Just there like a sparkle in her eye
I was,
a moist glow a tear about to fall
a shine,
She made me what I felt
a heart glow,
Most careful when viewed
in her eye,
incredible the feeling
beautiful,
poised on the precipice
of her,
time

never been there
West Virginia
or anywhere like your heart

covered bridges
ancient ridges
all those lonely miles

between the coasts
I wonder what every mile
every smile is like

a coal miner's daughter
miles tick
the odometer

as I traverse
states
many ladies addresses

all forgotten as
I go now with only
one destination

while many the limbs do speak their blues in lonesome woods
as leaves this time of year fall away from twig from view
decay in shades of purple hues under naked boughs and still
strong bare trunks under grayer skies and more nights news
the tree does see her next year already the buds growing a new
harvest of tender sprouts and flowers perhaps a brighter
year and winter rests through her bareness upon the ground for once turns it brown footsteps of squirrels and claws still visit
anon their slumbering upon her bark like flesh tender hearing
the time clock say its time to rest again and let us renew
under whitefall flakes and frost and dew renew a limb
broke off last year let a few months slumber begin and anew
neat spring spry forward more glorious and stronger
more colorful like life which has this seasons plan and days in sun
all arranged and days in rest brown naked and ways we just can't understand
but nature...
does

which period shall I resound the four
verses one, the rhyme?  shall I use parentheses
or just write free, might I space
or italicize or leave this un-glamorized?

I walk down the long six-story concrete steps
a step at a time divining
the barren apartment
the govt spends
its money on above hovering

You think I want to live here
in this danger rat infestation
its free but that don't make me happy
I have a baby
and the world calls me a freeloader

obviously, I have decided to
write this in stanzas
it doesn't flow like the steps
this woman walks down daily
I do my best

sometimes I sleep with men when the cupboards bare
I decided to break the flow up

for why
I don't know

I have gone two weeks without diapers before and my baby
I would do anything for her so don't judge me. I
am not a *****.

I am trying to survive.  

Again I interrupt her story to inject-
poetry has to make a difference, it often doesn't rhyme, it
isn't made to be  syllables and meters.
It is to make a difference. Let me shut up.
let her speak.

I didn't mean to bring a child into this hell. But I gave in
to one night of weakness, Now I am stuck  on the sixth floor here in this bleak *** building with no hope no
idea how I might make her life better.
I have tried god.

All I have now are the streets.

The streets are brutal.

Can't see the dawn
from the angle of dusk
Even harder to believe--
it could see me?
Why would sunrise care about its setting?

“I think you'd hafta be flyin', er sumpthin'

Maybe if I banked a 180
gazing into that new east?
Okay--

I know it's not

I could still see the reflections
of where it was
of warmth and color where it used to be?
Okay--

...and now I'm just the warmth of the reflected
disorientation

--*******, that poetry-killing six syllable word!

Ya wanna pass that joint
before I land this heap without My wheels down”

wander down with gentle rains
along the furrows dug along those
long straight rows out
back

I seep and trickle
flow among each drop
seek the lowest spot
and gather

low with my kin
follow gravity to its
beginning

to the neediest root
the dryest eye
make tears

a pied pipers eye
to cry at the  drop of a
small seed

into the next cloud
to serenade
each fallen hero

making life renew
stop
and look

becoming
moist
I am

just dew
and heaven
mists

once was told
(i heard his voice snappy)
            how mountains made small hills
and valleys
     flowers and tributaries
how
            (smallest of flows might)
calm winds often upon
                                       the moon's left side
( tons of soil) make
a day
so

that certain decorum the chug of
progress down tracks leading
far off growing together perspectives
as if horizons have personality
persona decorative mustaches
on poster board canvases in chalk
scribbled concrete bridge abutments
how the man on the hill chants come here
a cloudy guru like quality you
want need to believe fall for
because the tobacco-stained sidewalks
no longer describe your path
so you take refuge in homeless shelters
eat sup in soup kitchens in torn jeans
long unkempt hair and a bath
might be nice
the lentil soup may smell better
how you know constantly there up high
behind the glass in the steel sky eye
a man sits knowingly
pulling strings
yanking the tongues
out of your independence
just playing
like god
you huff
puff
and stare
completely...

I suppose there has to be a reason
or at least a note
to mark that day--

He ate his breakfast
She let him out
He walked along the railing like the plank
defying death for pleasure
of his lady's company
to get his belly rubbed
sprawled long
across her lap

She released him
to chase the squirrels of his dreams
to his black cat adventures
to the aching green of life's
late summer ways

But, the days assemble against your return

May the angels find you quickly
my darling, Bailey
Dark beauty of coal
I was a Tuesday, bereft
You disappeared--
like the shadow of a whisper

Disappeared like hope--
in the last blow of day