When the stars decide to leave.  
In the sky of a world my mind weaves.
The ghost there are not really ghost.
Just forgotten angels fluttering around this starlight coast.

Constellations lose their specks.
Darkness and separations distance the flecks.
Creating new constellations.
In heavenly reveries of my imagination.

I stand on the shoals of your dream ocean.
Waiting for your wave and to feel your emotion.
The way your touch made me alive.
Together forever as we both arrive.

Above us:
Wrong time,
wrong place.

For now, it’s safer
keeping our secrets.
Tension builds,
and in just a bit
it will all pour out.

Don’t look into my eyes
if you don’t want to share your story.
With every gaze, the gap is closing.

Something unvoiced is flowing.
The pendulum sways.
Is there life left?
Is it still a warm place,
or an illusory glow?

If you don’t want to let someone
into your territory,
please turn your head,
turn your eyes.

Seeing right through, you betray
who you were
and who you became.

in ventura every night you leave us outside
post pandemic with this law
that these people have leveraged
interest into the legislature
we exist confronting a housing collapse,
mortgaged slavery of our seconds
titled as dead parcel's with violated civil rights frames
the assault on the person is this eminent domain
of failed body boundry by the non profits and legislator irwin

thanks for the prison break and bondslavery visits with the hillside stranglers, green river killer disciples and mimics and government corruption fixated and ownership of the lightswitch and realestate  of my country.  i am not for sale

I keep asking the stars—
why give me a heart
so fluent in love,
yet no one who understands the language?

I pour oceans into people
who don’t even bring a cup,
craving a reflection
that’s always walking away.

The universe made me
desperate,
tender,
wide open—
then placed me in a world
of half-hearts and dead ends.

I dream of being chosen
the way I choose,
seen the way I stare
into souls
like it’s scripture.

But I’m stuck—
in limerence,
in longing,
in the kind of hope
that keeps whispering
“maybe next time”
until eternity fades
and I’m still waiting
for love
that mirrors mine.

the girls I danced with
I never wrote songs about

the girls I kissed under bursts of fireworks
I never won carnival prizes for

the girls I entered the sheets with
I never made a deeper connection

the girls who gave me their best
I never understood their motives

and I wondered where they all went and
why we parted ways like cathedral doors
and why they took the hand of other monsters and vanished into the night.

I was too naive to notice
all the red flags waving behind me
and too dense to turn around
and open my eyes.

but now I face this dry vacancy
and I see they’re
intertwined with their domestics
constricted with their marriages
taunting their husbands
commanding their boyfriends
obsessed with their photo albums
cramming belief and guidance into their children

its the same unabridged story
told over and over
and over and over
again.

I too, sit with this adverse outcome:
this one wants me to quit drinking
and that one wants me on a diet
and this one wants me to get a better job
and that one wants me to exercise more.

I’ve never been one to rest on my laurels,
but as I lay down in this bed with this one
like so many buried cold beneath the Earth,
I can’t stop thinking of those angels from my past that have flown off into other heavens.

I was never deserving
of their time nor
their presence

and I am neither
here nor
there.

Tonight, I lie in bed and
scribble in a black spiral
notebook.
Why is cruelty easy for
some? Like laying down
a card.

One of my three cats,
Mojo
sits sleepily on
my old maple desk.
She is all black.
The computer screen is
black.
So are the speakers,
microphone,
and a coffee cup that
sits on the desk.

Above my dresser is a
quote by Hemingway.

"There is nothing to writing.
All you have to do is sit down
at a typewriter and bleed."

It's on black paper.

I've had the room set up
this way for over a year.
I'm just noticing all the
blackness.
Midnight in Nod.
It could be because I miss
my daughter.  She's seven.
All the black fades away when
I think about her smile
and those eyes that laugh at the
rain.

I notice that my shirt
is emerald green, with a
few drops of red.

Plop
Plop

Plop.

Out of nowhere
a thought of you
will hit my mind,
like a poison dart.
I don't know what
triggers it.
Tonight, I think it's
the cold wind blowing
outside my window.
Or, it could be the
tangerine I just ate.
That sweet juice.
It doesn't last
though.
Gone in a flash.
Too small for a
lifetime together.
And I'm alone with
this bright orange pain,
vowing never to write
about you again.

First frost
riming the landscape
A white dawn
Announced by the crow's harsh call
The waning moon hanging
In a cloudless sky
As the rising sun's rays
Twinkle on the frosted fields.