you hear in my voice that i know you
if your ears don't
the rest of your body does

you can read my words
say i love you
but you say yes
yes because

you ache for me
you miss my lips
on your lips
and the turn-a-round
way that you feel

I'm the quiver
between your thighs
and the bright spot
on your mind

blowby smells
like gasoline slowly burning
that rarely happens

i once put a small flame
out with gasoline
when i tried to repeat
this magic
for a friend
i nearly burnt down
the entire back yard

it felt
like an emergency

sunlight spills from
her eyes
her words
drip honey
her lips are
fire
i wish she would burn
me down
with all of her kisses

chewing her words she bit her lip
then trying not to bite her lip once again, she bit her cheek. still chewing the same, she couldn't stop bothering the hole in her cheek with her tongue.
which she bit soon enough.
what could have been a fine sentence,
one made to make someone feel good,
wound up coming out of that grinder,
covered in spit and blood.

your man
courts you in silence
because his words don't fit in your wallet.

your man
courts you in the future
because his now doesn't strike your now's fancy anvil with it's patina of past

your man
courts you while walking in sin
because to the icy gospel truth: real,
he is a lie

your man
courts you
nevertheless.

your man
courts you because he loves you
not as an object,
but as the subject matter of the story
that has been written in his heart

sleepy, feverish
smiling nonetheless
she lay me down
with almost loving concern
i offer money
feigned anger with humor in a look
leaving again to get groceries
possibly turn a trick
this florence nightingale Christmas ******
stays and nurses me for a week
i remember meeting her
in a bar in Seoul
we liked the same jazz
not a word of each other's slipped away unoticed
nor understood
she was authentic and made of beauty
light played around her
we never tried to-ruin it
she was leaving i could sense it
i put a thousand in her purse while she fixed her tear stained eyes
i couldn't fix mine

i met eyes with myself in the mirror this morning
we had a moment where time seemed to freeze
i saw that he'd got back his bearings
he saw I'd filled back up with light
we leaned back and laughed then kept staring
as yesterday limped out of sight
dragging away its bag of dry bones

him is at the end of the sentence
him knows at the end of this day
whatever the verdict
now it
never mattered
him's debt is undoubtedly paid

her left out the parts with her name on them
him knew what was his just the same
none of that mattered
not where it landed
at least that's what she said she said she said

now is not the time for tears
bind whatever is broken
prop yourself up
your confidence seems to be flagging
a death sentence for straw dogs and hollowmen
such as we

blithely turning toward a closer ground she measured her body in the mirror's reflection for the inside capacity (adequate at any), of the ornate casket she had ordered to have intricately carved and lavishly inlaid.
she was in a fantastic space for a good-natured case of the ****-its. 
Dani was dying.
she was small in stature and large in awkward.
jotting the numbers down,
her eyes - just a bit of dust 
smiling through and reaching for 
the coin she tossed 
-her way out the door.
     god how she mystifies me.
in awe, slack-jawed and my face hurts from laughing with her.
it's like a hundred million tiny yellow butterflies were released at penelope's wedding to a sky of falling ashes from a small grass fire next county over. 
     that's what i feel like when she laughs. i am going to miss her when she goes-
i can't really wrap myself around a comprehensive strategy for creating a space within myself that will be without her. 
i have lost interest in trifling 
i spend my time at a job that's just a good reason to walk that far. 
     i come home with fresh fish and flowers and a couple of album finds from "the pig and the gator" record store.  
guy clarke, Willie's 
"redheaded stranger", and an early Romones e.p.
     Dani loved, i mean loves records. so do i. ****. loved. that sort of tears me up that i wrote that. 
     anyhow, we crack beers and eat fish and listen and talk and laugh and spend the rest of most nights trying to find my disappeared dog Luke Sidewalker. i miss him so incredibly deeply that my gut hurts so as to nearly stop me from breathing.
     i feel that i am so many people when i am with her.
     that's the mystic. she sort of leads me to where i am most comfortable in her presence. she showed me where.
that you could be in pieces and not get nervous about it. 
     i can't imagine tomorrow. and i can no longer remember yesterday,
but as the ******* ghost of this day;
i hold no real promise. 
this is it. 
     here she is; opening the door as she thumb flips her coin with something near to indifference. bloww.
she puts a smile on me like she's swinging a haymaker. 
"tails", she whispers. she is looking at me as if there is something worth looking at. 
she hands her coin to me.
tails. 
butterflies and ashes.

