They will make love tonight
and I will watch
the stucco
form shapes
my dreary art
correcting itself
over and over again.

You take an hour
to do it the way
it should be done,
and I listen in
shocked delight
to the moan
of the train,
calling me away.

I can't stand to be without you
but if you were here,
I wouldn't remember why.

In context,
"You're a ghost to me now."
doesn't seem so bad.
it only continues my legacy
with imagination.

If I'm a ghost,
you're a priest.
Just don't be surprised
by the haunted belltower.

In your best midnight voice you said, "Shall we?"
I nodded, leaving my heart
somewhere in orange county
next to his ***** dishes
and overflowed ash tray.

The last time I saw you,
you were a phantom
smeared gray.
I thought I'd change your color,
                 and was ruined the next day.

I don't know the man who waved at me,
but in my head
he's a silver haired Adonis,
Jimmy Stewart in construction garb.

So much more excited about life than he was.
So much more finesse free *******.
So many more smiles.
So little love.
I still hope for you
          when it gets cold.

My cigarettes are surrogate lovers.
Each with their own demands.
Lung cancer,
Birth defects,
Emphysema,
It's our imperfections that make us special.

I am depraved.
He doesn't love me.
I talk like an apple tree that only produces pears.
Sorry, but hopeful.

I live in an age where you can find a man online and delete him from your life before he becomes annoying.
I come from an age where you can dump someone via text message whilst taking a ****.
I am of an era with many pros and even more ex-cons.
I know, I've dated them.

Sometimes,
when the weather
is just right
I swim in the pools of your eyes,
                   those umbrellas
                              of mine
                               that wait on a
                                                  summer shower;
                               That blow
                               their breezes
                                           dropping
                                                   their leaves
                                                          ­          raising them
                                                                ­                    up up up
                                                when spring comes.

The times I burn for you the most,
we burn in separate beds.
The ocean sends it's waves
crashing to the shore,
fighting with the land.
Darling, I want you.
The stars, they fix themselves
to their black nests.
The trees, rooted.
Not a cloud to send for rain.
The times I burn for you the most,
we burn in separate beds.

I did the company mail again today
it was all the same as yesterday
everybody doesn't want to die again
they just want to waste more time again
why do you live
to open more mail?
to send more out?
your dollars are never enough
but you keep trying to make them
why do you try at love
when it makes your tear ducts sore?

I did the company mail again
I guess I didn't use the right stamps
'cause I'm still so ******* sick
and it was all the same as yesterday
everybody doesn't want to die again
and everybody is still dead

scattered over the lawn
two cats
seven crows
a freeway
more crows
my mind is scattered
I try to focus on counting
but I lose my place
1...2...3...
the dark corners of your smile
4...5...6...
a cool gleam in your eye

and when I find myself starting over
it's useless
thousands of organisms
on the lawn
but only me here
and one
bright
you
1...2...3

everything is still
somehow I am alive
I go outside and see the stars
they crack
                  and spill their light
   down down down
        the light reaches lovers
          friends widows...
it reaches me
               I am alone
          I am finally alone.

Some things I don't know:
I don't know the curve of your lips
the arch of your brow is strange to me
I don't know where the tip of your head ends,
and the night sky begins
The color of your hair could be dark blonde or light brown
Day is slowly turning to night and there are some things I don't know.
Some things I know:
I know you sing like a folk singer I forgot the name of
with a soft low vibrato
I know you love the Beatles
and you remind me of Norwegian Wood
I know your *** is number five and climbing
Day is slowly turning to night and there are some things I know.

--for daniel

They are blue, my eyes.

They are blue
like my father's
like my grandfather's before him
They are blue.

They are blue
like my mood every January
like an unused pool in Fall
They are blue.

They are blue
like a brand new bicycle
like a tear in the shower
They are blue.

They are blue
like a berry
like the last view I had of your body
They are blue.

They are blue, my eyes.

Hardly a day passes by
that I don't see
your mad purple eyes.
Northern girl,
you wandered into me.

I saw your stars,
angry with silver
fall into the earth's atmosphere
with fire,
and it felt like a kiss.

You are not here now,
and the years pass slow
a long dark highway.

Without you,
sparks never reach full flame
I hear echoes of our orange laughter
lost in a hallway with doors that lead to static grey.

