The distance may have had no visible edge
As the dust was stirred into a plague
And the reasons seemed dim
And tattered by the storm

And we trudged on through every mile
Using only our wits to beguile
While the sun looked down
baking our desires with resolve

We looked up to face the sun
Cracked lips and blistered skin hung
From the bones and sinewy thoughts
Of the dammed destined to be lost

One by one we fell and died
While the lake mirages flat out lied
And the scorpions taunted us so
"You fools you've got no where to go"

And the coolness of the evening
Came to late except for the grieving
And all it could do
Was hover over the dead

There was no guilt nor any innocence
There was only the reality of circumstance
That death is a certainty
While life is not

So the sun rose on another day
Everything will in time have it's say
But this morning the desert
remained silent in it's refuge

I was just wondering , tell me the truth,
if you were not a poet might you still love
as deep?
If you did not feel the words sworn by
Dylan Thomas , or slobber when
E. E. Cummings comes  (hey)
or wonder how Emily kept all those
words in her breast all those years-
might you just be another drone gathering
real estate or gold?
I ask you now, might
you have been happier then ,
with a Mercedes Benz, as Janis,
tongue in cheek, asked God for?
and not feel just a little bit for Woodstock playing
memories on Youtube at six in the morning
drinking your last beer?

i slept with scissors on my bed
just to see.
to wake up in a new cut.
just to see
if danger is a true concept
if a surprise is something real.

i did sleep with scissors on my bed
because i have a tendency to move around a lot;
just to see
if the blade would try to kiss my rib
to quiet me down;

just to see
if fire really burns;
just to see
if what runs inside my veins
hasn't disappeared yet.
what i saw
was that it is better to sleep with scissors
than to wake up by my own.

I stare into the shadows
and remember
the Panhandle dust
that made them,
fuzzy now,
around the edges.

The mural that somehow
felt sacred on fire
the tumbleweeds in your
eyes as they rolled to
look into the distance.

How the lightening
struck your hair and
left it white overnight,
and the way you clawed
to find the door to
anywhere
else...

I remember the trip home,
how the early spring wind
howled through the empty
windows, the necklace
around my neck
the cherry red
ball of vines
awaiting my return,
as if to say
yes, he was here,
but now he is gone...
and gone is what he is,
will always be,
but here,
here is a bite of me
to always remember
those tears that echoed
in silence.