i am Spring
i am the second son of autumn
a representative of pollen and dawn
I am old friends with the longest day of summer
I have known the icy night of winter
since before he grew
into his dark and starstrewn coat
I am spring
I speak the language of bees and everything blooming
all things that are living will quiver
with desire and promise
today i am keeping that promise
sap from the root to the tree  
sap from the tree to the leaves  
invitation from the leaves to the sun
to the sun

once i get everything rolling
the earth gets a little more juicy

horse flagging hard in these hard boundry lands
holding trace leather; with these gnarled bad hands
spirit nearly broken from this seemingly endless long ride

seeking shade from the sun
but the shade from my saddle can't hide:

the hole in my ribcage
or the lines in my face
no tell (**** I'm weary), sit saddle, betraying no trace
of the years i have gathered
or the miles-

i have ridden alone
gone hungry
been cold
this ain't the first time
i've ridden...
but this time I'll die,

as well will my brothers
don't it hurt to discover
that it always all comes to an end?
and there ain't no one  reason
to lie to myself,
to lie to myself
or pretend

no, there isn't one reason
to lie by myself
or pretend
that there ain't no more reasons

going as i see fit
working the inside
wonder as purpose
nearer my self to thee
dreamfuel merepond

relaxed as i near
my path becomes me
color and sound
and bright tastings

follow my fingertips
as they trace
their own ways
through spirit
wandering smile
stardrift and space

eyes wide twinkling
with admired images
of those things loved and loving
their own recreation
in my singular
and most individual mindlight

i made a small fire with all
of the paper messages
that you ever left for me:
tiny flame flickering-smells like lipstick and cigarettes and hollow words.

everything you wrote to me makes up my list in its entirety:
the most recent things
that I am going to forget.

mad and tiny toed
she came to share my asylum sleeping place
a wonder in the moonlight's dust-ride
a wrangler of the dreaming

winterworn and coatless,
i slept soundless,
wept tearless,
woke restless;
for the hinges of time's doorways creaked non-stop with our leaving

heart is heavy
a trainload of lead
better get an adjustment
listen a little
get out of my head.

my love is in lock-up
gotta spring her today
do what i must do
do what it takes

walk through what is before me
with great gratitude
lessen the gravity
these are my shoes

waiting on nothing
yet the waiting's worthwhile
working at forgetting
last year's
wasted time
a bloodletting

stripped of  your innocent wrapper
a snake that has molted
its skin
you somehow seem to have convinced me
of what a worthless waste it is
attempting to wring something sweeter out of this senseless death-trap

the shadow of your cowardice
and lack of sincerity rides the memory of our loving
like the moon rides the earth
******* the sun's light for itself
at once cheap and
parasitic

i hate myself for believing you

harvest your own lack of loyalty
and
betrayal trappings
you will glean
all that you brought me--trouble is caustic
an unbridled acid tongue bleeding

that trouble shall hunt you
all of your days that remain
the sign you leave
being easy to track
as the world's last beast

if love were fish and the bones of them
love's memory would swim through multi-colored cascading  
cathedral fountains
floating by
suspended
with lighted bell shaped alure
and small lips good for kissing

love's memory would swim through
tiny myopic refractions
of shattered life
broken by shafts of
twinkling light that has
no set source

when all of my sacred seemed heresy
nightime came out in his boots

hyenas and jackals
and wolves and curs
laughing and yapping and howling
their din
the sole noise in that darkness
save the blood singing inside of my ears

those canine predators lope easy, in endless pursuit of my courage
which has flagged after waning these years

i fight the urge to lay down
shake my head
turn around
and walk on bones
worm eaten by years

into the caress of this moonless oblivion
knowing that i am more hungry for bravery

after a turn without stumbling
though i cannot see
i return to this place
turning back
a thin man in a dream

smoke rising as i lay down
a signal sent to no one

sweating and breathing hard
from a walk up the hill
running down leaks in the line
the pressure is up
where it's supposed to be
i better get water this time

three days without
with the heat
as it is
news travels slow on this side
but i know what i need
to finish the job
and squeeze out without notice
in the dark on the quiet
high tide

Curious with night things,
Manuel and his dog dug up the returned.
Their eased mind's local was already watered. 
Gladys and the mighty
came awake for the recognitions.
The returned gave praises to Manuel and his curiosity.
They ate breakfast for dinner together. 
Soul as food.
Break your bread.
Break your back.
Set your table. 
Lickety split was.
Manuel and his dog are.
Gladys and the mighty is:
allow always...loci.