If you must sing me a song,
make it soft and gentle enough
for a baby's skin.
If you must shut the lights off,
give me a colorful nightlight
to reflect bouncing shades
about the perimeters of my walls.
If I must sleep,
allow me a sweet, sinking feeling
in the center of my everything
as I drop from reality into dreams.

The dewy-eyed moon smiles upon me.
It knows I've returned home.
The mountains lined with termination dust
hark the ending of summer.
Soon the clusters of evergreens
will be coated in snow,
just as they were last winter.
The snow falls flake by flake.
It's in no rush to hit the ground;
it will melt once it does.

The same type of peace
befalls my quiet life.
Slowly, I return to old ways.
Like footprints in the snow,
the tread of future days
looks much like those of the past.

Poems are so fine.
I do them all the time,
sell 'em for a dime.
Such pretty, pretty rhymes.

Watch the lonely people
as they shuffle about
these solitary, rain-coated streets.

Watch them as they go,
as though you are not one of them.

Those sunrises which came so slowly in the winter
made me want to believe in God again.
The pink tinge of the sky and
the once green grass now covered
in silky snow, which would soon melt away,
made me want to believe in God again.

The whole beauty and synchrony
of the world coming together in nature
finally made me believe in God again.

I found prayer, not in a church,
but among the trees
and teeming rivers
and hidden lakes.
They gave me faith in the
natural way of things,
in something greater,
stronger, more pure
than anything I'd ever known.

Gust of wind
sweeps up leaves,
carries them to
the end of the street.

The biting air,
each breath turns to smoke.
On simple days,
beauty unfolds.

Lights sparkle
around every corner.
Looking for love,
finding it always near.

Life once again
becomes so clear.

Baby blue-eyed boy.
His softly curved lips
with the power to wreck ships.
So quick with a smile
that will never reach
those baby blue eyes.

Why so sad,
baby blue-eyed boy?

Can't you see
that those eyes
of yours hold all
the splendor of the sea?
Clams by the ocean side,
the flowing, green-blue hair of mermaids,
and soft, soothing waves.

Why so sad,
baby blue-eyed boy?

Lost sailors at sea,
and lovers
who will never love again.
Capsized dreams,
and stormy nights
with no end in sight.

Baby blue-eyed boy,
you may have
all the beauty of the sea,
but you have all the pain, too.

Home is Homer.
Lovely summer aromas
of fish and salt;
visions of eagles and otters;
people who create and re-create,
forever giving more than they receive.
A city of art and style -
you'll go the extra mile
to stay in happy, hearty Homer.

Stars in sky,
Plane flys above.
Lightning thunders below,
Flashing and dancing
From cloud to cloud.
Silence and darkness,
Then an explosion
Of light and expression.
A Colorado summer night.

The way the rain splatters
against the windows of the car
as it drifts through the city.
Each droplet looks like a tear
as it streaks its way across the pane.

The puffs of air around me
were impossible to catch,
but I jumped along
and snatched at them anyways.
The beauty lay in the chase,
not the capture.
Wild things were meant to be free.

Beauty loses its touch if caged.

A quiet field of snow
untouched,
unburdened -
I leap through it,
leaving large footprints
and nullifying the stillness
which had graced the field before me.
Luckily,
there is always more grace
to be found in nature;
and so I plod onwards,
my stride slow and heavy,
but joyful as it finds
and matches the tracks
of the moose and ptarmigan
who frolic through this valley.

There is, after all,
an answer to the meaning of life
and love and joy.
And it lies in the valley of snow before me
for all the world to bear witness to.

Things fall apart.
People fall apart,
slowly at first.
And then all at once,
until they're just dust
and ashes.

That ragged blue couch
Is held together by nothing
more than habit.

You walk towards me,
a warm drink in hand.
The steam floats up, up, up,
twirling and dancing
like the ballerina in my old music box.

The window hangs open,
a summer breeze blows in.
The air is soft and blue,
cooling with each darkening hour.

Do you remember it so?
No?

It was the last summer before the funeral
and speeches, each word with less meaning
than the next.
It was the last summer of sun
and silence so sweet.
Of iced tea and long walks through the streets.
The last summer of fires and marshmallows,
and of Patsy Cline, oh so fine.

It was the last summer
on that old, blue couch,
a summer wind blowing,

with you there.

My favorite people
were met on a whim.
My favorite memories
were made on a whim.

The most splendid castles,
the most magnificent sunsets,
the sweetest kisses;
all were had and done and seen
on whims.

Don't tell me that I'm silly
for following my heart
and permitting my life
to blow along with the wind.

My life was made on a whim,
and it'll likely end the same way.

The blinking cursor
forever fading in and out,
mocking me
for my inability to create.
The words don't come
as they once did.
Blink. Blink.
It's daring me not
to stop typing,
so I don't.
Words flow.
Ideas flow.

Who can tell if any of it
is any good anymore?

Had I come another time,
I never would have met
You.
I never would have seen
You.
Just one wrong turn of a corner and
You
would never have entered my life.
How strange a thought,
Living a life where I didn’t know
You.

