I wonder about the man with roses
if he still get kisses at the parade.
And I wonder about the boy with best intentions
and the plans that he mislaid.
On a separate coast from each of them
I put carnations in a spare green vase.
I could paint such wonders for the next three years
or leave my hopes in a remembered place.
Jan 31, 2022
Jan 31, 2022 at 7:56 PM UTC
Sixty years and I’ve never been here
on top of this hill.
Well, welcome.
Thank you. It’s beautiful.
It really is.
[To meet a modern flâneur is to be graced by the day and the path and chance, if you believe in that.]
I’ve been to the lake many times, but I’ve never made the journey up. Why bother?
San Francisco has some beautiful places, he says, and I’ve been to many of them—even out to the airport—because I like to walk.
But I’ve never been up here before.
And it’s wonderful.
[In appreciation, he pats his khaki knees, thumbs the straps of his well-used pack, and grins.]
I’ll let you get back to your day now.
Goodbye!
Oct 22, 2021
Oct 22, 2021 at 11:44 PM UTC
[This is the start
to another goodbye letter
that—if I ever actually finish—
I’ll certainly never send.
I haven’t stopped believing
that my heart
beats in rhythm
to the echo of yours
and every lover before.
That the places I leave
stay with me
hanging like a beech leaf in winter
yellow and holding
after a new bud forms.
So, yes, this may be a resignation
or the start of the means to another end.
But even when I couldn’t love you
you still let me have a friend.]
Dear California…
Oct 15, 2021
Oct 15, 2021 at 6:23 PM UTC
A season is coming
A reason for going
The dancer is changing her skirt.
A newly paved pathway
A journey yet halfway
If a tree loses leaves, does it hurt?
Oct 11, 2021
Oct 11, 2021 at 11:26 AM UTC
and you wonder
if who you have been
is who You are meant to become.
Beating your breast
cursing the now
for not telling you sooner
where your edges are.
It’s okay, my darling.
We lovers
we humans
we minor, minor gods
are always standing
on a coast
that fog knows better.
Oct 4, 2021
Oct 4, 2021 at 4:40 PM UTC
Above her door
sits a fox in blue shades of snow
made by a man she’d say she met twice.
Neither of them know
she'll take it when she goes
a moment of warmth carved clean in the ice.
Oct 1, 2021
Oct 1, 2021 at 9:50 PM UTC
As I follow these shorelines
where your ocean meets land
I welcome the sure signs
in the fine grains of sand
of a wet that is waiting
and a depth yet to come
in a tide that is breaking
at the edge of the sun.
Oct 1, 2021
Oct 1, 2021 at 2:39 PM UTC
There’s reveille
and there’s reverie
and there’s the all-too-wakeful revelation
that your dreaming heart
has been beaten in time
to the rhythm of a Keats sonnet
every year since you first read it,
sixteen and leftfisted
at a righthanded desk
in the center of a
—you only now realize—
ironically yellow-bricked classroom.
You’re older than he ever grew.
Trapped on a shore
of the biggest island
no one told you until recently
you could leave.
So you seek water.
And a horizon that blurs
when you look for too long.
Fishbowled lenses never broken
yet perpetually breaking the surface.
Sep 28, 2021
Sep 28, 2021 at 12:10 PM UTC
you know the trail,
but have you seen it at seven?
with the spanish moss?
the sprinklers on?
feet finding the familiar
path back toward
the sun you'll spin
another day around.
alliteration isn't only good for writing, babe.
consonance can set a friendly pace.
so mind the Ps & Qs, my love,
and while you're at it, the As and Us
that rest on a tongue pressed
to the back of the teeth.
the rhyme to the beats
the cushion you always wish
--halfway to home--
these shoes were to your knees.
Aug 30, 2021
Aug 30, 2021 at 3:53 PM UTC
All my
ex-lovers were martyrs
and miscreants. But I
want I wait I want to
love someone who
stands
still.
A tree
on whom
it's safe to lean.
Aug 21, 2021
Aug 21, 2021 at 6:49 AM UTC