Just a light that doesn't fade
Just a warmth on winter days
Just a drink that quenches thirst
Just a dance now on the surf
Just a boy
Just a girl
Just a dress and hair with curls
Just a swim in a deep blue wake
Just a lust for heaven's sake!
Just a taste of cherry cola
Just a touch on sunkissed shoulder
Just a kiss, but where it leads
Just a longing
Just a need
Just me grasping your warm hand
Just forever, in the sand

When I last saw you,
your eyes were golden.
Puzzles I couldn't piece together,
a lake that shot back my own reflection,
not letting me see the deepness of you.

When I last saw you,
your hands were oak trees
hiding roots that dropped to the pit of the earth,
holding your meditations delicately close to you,
careful not to show
your great glimmering ships
carrying blue and low songs,
weeping dirges for a winter Sunday,
a red Grief that wakes you in your sleep,
adding the slight storm I see in your smile.

When I last saw you,
your eyes were golden.

here we are again
walls, white
cotton sheets
teal socks with the tread

we share small talk
i ask about home
things are the same there

i tell you about my bedmate
she thinks she's satan
it's all up from here

when you leave
i sit down to dinner
a jail meal

it drips from the mute's lips
who sits staring
at the table diagonal from me

she is afraid of dogs
i, a dog
bite a dry piece of bread
and cough

in this lowland we halt and look up to the sun
but see only a black sky

and when you ask
are you getting better
the response
yes

is for you

take from me this white rose
her sunken eyes
follow me across my room
where I am seated at my desk
her pale hands play at the skin of my wrists
and her mocking laughter eats at my joy

she is the bird
perched on a branch above my bed
her lullaby, a nightmare
tossing me awake from my dream
her teeth rip at my chest
I am young
I am young
I say
and she, with her cool rasp
breathes a death rattle into my lungs

you are old
you are the night
you are mine

Now I know,
how I can see the sun.
It is not my eyes
that take in the rays,
it is you
buying us Mike and Ike candies in the morning
on the way to school
you saying,
"Now, don't tell your mom!"
all four of us banging our heads
to classic rock.

Now I know,
how I can feel
It is not my skin
that senses the sand on the beach,
it is you
taking me to my first scuba dive
so proud of your daughter
Me, a fish!
The only one who didn't ***** on the boat.

Now I know,
It is not my heart
that feels the morning
after a dark night.

It is you, Dad, it is you.

Here is a night where I've hardly just awoken.
Here is a wet dog on a patio with rain.
Here is a strawberry cigar.
Here is coffee with light cream.
Here are pants, slightly too big.
Here is the murmur of my reflections, coloring the skyline black.
Here is a bottle of gin.
Here is a swing set with no one swinging.
Here is my hair growing longer, with no one there to notice.
Here is my father's one single tear, dropping and being wiped away.
Here is a moth's wing, torn and dusty, swept into the trash.
Here is my face turning tomato red, and a stutter.
Here is an endless walk, a car ride, a sleepless night.
Here is a pill, a hospital stay, a night in white.

Here are the things I leave in the dark
So I can hear you when you say,
"What's on your mind?"

When I watch you meditate, you are so fully taken to the heart of the earth. You are a true little Buddha. With your golden hair and a twinkle in your bright but distant blue eye, you speak of the astral plane, the whole universe in the center of the earth, your twin flame. You drink a Coca Cola, but it takes you two days because you cherish every sip. You have become my warm home. My sweet soul friend. We smoke sage together and the light from the smoldering pipe glows greedily as it burns away. We drift. You work at a thrift shop. Carrying crystals in your pockets, you greet the customers with joy, but treat everyone fairly. It is no one's place to treat you like an inferior. Sister, don't ever cry. I will sing to you a sweet song. Deborah, seashell eyes. In the morning you make your coffee with just enough for one cup. That is your treat. Other treats: your mermaid oracle cards, a grape cigar, chakra incense, a cinnamon candy. You will never grow old. My sweet sweet sister, you are a cactus flower. At night, you look up at the dark purple clouds and see angels you've seen a thousand times before. Friend, you are infinite. A wild rose. A shell at sea. A pearl.

And I will stop,
take in a long breath
now I am full
tomorrow's sky is young
every single thing
from this one moment
where I see
a small flower
grow
from the sidewalk
it is so hardy
and so am I
the years
with their machines of pain
can bowl me over
large waves
sweeping me under
but I will grow
a flower through concrete
yellow
bright
tall and strong like my mother

and I will be satisfied
with the whisper after the rain

would you look at that?

not even a petal missing

It's always night, isn't it?

How hushed voices seem closer
How a light breeze sweeps over your face,
bringing back a thought you never could shake.
How a song takes you back to 17,
a boy and girl,
a light kiss,
the ocean.

