Scared of nothing
or sometimes
anything,
you somehow know
what's made for
climbing.

Your thunderstorm
of giggles
booms our sleepy
spirits,
insists that it's morning,
and therefore, time to
laugh.

Little girls,
you stir me
with electric
beauty bolts,
shock me into sharing,
then soothe my
scared-of-nothing
with ambushes
of touch.

You have no clue
just how your
brazen
boyish
bouncing
bombing,
dares me to dancing,
demands me my best.

We lounged around like careless gods
in southern heat
in low-rent kitchens,
splurging and
wasting each other like money.

We suggested pale plans
to eat some food
or move to the porch,
just to keep the rhythm going.

We gorged ourselves
on yesterday's jokes
and tomorrow's deadlines,
were sleepy and sated,
back before we got grown.

It's nice to know,
that while i've grown duller,
the stuff inside of me
is still bright-red.

Like film
and candy tins,
old dull things
seem more
on purpose.

With a candle
we shuffle,
against
a Roman wind,
when it goes out,
we return to the fire
to start
to shuffle
again.

novels are rocks
to be kicked and chipped,
impress that they remain.

poems accumulate
like ash,
are made to breeze away.

In grayer skies,
I squint less,
dress warmer,
laugh more.

I asked someone to kiss me
and they did.

Ofcourseofcourseofcourse.

I used to find freckles
and write them down.

Now that I weather
like wood,
I find I prefer
weathered wood.

I should be surprised,
but I don't do that anymore.

Old men like me
stare at maps,
find battlefields
and forests,
start planning
trips.

You were stern
when we were young
and spared not a rod,
but when you moved,
for us,
you boomed like miracles.

Later, you calmed,
and willed us
your wealth,
tried to share
how to share,
and we stubborn
and stupid,
wielded your love
like bludgeons.

Now modern,
full-grown,
we trace only
our ugliest genes
back to you.

And you,
old and dying,
can climb no mounts,
have nothing new to say,
and we don't call you
anymore.

your armory of sneers
is like the statues in the alcoves
of notre dame.

sure, they're all different,
but people only notice
one or two.

Nettles on your legs,
sawgrass in you speaks,
can't you see
for all your weeding,
your garden overgrows?

My neighbors find me strange
but grow to know me
as another friendly stray,
pacing and glancing,
smiling at my feet,
slumped and
overslept.

Every little
noising,
some dried-out
decision.

tragedy,
like joy,
is built
in tiny
parts,

you can never
track
just how
it happened.

life is full of swallow hazards,
plastic pieces,
straight lines,
sharp edges.

I flip you
like pages,
you make me
ticker tape
dizzy.

A four word risk
has ached at me for months,
stripped wire,
a fraying rope of
half a try.

God save the paper hearts
that smudge so sorry,
that follow on faith
the reckless breezes,
that soak up our histories,
and rip when wet.

I love all things
cheap
bright
and
fragile.

each knife gray morning
and slate gray night,
i held vigil on a treetop
bare and swaying.

kept time with its nausea
til it was my nausea too.

i watched the sea horizon
for glints of gun scopes
and unfriendly flags.

hungry others,
who wanted me and mine,
for their cabinets.

they did come,
i think.

i heard them play kings around me,
curing as much as they caused,
humming some friendly ******* patois.

it didn't matter much by then.

i watched the sea horizon,
my newer me and mine.

We negotiated natural wonders
and local history,
settled on county museums,
filled our days with boring
plans
to be somewhere new,
but not get distracted.

I found the pearls I bought you
in a dusty dresser,
next to letters,
pulled them out
and showed you,
was surprised
how well that worked.

Making lists
of things I like
to buy on tees
one day.

I gently **** your snakebites
to taste as brave as
you.

"What right do you claim,
to mug so little
and swallow yourself,
to make us **** and beg
to find your
thinking guts,
as if you contain
any multitude
that wouldn't fit
on this table?"

"And you?
What right?
To slosh yourself
clumsy,
over paid-for
digestif,
to gorge the air
with your tongue,
and pass on lean,
to leave so drunk and ask
me
to clean my table of you?"

