidity
And suffocating heat
But I am laughing
And hanging out the car window
Through winding roads
and wild thorns
And summer has ended
And so have we.

I quiver behind
a benzo escutcheon.
Sick of a delicate nature
and riddled with
gentle constitution.
I laugh at the cat that scatters
'til I see it's me.
I numb loud doubts
to soft murmurs
and partake in the marketing scheme
of the terminally unhappy
in grimy hollers of the ******.
Our awareness for sale
seeking happy days at happy hours.
Brown glass cuts my lip
and teeth
as I suckle like a newborn babe
at a maternal **** so I grow
big and strong and brave.
I hope it makes you as uncomfortable
as it makes me.
I chew my pen like a cigarette filter
and wonder which of my emotions
I will exploit for art today.
There are so many words for fear,
and how can I show you something
when I don't know anything
at all.

The precipice of tense-held breaths
gives way to heated sighs and heaving chests
And long before dawn does break
the evening lingers, long in wait
A compass leads us, waterlogged
through obscure forest and cold damp fog
The needle spins with absurd grace
to each wobbling step and choice of fate
Every direction is pointed wrong
When you know the rhythm, heard the song.
And why use it on paths trodden well?
Seeking baubles and jewels and bridal veils.
Walking in circles, for hours it seems
over crushed velvet and heated dreams
The determination of a scholar, wild
Wasted on the ambitions of willful child
The crystal ball need not be
a window to the future foreseen
For one can simply turn around
to see the future, all lain out.

The rain drops drizzling
On the aluminum awning
Reminds me of the way your hands
Would gracefully tease piano keys
And make the most beautiful sound.
A man so kind he makes heartbreak
Taste like honey and settle the same way
On your tongue,
A sweetness savored,
from a sour savior.
I sort stale feelings like recyclables,
But can’t bring myself to throw anything away.
The way your floor is littered with pens and pennies,
Makes me think of how when you arrive home,
You empty the day and your pockets onto the ground
In a most imperfect fashion
When you are alone.
A crack in the mask
And a chasm in façade.
I deserve you,
Whether that is as a consequence
Or reward,
I will never know
For so bittersweet it has been to know you.

YOUR NAME IS IN MY HANDWRITING
I have made the image of you,
I took it and made it mine own.
Your essence filtered through my view
Your old scent, but not your cologne.
I never liked the way you wrote.
Heavy heathen handwriting
Hedonist mind through spoken quote,
That will leave the body writhing
And render the soul in shivers,
Out of fear or love I don’t know
My lip continues to quiver.
And then you strike the final blow.
I find myself brought to my knees,
Though my posture is of prayer,
The cross is barren and empty,
And I find you no longer there.

I built us a home
Inside a globe
And it was small
And confined
But it was ours.
Until one day you broke it
And put sunset eyes on the sea
And headed towards the horizon.
I cut my hands trying to pick up the pieces
But ended up sweeping them away
As they crumbled to dust.
So I set out the other direction
And dedicated myself to topography
Not cartography
Because there are people who own maps
And people who use them,
And I vowed to be surveyor,
And never a historian,
And I vowed to never share a map
With another lover again.

How dare you sing songs
When you don’t understand them?
And how dare you have dreams
That you never think of
And thoughts that you never plan for
And plans that you never dream about?
Where the mask ends and the skin begins
I’m not quite sure.
But have you ever felt as passionate
About anything
Or anyone,
As you do about your ******?
Have you ever put forth as much effort
Into your aspirations
As your ******?
Or is that all
There is
To you?