It's always night, isn't it?
How you feel the moment when summer turns to fall
How alone feels tangible and cherry sweet, or so so metallic
How a bird wakes you from dreaming,
and he is no longer there.

The years have reached out

You gasp,

and lean

and rock

and tear

and

It's always night isn't it?

How you yearn for the part of you that cannot be stolen from time.

I'm going to tell you
how you were so bright
we didn't need the moon.
Throw it out
start over.
With you, me
and a light song
playing low.
Starting over
isn't so hard is it?
I am sitting here
with my coffee
the lamp's light,
playing shadows over my face.
Me,
playing with your cool smile.
We are not far from space
let's go there
put the stars
back in the sky.
The lightning hits
some lake,
and a wind
shakes my heart.
I am alone
with you.

Petit Oiseau, you told a joke,
You laughed and laughed
And the branch it broke
You fell from the nest
And bumped your head
And a funny frog thought you were dead!
He croaked a low mourning dirge all night,
until you woke
the next morn' at 3,
And Mama Oiseau
put you back in the tree!
Next time you laugh,
make sure you're steady
and that the branch you're on is ready!
You'll live to live to laugh another day
Petit Oiseau don't fall today!

Silly bunny burger boss,
hops through the flowers and the frost.
Sniffs a carrot,
maybe two,
Then makes up a gift for you!
A little song,
That goes like this,
"I am the bunny burger boss,
now, from me,
here is a kiss!
I do not always sing a song,
but now, I ask, you sing along!
I am the bunny burger boss
my heart is large and full!
My tail is small,
a ball of fluff!
On days like this, so cool,
I hop hop hop
up to your feet,
and sing and dance for you!"
Now and then
this burger boss
though gay and bright, it's true,
get's lonely and sits off on a stump
thinking of what to do.
On days like this
When bunny's sad
he hears a hum
from forest near
and turns and sees
a lark is perched
on a branch out in the clear
he hears the tune
a bunny song, it's true
about a bunny burger boss
who has a song for you!
So when you are so sad and low
and life's got you feeling blue,
Think of bunny burger boss
and the song he shares with you!

you were young once
bright eyed
you put the raspberries on each finger and then ate them off
one by one
then, older
you took a bus home from school
kept to yourself
playing 80’s and 90’s hits you would later work out with
as “Shout” Turned to “Oblivion”
you would fall to the floor
and pant
get up
walk to the kitchen
look for something, anything
One
Small
Raspberry

I want to cry on the subway.
I want to dance in the ocean with the waves crashing on the rocks behind me.
I want to see a lemon purple sunset mirrored in my mother's eyes.
I want to eat the whole cake.
I want to read a thousand words and learn every one.
I want to sleep in the desert, in a truck bed, staring at the stars.
I want to buy the shoes.
I want to wear the shoes.
I want to break the heels of the shoes on a long walk up a hill, drunk, shouting into the early morning air.
I want to collapse in bed before the sun hits the skyline and dream I was driving up the coast and my car took off into the air, passing up the birds, the planes, looking over the houses and the people.
I want to actually mean it, whatever it is.
I want to wake up and know that I did it, glorious me, did glorious it.
I want your ****.

I went to the end of the hall, your voice echoing
a cool breeze in a hot, dense mind
                         "we are going through the same thing, aren't we?"
you were up early that morning, and I had been up all night,
counting the wood panels in the cabin walls

we sat looking out over the lake in silence that morning in 2004,
not knowing that it would be our last trip.

                            I was up late that night in 2016
                              thinking of you
                                      in my mind
                                                  no hair on your head was missing

everything comes down to this
the way the night falls around
my cold hands
and fast feet
on the pavement
thump thump thump

and your heart beating
thump thump thump
until it didn't
and how they didn't really try to keep you alive
because you were old
but how they kept me in the hospital for weeks
in and out of coherence
my body heaving for air
my mind just asking
            for a break
and
        when I think of you now
clean air over the lake
           a smile on your face
as you died
I didn't know what you meant then
              but now, Ron
                                       I do.

summer is over

i watched it turn

while the quiet grace in my eyes went hard

why do i always
go here

when there
is so soft and curved
a pillow to lay the palm of a hand

the wet fog rolling in on a cool morning
pools behind my eyes
the cement beneath my feet
tenses for fall

and I wait

I go out, a sorcerer, in the dark, damp, early morning air
flicking my eyes towards the shadow of a passing thought
shedding my skin for the coming day.

That song comes on, and I try not to let it register.

We are, all of us, whirling galaxies
asleep but awake
crashing
crashing
into one another
and then falling apart
again and again

"...nice to hold...when I'm tired..."

