She walks out in the morning sunrise
And never notices the sky.
She sees the cracks across the blacktop
And the cigarette butts hiding there.

She see the runnel in the gutter
From overwatering the lawns
But never looks above her shoulder
to see the cloud-forms in the sky.

Her gaze is always pointed downward
As if there’s money on the ground
And she will be the one to find it,
Not caring that the sky is gold.

She maybe sees a flower blooming
In another neighbor’s yard
But doesn’t spot the humming bird
That darts among the blossoms.

A fog of gloom hangs over her
Obscuring every scene
She has no wish to brighten up
She is depression’s Queen.
                               ljm

A lump she is
A useless chunk
Of human protoplasm
A mind that can’t untie the knots,
Now neatly wrapped in silver duct tape
On a shelf just out of reach of devastated fingers.
Claw marks mar the surface of the tape
Evidence of effort spent in vain
To free the intellect
Now unplugged
And useless
As a rock.
ljm

As I begin another desultory day
In what will be the rest of my life
I search for a metaphoric nail
On which to hang my tattered hat of hope.

Some pile of needs disguised as leaves
That need for me to rake them up
And leave the yard a little better
Than it would have been before.

I look around and hope to see
Something more than yesterday
Reflected in the nimbus clouds
That hoard our badly needed rain.

No one has urgent need of me
Though I live to know I’m needed.
I couldn’t devise a shining goal
That would point me at tomorrow.

With eighteen years now looming large
I have to come up with a purpose
That’s gonna make it worth the trip
To reach my final destination.
                 ljm

it was a puppy sort of love
but we were young
so it felt much deeper

perhaps it was the reason
why we were so hesitant
to let go and move on

thus, i found myself cutting corners
so i could fit myself into your box
and in the painful process of loving you
i made myself become someone i knew i was not

.
”If you are to love,
love freely and unburdened
by the tombstones
of past miscalculated regrets.”

But the heart
inadvertently beats
to the mismatched rhythms
of a hundred
caged doves’ wings.

In you I left a little kiss
A speck on lip of lip.
Like a leaf may
On a leaf spring-coated
Before it slides off and off
And into the brown below.
Like a star may,
On the window of a house
Cold in houses cold.

I lingered by the shores of you
Dried, a bone,
Memorising the hues of
A sweet, sweet marrow—
In sun it glittered, in moon sang—
In you, in you, you.

This restless room—
And ants devour around
With their fast steps and abdomens angry
And a scene of us
Through deep, hardened dirt, I dig out:
You held a garland, of foliage weaved,
I smiled a kingdom
All alive and gold.

And the young leaf will forget
Of the rusty feather
That stumbled past it,
One young dawn—
And the house
In houses lone,
Will sublime
In the day’s pretty love, but

In the blue, a bottled letter—
Too small a gift
For an illiterate sea, but
Hold it it does still,
In its secretive embrace.

So, when you born
To an arid tree—
And in blood of stars I wade
As down descends
The sky we built,
Do not cut open the insects
In your frenzied search for me—
All the kingdoms
Could I smile
In you I left with their riches and green.

Dried, a bone, I
Remember the hues
Of a sweet, sweet fruit—
In blooms it blooms, in stars
On frosted windows
In you, in me, you.
So, when I sway
In this lovely quiet,

You sway too
In the dawn.
And born you
Then born you
And reborn on a spring—
In you lives a little kiss
And wilt you,
It wilts.

There, she lies on the altar
Almost held the sun she—
almost in her hands
Opened up, a rose-bud chaste
petal by petal by blood, with
a sting, so sweet and sweet, as
sunset reborn a bee; she was
gold and silver and black at once.

Almost held the sun she—
and no wax wings used
Oh, Icarus, love you did a wild sky,
— yourself a light-licked doom  
as your father cried,
Your father cried for you.
A veil as simple sour starlight she wore
as wings of wasps as beetles she giggled

Icarus, flew that you
—and with tongue-tied elation too
Icarus,
she rambled on for hours long.
A letter she held in spring kissed hands
—I will wed you to the sun, her father had sworn.
The sun—and a sun he was,
child of the sea, some sword in honey
dipped; now her awaiting.
And blushed she did herself a dawn

The altar, on the altar.
Almost held the sun she—
Swallowed a mayhem for the father's sin.
Icarus, tell me of the plummet.
Tell me of the greens you saw,
of blues, of whites, of the whirling world—
Men go around around her
their soles all ready
to crush lost skulls an empty moor.

Twirling,
the dust, like may have her hair
before the wedding day
Strands and strands, gently styled—

Spears, swords, rubbed to mirrors,
to lakes lifeless
Armors and ships laden with life, with
sails, the fluttering doves;
As the winds dance once more—
as harbors vacated, as waves torn apart for the horde, as move they on— on too the sun— as
She still lies.

Icarus, Icarus, was it the ocean
that cupped its palms, or did the soil cave in
as down into dark's slick throat you slid?
Surely, was soft, the sea's well-loved mouth,
Surely soft or true

She lies on the altar
a trinket glossy on a hoof, a ****** in the bell,
how does one say—
the valley of lilies, she grew it inside.
Spilled out on the stones, they are fed
to the flies.
Almost held the sun she—
Icarus, must you know

You did not sleep a wretched silence
within the womb of war.
No crescent blades you drank down a leaking throat—
She lies on the altar, vanquished for moon
— for metal upon bone
for blood, for blood, for blood.

A father’s green promise—
Seasoned to rust before the king
Icarus, on the altar she lies—
a ripened land far, far away lures her king
to another rosy worship.
Icarus, Icarus,
on the altar