Our love was slow-roasting.
If we were chicken,
it would have fallen off the bone.

I can see now,
on this night
with it's moon as silky
as freshly laundered sheets,
that all I cared for was small.
And that my thinking them small
made them all the smaller.

There's no one to blame but me.
This, I now can see.

There is a greatness in the world
so fantastic, I can feel it
in the tiniest of moments -
in a strong cup of black coffee;
in the snow-covered mountains
so large and ominous,
it's as though they float;
in one of your gentle smiles or caresses;
in the small breeze of the clean air
that graces me each morning
as the harsh cold outside my door meets me.

There is a beauty in the world
so overwhelming,
I am sure I will never be able
to describe all its wondrous facets,
but at least the world is kind enough
to allow me to try.

There are quiet moments
in the cracks of my life -
driving to work, waiting in line,
floating on skates around a frozen lake,
daydreaming about nothing in particular.

To live in these moments forever,
with my body and mind
so at ease that nothing
much bothers them.
So quiet I’d remain forever,
listlessly dawdling my time away.

Like a child,
you're silly and soft,
giddy and gladsome.
Like a child -
ever-inquisitive -
you love to learn.
You find those you admire
and question, not docile,
yet sure of more.

No hesitation in your advances,
like those who have yet to learn
to be unsure of themselves.
Age so often removes from us
the ability to love without hesitation,
or even to love at all,

but not from you.

Goethe, he was an artist.
Schiller, Mozart, Beethoven.
Writers, musicians, painters all.
Even now I hear Chopin's call.
The tunes make my heart sing,
my soul dance.
I'm in a trance
when I hear those sweet melodies.
Like the sound of your voice,
it all makes joy
come rushing back to me.

Won't you stay,
play a little longer?
I may not be as gifted as you,
but I could be your muse,
if you were to choose
me to.

And those arms,
they were big enough for us all,
though you wouldn't have thought it by looking at them.
One ****** Thanksgiving night,
when all the other children slept
turkey-filled dreams,
we wept in those arms.
She wrapped us tight,
so that the events of the night
wouldn't hurt us any longer.
One ******, Thanksgiving night,
she did her best to make everything all right.

You're like a record.
Play one side,
and you think you know the whole tune,
but flip it once
and it's all brand new.

It's only fitting that people be music,
since life is a dance
we must all learn the moves to.

Your sweet compliments
bring a flutter to my knees.
It's not out of politesse
that I smile and say, "Oh geez."

In your presence, I feel at ease,
though my mouth feels like cottage cheese.

Saying such things out loud is hard.
For me, this has always been my guard.

Hear the chimes ringing,
this sleepy Sunday singing.
Monday will bring persimmons,
and Tuesday a touch of snow.
Eyelids grow heavy,
the evening siestas are winning.
The trees shade are giving
and sweet scents are brimming
among these lovely Sunday trimmings.

Oh, what a fine Spring day.

The injustice of death brought all other
injustices to the forefront of consciousness.
For a short time, right and wrong were very
clear and the world was very simple, albeit
false and irreconcilably wrong.

A light sprinkling of snow
over mountains high above.
The way it's always been,
but not for me alone.
Why can't I return home,
even while standing in it?

When the sun rises, when the sun sets;
When the moon is full, when the sky is empty,
I think of you.
When I cross Eagle River or climb Mt. Baldy,
the sun splintering into pieces above the world,
I think of you.
I think of you in Germany or Alaska,
with friends or alone,
when happy or sad;
I miss you all the same.
One year, two years, three years...
Nothing and everything's changed.

Life is long.
Forgetting feels like a betrayal.

Bodies seeking bodies.
Flesh longing always,
always,
for more flesh.
Kisses and touches,
once so sweet,
feel empty now.
Keep looking.
Maybe you'll find
something you didn't expect.

Maybe you'll even find yourself.

Like a dried out pen,
you lay before me.
    Perhaps you served a purpose once,
    back in the days
    where leaves still blew
    through these Cadillac-filled streets.
Vanished and forgotten,
like a goldfish
in a bowl without food.
      You'll starve eventually
      from the poverty of your mood.
Like a torn photograph,
the image of you is scratched, incomplete,
a deflated soccer ball
lying somewhere in the street.
      
      A dried out pen
        can write no more,
           but it does not negate
             the works it wrote
                      once before.

Azure skies stretch above me,
the sun a fiery devil.
It warms my hands as I drive,
the steering wheel
a permit for freedom.

The calendar days crossed themselves off,
one by one,
and the hands of the clock
ticked, ticked faster.
I did not know what I wanted,
but  I knew I wouldn't have enough time
to figure it out.

Feel my body.
How it curves and lifts,
how it can be sweet or bitter.
Put your hands about me
and warm your body against mine.
How strong,
how rich,
how smooth I am!
I can reduce any man to despondency.
Once he gets a sip of me,
he'll never let go.
My scent sends you to tears,
I know.
How moody you grow without me!
You could choose tea,
but where would you be
without little ol' coffee?