A breeze sends a chill down my spine
and I realize
I let myself fall sad
an oak tree struck by lightning

"...when I die...will I go..."

I go out, a sorcerer, in the dark, damp early morning air.

Sunday morning,
and the sun is peaking through the blinds
after a long sleepless night.

The monster that hung over my head all night
is sticking around for the light, it seems,
and it is scaring my Pothos'.

As they wilt,
I am changing the song that's playing,
It's too haunting, too obvious.

An old friend, this specter has become.
I laugh as he spills my coffee.

if you sit upright
type well
stare at a screen
wear the right clothes
they'll call you a fashion plate
the old men
you'll get a good job
hell, maybe they will marry you

not me
I slouch
stare out the window
make up stories about the bluebird

At my review they tell me I can do much better

why does that matter when my heart is breaking into a million pieces?

there is the bluebird again

when will he leave me to my work?

I needed the sound of the music
and the breeze that hit the trees I touched
and the grass
and the dancing
and the soul I don't believe in
to open up
and let tomorrow in
even when today is a century
even when yesterday
creaks open and grabs me
holds me locked tight

every song on the radio
some chance
some synchronicity
some ecstasy

I open my eyes underwater
I am safe and supported
I give a deep sigh of relief
for the thousand loves I have lost in my dreams
for the death that sees me in my reflection at the bottom of a glass

Weary, wanting women
I have been one
Soft
I have been that, too.

And when a violet sunset comes through the trees tonight,
I am still so very soft.

Clinging to an old idea
of a red lip
a torn pair of black jeans
a swing set at a memorial
Where were you in September?

your wide eyed child misses his daddy
and we all miss our friend

I sit here
jealous
of your endless sleep
I am tired too, Adam.

Supposedly you are selfish
That's what is said in a low whisper,
but they don't know
the tearing pain.

Old man Death had already taken you before you tied the noose.

Sleep well.

You are not in pain
and you are not what hung you.

The bright green leaves picked at by tiny fingers
and your mother taking your boyfriend
red blood
it must have turned from her shirt to your eyes
the night you found them drunk.

Now, it is 30 years later,
those same eyes focused on mine,
Shouting at you in the parking lot of the hospital
to take your badge and burn it
'You aren't my social worker.'

Playing with my life as she did yours.
Me, learning.

How we crawl into the crevices of a mind, crouching in wait
to find a dent
a scratch to pick apart
and send screaming into the light.

We only want the best.
Though, is it for us, or for them?
We never know.

Or do we?

At night, I think of  how we are the same
Twenty-four years apart,
still jumping from man to man like dragonflies,
our colorful wings, torn and glistening.

I found mine, but lose his bright orange youth nightly.
And love is never further away than the next place we look,
but always at just the tip of our tongues,
if we use them right.

I remember at twelve,
practicing break-ups in the bathroom every night.

'I'm sorry, I know you love me, but I have other commitments.'

You were the one with the damage, and it crept over me
a tarp over a clear blue pool on a winter afternoon.
Dead leaves crowding the corners,
tiny bee carcasses: my insecurities piling over the top.

'I'm just not good enough, I must do something about this weight.'

All of your ways boiling over into mine.

The morning I got my first period, you laughed with my sister at my excitement, instead of leaping for joy, and I watched the two of you giggle, my cheeks growing red with anger and shame.

'Aren't I now a woman?'
'Aren't I now yours?'

You always pointed at the corners when I cleaned:
'Do You see that dust? It isn't enough...it's just not enough.'

I've had enough, mother.

The wind blows smoothly into the arms you gave me.
As I write, I am met with a penetrating silence.

This is enough.
It has to be.

Its about noon on Wednesday
UCLA had a shooting

Fox news reports
that the kids are still
trapped in the classrooms
waiting

Now that it is contained,
the excitement has died down
from our side,

but the kids there will always be

The guy in the science building that heard the doorknob wiggle as bullets wailed in the distance.
The girl that peed herself because she was afraid she wouldn't make it to her sister's Quincinera.
The teacher who never thought he'd see the day.

We're left with our hands up,

'Is this it?'

Is this what we're left with?

A man, full in his head,
bored at his hands

and a gun?

'Is this it?'

and two sets of parents, who won't see their children grow to be the ones who walked at graduation.

'Is this it?'