Wood-fired summers,
spiral iron curtains,
cloudy watercolors,
a stride away from certain,
brazen vinyl blearing,
lazing under searing,
sighing over greening,
reading over fleeing,
gritty teeth and halfway crying,
brand new air and album trying,
one foot keeping
in your hiding,
noses stretching into braving,
loudest laughing,
neighbor waving,
counts-as-living,
public sinning,
barefoot breathing,
hornet seething,
coffee filling,
spirit swilling,
someone
smelling
later
grilling.
.
the safest sort of being,
only just outside a door.

When you find the shape,
the dirt,
the light
you need,
you'll want
to give
the same
to something
else.

When my father finds
he has the wrong tool,
he mumbles to himself,
shuffles to the workbench,
comes back with something else.

I want to shave you
'as iron unto iron.'

Let'***** each other
just enough
to scrape new skin,
get real sharp.

I remember
our soggy ears,
barefoot braving
the asphalt,
jumping
from white line
to white line,
checking
with our
angels
how much
longer
we could be
brown,
loud,
and young.

Always admire,
and never
respect,
a man with a
bag or
case.

Men without bags
or cases,
do whatever
feels right.

After the linens,
I turned out my pockets,
was reminded
where I found you
and how much it cost.

There's a river city
close enough
to pin my sloppy
dreams on.

Seeping through my starving eyes,
the neighbor props up windows,
walks around my veins in slippers,
seems to already know
which corners give
the best light
for reading.

I'd change clothes
more often,
if you would only
come around,
make days
not all the
same.

Edward G. Robinson,
in an apron.

Let us not forget this man,
this onetime massacrist,
now a nervous painter,
now a lonely cashier.

Fritz fries the city
in chiaroscuro rain,
and Little Caesar
offers us a tattered
umbrella.

His hurt face
his hurting-face,
are barely distinct,
a furrowed brow
a sparking heart.

They've come to remind us,
that artists are heroes
and stupid in love.

The lines of your body
swerve and sway,
but I have found my faith,
and all roads lead home.

I try to capture
which one glimmers
but I'm always
a sequin behind.

......

I followed you from table to table
like a kitestring unbound.
You seemed to soar, to dip,
to rocket,
flirting earth and heaven
like a half-fallen angel.

Then the night blew out
and you stalled atop it,
and like dew,
glistened down
gently upon me.

......

Tiny shiny paper
on the dress
on the floor,
waterfalling
quicksilver
from the night before.

I wake to ask you
which one glimmers
but the dress
has somewhere gone.

I close my eyes
to dizzy shimmers
chase them ever
on and on.

You fanged at me so proud,
but I only eat poison,
I only kiss snakes.

I'd like to learn
the names
of trees
and bugs,
so I can have
new words
for the place
I always am.

I read a poem
about silence
aloud,
sat down,
held my breath,
wrote this.

When you can't ever
seem to
prune yourself,
then just
grow grow grow.

You washed
your hair
in your
dream,
but I
did the
same
just now.

On the best back way to the park
I met an old well-meant friend,
gave him greetings, condolences,
and directions,
everything I'd found since.

I walked down
every single aisle,
couldn't find anything
I needed.

You can't clean yourself
with plaster
and tile falls
like water.

Drops drop in, out,
around,
the whole shape of me,
tracing my creases and
loving my lines.
That, and nothing more.

I soap myself silent
and refuse to be jealous
of how well water
knows me.

i found a friend
while sitting still
and now i ache
awake,
trailing after talking,
complaining about the weather.

Corsairs align
across a french horn army,
tympani cannonades
and fluting rifles.

Pennants slap proud
against whistling breezes,
while boots pack home
firmer beneath them.

Sloops slice the harbors
under sandstone towers,
and the minarets gleam
stubborn, unworried,
in the face of new ruin.

something pretty
something scary
breaks in me like bread,
i can't stop crying,
can't stop laughing,
or slinging poems
like sticks and
stones.