People are like flowers.

We begin as sprouts,
so susceptible to harm
that even a vague breeze
may blow us out.
The only way to grow
is through the careful nurturing
of another.
Under proper care,
and in the right environment,
we bloom,
each of us a little differently.
We exude beauty
and absorb pain.
We feed off of both the sunlight
and the rain.

Like flowers,
we are so very alive -
creatures of the Earth,
and so exquisitely designed to be just so.

Sometimes the world is so loud,
all I can hear is screaming.
But other days,
life quiets
and the Earth spins more slowly.
It is on these occasions
when one can at last hear
the crickets in the grass
and the bees buzzing through the air.
Flowers swishing in the wind, here and there.
Among the few humans, there is hardly a care.

It is on these quiet evenings,
with the moon so bright,
every face devoid of fright,
that living life seems quite all right.

But not tonight.

All indecencies, all sins
are forgiven.
Not by I, nor by God,
but by the moon itself.
The moon,
the only true witness
to the crimes of mankind.

The blood spilled,
the lies told,
the affairs had;
the moon saw them all,
yet he shone no less brightly
than before.
He, who knows
my crimes;
he, who tells all time.
He, who judges not.

The man in the moon.

Words. Words. What an odd word, the word word is.
It has vowels and deep sounds.
It grumbles and roars.
The sounds percolate in my mouth,
Unfamiliar, yet free.
And it comes to a close,
my wits at an end.
But what end?
Where have they ended?
Where does it stop?
Stop. Stop. Stop.
And begin again.

A women boarded the same subway stop as me today.
She wore a white, flowing shawl with tiny purple flowers on it
that stretched down to her knees.
She reminded me of my childhood and of my mother in her thirties.
She held a grocery bag with daffodils in it,
and I felt she was something rather special.

Perhaps we had been joined in each other's lives
for these fifteen minutes,
for some strange reason,
much unbeknownst to the two of us.
I tried to figure it out,
but ran out of time,
and as we emerged from the station,
she walked north,
and I went east.
Maybe I'll never know.
Maybe she was just a woman
with a white shawl and purple flowers.

It could be a bear, a hat, a plane -
the choice is yours to ascertain.

Kites zoom and roar
high above the crowds.
A sallow sun peeks through trees
and shines in hesitant rays
upon strollers and the mothers pushing them.

All the while,
the sky lays it's
flouncy, protective blues
across the world,
ensuring that no dream
is too much.

A shame, a pity -
that there shall be no sky
when we're buried six feet deep.

**** me if you must,
but don't take away my sky.

Four hours is a funny thing.
In four hours,
I can earn 48 dollars,
or I can shower and make breakfast
while flipping through the pages
of old books
and sipping my bitter coffee.
Four hours...
I suppose some could
save a life or maybe the world
in four hours.
But I cannot.

I can make 48 dollars,
or I can stare at the ceiling
and maybe think big thoughts
and not do much of anything
in four hours.

Eyes open, awake in exhaustion.
Bones ache, can't catch a wink.
Pretty love songs
sing my worries away.
Still my teeth grind,
grind, grind.

It's late.
The cars have stopped honking,
but the wheels of my mind turn on and
on and on.

Wherever I go,
I go without you.
You told me I could visit
whenever I wished.
A kind lie, to be sure.
But a lie,
nonetheless.

If grief is a wave,
then when will the water ever still?

I tried to be quiet,
but the less I spoke,
the less I heard,
the less I watched
in the external world,
the louder it all became.
My head pounding
with thoughts
I’d long ago forgotten.
They thudded and clunked
around my head
until I thought
I might go deaf.

Silence is the loudest
noise I’ve ever heard.

I might be wasting my youth.
It didn't hit me until just now,
flipping through social media feeds.
I know it's false,
but it feels real.
The smiling faces,
the laughs, the loves.
They may not have it every second,
but they have it this second, right now.
And I don't.

I stand in lines
and wait for better times.
The sun shines,
We **** on limes,
tequila on our minds.

There are all kinds.

So I pass out my dimes
to pay for the ******* fines,
as we listen to the chimes
and the pretty, pretty rhymes.

Yes, I have been wined and dined,
but I have also been worked to a grind.
I'm no mastermind,
but I have tried hard to align

the faults of the self
with the faults of the rest.

Charming and beautiful,
glowing with iridescent youth,
they swarm about me
in their languid days.
Some wear all black.
Others adorn themselves
with baubles
and rainbows of color.

No matter how fair their skin,
or clothes or speech -
no matter how rich
or poor they were born,
they are all the same.

The clock ticks for each
at an indifferent pace.

I never wanted to be young and stupid.
I longed for the respect of my elders,
and I achieved this through acting old,
even though my heart was young.

It's only now that I realize
being young and stupid
is a gift,
not a curse.
Being young and stupid
is permission to live
as wildly and as loudly
as you please.

So let's drink too much,
sing too loud,
and have too much fun

while we still can.