I sense this world is not what it seems
This sugar-plum Home, some counterfeit dream
Where I might have played
        dress-up in mother's closet
And pretended to be grown -- like her
And beautiful -- like her

Where I might have had enough to eat
        Safe inside a child's sleep
My sparrow's heart tucked in with a story

Tonight I drank the star-studded sky
As the need for why
        dissolved in my cup
Now is enough --

I have been warned
Not to make my mouth
A funeral for the truth

But how dull
        the unembellished life
A birth          A death
And time's pranks between
What is left when the lies
        are struck?
Lethal mediocrity

I am standing at the precipice
And you are my vertigo
Pulling me to leap headlong
        Into passion's brume below --

When you are near
My blood buzzes
And I am more than just
        alive --
I have become a conduit
For all that love implies --

My unfurled heart is shot
        clean through
The edges of all my thoughts
        now contain you --

I 

              spilled          some
                                         words
        on                  the

Floor and
                                               as they lay
                    they
                                    ­  surmount
     all
I've    ever     written.



                                 ...and I lay down my pen for a broom.

The distance from here
To sleep is epic tonight
Three a.m.
Dreams aborted
Tomorrow's lines
One thought thick
Toss and turn
Toss and turn
The whole world drowses
While I stand guard --

There is no melancholy
Deeper than that of
The sleepless, exiled
To ebon outposts
Forlornly counting
Disinclined sheep --

A single birch leaf
Floated to my sill
Today.

It made my summer
Knees wobble as it sang
September's denouement --

It laughed at me so
Mired in time and
Said,

Don't worry
Little one,
You will know
My secret
One day --