35 people in a row
and 2 that go where no one knows
upon a beach of golden sands
with elderly grandmas holding hands

and giant birds
and ferocious sharks
and dogs that leave their golden marks

in vicious depths
dead children play
never to see
another day

and I with you at the very top
floating 'til we never stop
opening eyes to look at stars
forgetting all the mangy cars

and the bars
and the bars

Thinking of the time they did coke in my apartment,
and they suddenly realized
I was beautiful

I would have been before, too,
but you were always worried about your tutor
and the white sludge
dripping down the back of your throat
tap tap tapping
on your brain, that couldn't take it anymore, but did.

Now, you live with a woman who works with children
they hear the tap tap tapping
on their brain
and they would have been beautiful, anyway.

You are somewhere with no answers to questions,

no weeping
no laughter

and the tap tap tapping on your brain.

You are old, and you cannot see the sky.

a dog barks to start a fight with bubba
and he gets
mean like an ant who's
sugars' been stolen and I tell him
             that's an ugly dog
when ugly people populate the planet, I get mad,
but I don't bite their heads off.
                                        He got really calm after that
and I waved at a gardener
as if to say,
                   'It's okay,
                                   it won't happen again.'

It's Friday night,
a still blue dark eyed sky
a band plays

It's years removed from the time I wrote about
the bells and how they swing
in the tower to my left
I still hear them
how they cling cling BANG
and I am with you
and I am alone
                          tomorrow is coming
and in two years I'll be here with the bells

cling cling BOOM

and there will be a woman or a man
sipping on coffee
or speaking
                    softly,    and the bells
                                                        
cl­­ing cling BANG

I walked into a sandwich shop with a woman who believed in meditation and growling at the dirt in the desert. We saw a well dressed black man and we were 5,280 miles away from him, but he had a nice suit, so I said so.

In the wasteland of my mind
an idea like a tumbleweed
interrupts the landscape.

space folds around its pointed form

time scatters like mice before its untethered gait

as it makes its way
to the bright center of the barren mound it was born to,
leaving no stretch of its path unchanged,
intruding upon the atmosphere's stubborn scarcity
                  with the fullness of a growl
darting from the mouth of a shapeless traveler
forced upon the world through birth.

Howling with the bittersweet memory of the womb, calling out for its home in the stars.

Reaching the mound
it lights up with the flame of intention
and seizing its grasp on action,
finds its way to the mouth

and in telling you how I love you

       the silence swallows it whole

                  when you don't say a thing.

I woke up to screams from a stolen razor.   
Where is it?  
It was a loud scream.          
The end comes swiftly,
anyway,
and,
if there are no razors around,
it comes even faster.                        
 
At the top of the mountain,
the anger flows to the valley,
and there is no scream.                                  
In the valley, we wait.                
There is a pull from a cigarette.                               
Small talk that is not small talk.                                        
A man wheezes   
A woman wonders where she'll go tomorrow                                          
it comes out as a laugh
                  and lightly in the background plays a song that can only be called the disease of the 80's.                                       
 
We didn't need another.                                     

But, thank you.

I sit here again
with a beer and a cigarette
communing with a lost soul
my own?
    someone else's?
I read scripture and the
words dance around me
a thousand flights of fancy
on the page
my incense burning
this pure incense burning
this pure understanding
of the cruel nature
of humanity
of friends, heroes, lovers
I write it all down
try to solve it
it stands before me
a picture of my steps
to this point
I have reached the point
of unabashed unregulated
distorted reality
my daily life
the breathing
the eating
the sleeping
it doesn't seem any more real
than this life I live
in my head
or somewhere in my heart
and I long to touch the
part of me that is real
but I am so disconnected

flowers in the winter still grow towards the sun
and such is my soul
leaning leaning
toward the everlasting source
                                                     reality fails me
and lights go dim
and I cause the moon to glow for a light
somewhere in this dark night
                                                  and I can't stop believing in a God that doesn't exist
                      but which pushes further down this tunnel into the hell
of my eternity
and I can't
find simplicity
can't find purity
it's all convoluted
I hate the game
   shifting pulling
begging for release
and somehow I am
an ember in a fire
bent on burning out
forever
and I have a soul
I have a heart
someone acknowledge me in this newspaper grey world
I am flat lining
where will I go after
this life has sloughed off my skin
I know I am endless
and I am bound for a world
where opinion doesn't taint reason
                            and somehow
                            I will be there
                            where the sky meets space
                            I will be there
                                                   somehow.

I stepped into your apartment
I saw you reading
  sipping coffee
I saw you go to the fridge
and muse at its emptiness
I slept with you at night
we dreamed together
        you didn't see me
but I was there
       when I went to leave in the morning
you looked up
         quizzically