A light is on me
Radiant solitude
Illuminates me
I stand in absence
Of my shadow

Whole but
Incomplete
I exist, solid
Tactile reality
And longing

A part of me
Is missing
I can’t touch it
But, I feel its
Vacancy

I am incomplete

And still—
I dream in outlines
Of your touch,
A warmth I’ve never
Held, yet carry
Everywhere.

Across the distance
You are both presence
And ache, and
A pulse inside desire,
A voice in my silence.

I miss you—
Perfect stranger,
As if the missing
Was always you,
And I have only now
Learned its name

No matter what your station in life
always do your best every day
Pick up socks, lend a helping hand
call a friend, ... go for a walk

No matter how you hurt inside
smiling will help you heal
Find a nature spot you love, sit  
trust in God, have faith in you

No matter what they tell you
own your own truth, don't settle
Give love a chance, spend wisely
be good to others and to yourself.

I can't leave aside the latitude of your eye
where roads and memories reside
my dreams
more than my shadow crash into you
my lips conjure your scent
my insinuated hand  does not hold
does not hold anything tangible
words are wounds, the meanings flow
angles intersect and lines converge
to the proof or woof of your existence
in this poem the words laugh
at the fragile calculus of tears
as if they would celebrate the question mark
in an unfinished sentence
I wonder where your touch begin, how far
the eye can stretch into the camera obscura of flesh

Take an aspirin and shave for the show,
drink black coffee, rehearse the grin.
For office light's embalming-glow,
take an aspirin and shave for the show.
Staple the tremors, make blood flow.
Bleach out the sweat for the boardroom spin.
Take an aspirin and shave for the show,
drink black coffee, rehearse the grin.

He put up
An art piece sign
In the New York subway
That read
PLEASE DONT SMILE AT STRANGERS
And it barely raised a grin
Most sagely nodded
Then stared down
At their screens again.

In the white theatre of the gale,
a barn’s vermilion gates
and the woolen scarlet of kin
stand like beacons to the lost.

The air is a script of whirling ash,
yet in the hearth’s small kingdom
rosehip constellations drift
through the dark gold sea of tea —

                      omens of return,
of warmth wrested
          from the storm’s        
                               dominion.





.

In the Amazon there's a moth
who lives by drinking the night-tears
of sleeping birds.

By day she's folded asleep
deep in green minarets where purple frogs
sweat pearls of poison.

If she dreams, it's only by accident.
At dawn the birds fly up, eyes
opened by song, tears given

without intent or knowledge
as I give mine, silver life
to the mouths of memories.



March, 2024

Never liked horses
they reminded me
of all the women I rode

They would buck
and bray
they would disagree
and say
neigh neigh neigh

They would toss
me to the ground
Stomp and rear
make horrible
sounds

Best when
unbridled
unsaddled
left to roam
free