A promise is a promise.
Only a lie can be made
with an expiration date in mind.

You and I
are the sand and sea,
we will always keep coming
back to one other.

You and I
are the trees of eternal spring,
we shall never leave.

Not every day is remembered
as special or significant,
not every word spoken between us
is Hallmark worthy.
But love is never absent
and what is shared
never forgotten.

Alone we are
merely ordinary,
together we are considerable,
whether it’s sharing ice cream
or each other’s
aches and pains.

The road we traverse,
hand-in-hand,
may be covered with obstacles & illusions,
but the horizon
is hardly false.

For look!
God himself smiles upon us.
These vows are indeed
of an endless variety...

Awaiting the hot element
of a shifting sun
she surveys the pond
in minimal raiment

Concealed in the thicket
she loosens ties and stays
til away from hips they fall
and onto the grassy knoll

She ventures to the edge
one toe in to assess its viability
playfully ******* the surface as
she waves him hither

Besotted by the nakedness
of her artless endeavor
he disrobes in quiet
anticipation (of sorts)

Come to her he shall
and with a fair bit
of ****** and parry together
they shall master the water

circumference
area
radius
locate where i end
and you begin

protons
and neutrons
inside this atomic nucleus
our energy levels
hover in the clouds

how can't we fall
for the rotation
of this sphere

this densely
structured wonder
of our assembled love

1-hour photo lab: an aged prop:
prompt

One hundred years of solitude: glass city:
yellow be their faithful death:
mikado

She prefers another color
for the bedroom wall:
sarcoline

She's in the spotlight
staged like a warm peach:
Non-Euclidean

'Almost a spy--
looking forward to a bright and wonderful future'
--eternally and everlasting:
amaranth

What do you give the person
who thinks they have it all?
Doubt:
that dull brown stocking to wear on his feet

Down one side,
Up the other,
The kids have you
Climbing up the walls,
Count me out.

Say it isn't so,
Words along the way
Spell it every kind of wrong,
Take it easy,
Life is a merry-go-round,
Learn-as-you-go,
Flip of a coin,
Shop of horrors.

So there's no need for panic,
It's a moving picture,
Just keep your extremities
Inside the vehicle at all times,
Otherwise limbs may fall.

A snakepit, a lion’s den,
a second-hand shark cage.
The Big Apple, the Little Rascals,
everything after the Victorian Age.
These things scare me on sight,
but not as much as
Veronica Cartwright.

The Trix Rabbit with a gun,
The Dodgers winning a World Series.
Parallel parking with Mark Hamill,
Sesame Street conspiracy theories.
These things make me shake at night,
but not as much as
Veronica Cartwright.

The White Album, the Black Plague,
toenail clippers, salad bars and Disneyland.
The Richter scale, the Mendoza line,
Any and every last teenage boy band.
These things give me such a fright,
but not as much as
Veronica Cartwright.

Television reruns of H.R. Pufnstuf,
An opened jar of Miracle Whip.
The names of Frank Zappa’s kids,
vacationing on a Carnival cruise ship.
These things horrify me alright,
but still not as much as
Veronica Cartwright.

Fear is a headline
a casting shadow
a waiting room
a cancer
a culture
a color

It is suddenly knowing
or never knowing at all

Fear is the hanging silence
the falling voice

It is a darkroom
where negatives
are developed

Fear is something
about your eyes:
wink?
blink?
pink!

It is always having to say
you're sorry

Fear is what comes
after a sentence
and before a final meal

It is opening the mail
It is waving goodbye

Never hit a girl. Plain and simple.

It's rude to call her names.
So don't.

No looking up her dress
or down her shirt like some pervert.

Quit staring. She's not a piece of candy.

Definitely, no touching,
unless you ask first AND she says "yes."

Finally, NO means "100% stop! Get away from me! And don't try it again!!!"

Any questions?

Nice try,
My didactic friend.
Only the foolhardy would use
A can opener
To pry back the lid to their soul.
If even such a thing were viable,
Which, for the record, no es posible.
But let's say it was,
In a fluffy, touchy-feely kind of way.
Performing surgery
On the immaterial
Makes as much sense
As being a ghostwriter for
A blind man's alphabet soup.
Id doesn't make sense.
Could be the hemlock
Is talking back now.
So drop the act, you gadfly,
And take up cycling.
You might as well enjoy
The scenery along your mind trip,
Sharp turns and all.
Your over-the-counter philosophy
Is quaint, but comes with a price:
Fisher Price.

I could never be a skyscraper,
never an airplane.

I could never be the Space Needle,
never the Eiffel Tower.

I could never, ever be Mount Everest,
never a California redwood.

I've a fear of heights, you see,
space and motion not my thing.

"Confront your fear," they say.

But let's face it, I just can't face it.

"Do it for me," she said.

Well, if it takes climbing the sky
to prove my love for you,
I guess I'll die trying.

Literally.

So long as we don't talk about
my even bigger fear of widths...

The human mind
remains bleeding edge,
but no one pays for
attic salt,
the best shall walk away
from the spaghettification
of the school system.

And roman candles
will go unlit.

Where's your résumé, Johnny?
He will hunt-and-peck
to create, lest ever
comprehend, his future
as a basement
mixologist,
'cause no one cares
to drink in education.

And his roman candle
will go unlit.

Classrooms are a thirstland,
an empty canteen,
pre-loved Maggie
—she'll graduate
quite parched,
assuredly vagarious,
modeling merkins
for period piece ****.

And her roman candle
will sadly go unlit.

A little sonder
goes a long way
in understanding you, him, her
--anyone not me;
your hands have their
own feel and peril;
your eyes, their sui generis orbit
with this world (of ours)
spinning on a differing axis;
and returning its sorrow,
its pleasure,
in an unabridged box
named after obscurities,
known only to you (not me);
the frustration of photographing
this amazing moment sets in
when I realize it already exists,
randomly,
vividly,
in every single person I daily see;
and their uniqueness
cannot be annulled.

Oil
Exhaust
Handstand theatre
In the back of a van
Underground avenue
Has the scent of
Stale black licorice
Melted into the sidewalk
The familiar odor of traffic
Is a pedestrian substitute
For the Old World charm
This renovated place
Paved over
Long
Ago

Mellifluous. Imperishable.

Drink to love, madly.

Façade of innocence, preserved by trickery.

Escape the gallows.

Bewed another, one of White Hands.

Jealous wife, she lies.
"It carries a black sail."

Turn away and indeed perish.

Embraceable you. She follows him unto death.

Two trees grow out of their graves.

So intertwined their branches, they can not be parted by any means.

Keeper of time
Has lost his mind.
He no longer ticks.
He sighs.
He questions.
He swears a little.
Does he know who he is?
Not precisely.
I tell him he's a law, a sage, a determiner.
He's even the reason
I get up in the morning.
He says he'll get back to me.
When? I ask.
Ah, there's the rub...

Ever since I moved to a different time period, I get the strangest mail.

Letters commissioning Michelangelo
to paint the Sistine Chapel.

Elizabeth Bennet's missive to her aunt
promising pony cart rides at Pemberley.

Long lost IRS tax forms belonging to Abbott and Costello.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Job Application to the Duke of Milan.

Even Grace Bedell's charming correspondence to Abraham Lincoln, suggesting he grow a beard.

I should have known something was up once I discovered Karl Malone was my mailman.