Have you had enough,
I'm okay,
the pianos
are in baritone.

I wait on the shores.

I believe that anger
is a result
of intensity.

The heart knows
no
flower
better
than
anger.

So,
I work it,
I put the anger in my belly
and put
whiskey
in there
to dull it.

I have had loves,
but I wake up to you.

I have known
heartbreak
but steel is inside of me.

I could break
because it is inside of me
to break.

But i am not angry
to break over you.

I can pick apart
objective pieces in others,
but the sculpture of you
is too real
to understand.

I could say I love you,
that's a lie,
I need you
in order to become a better me.

i know I could've been the one
who caught
the bullet
instead of you.

I could've been in the crossfire
of hate.

Trayvon
will you forgive
me
for walking up to the ABC store
in a hoodie and jeans.

I hate that the world
has become a place of suspicion.

I wish that love
could
conquer
stereotypes.

I wish my love
could
conquer
racism
and
misplaced
suspicion.

i could've been the man
shot down.

That's why it's so important
to don
a hoodie
in 80 degrees
because the degree of separation
isn't that much
of
a
degree.

It's better to back
into you
with all the lights on.

The headlights
swerving
like
doves.

The taillights making devil's eyes.

The **** in the ashtray
and
its
ruby.

It's better to pull into the driveway
while your husband
is
asleep.

He doesn't get up to take
a ****
in the night.

It's better to back into your guest bedroom,
with my back turned,
the boogie man in the closet is a
****** psychologist,
and may just spoil it
if we go looking for him.

It's better to back into the bed,
because I can drink the coffee
in your eyes.

You can sober yourself
over mine
if you want to.

It's better
not to back into
saying goodbye.

It's better to dismantle the brakes
and **** ourselves
over it,
than this constant reversing.

So,
over a slow goodbye
you grind your teeth
because you are no yellow light.

I would like to think
you have thick skin,
but you wear a perfume
like burning rubber,
and I know the backing in
is not your speed.

It's not mine.

Battalions of rust
make war
on the Old Ford pick-up.

It becomes a sculpture
of
sunrise.

Judgement is not poetry.

Poetry is bird-watching
and
quail-hunting.

A poet observes lovers
preening wings,
and holding beaks,
because a beak
does not break easily,
and lovers
only touch each other
with
unbreakable things.

A poet
hunts
and feels the weight
of a thousand wings
as she shoots them out of
the sky.

So paranoia is for the poet.

Pain is for the poet.

Love is the bible.

Fear is the safety
the poet
never clicks on.

A poet does not judge these things
to be true;
judgement is discernment
and for placing value
and poetry is not a
crime
or
a
rose.

The poet knows his arsenal
as he traces across the sky
in the unbreakable mouth of his love,
and falls
by his own gun.

Write every chance you get,
there aren't many.

Write when you
have a quiet moment
by yourself.

Write when you
are
in
the
queue;
life is about waiting.

Write when you are in bed;
take your pen
and
close your eyes.

By morning
you will have forgotten
more poems than you have written
but
you will still be a writer.

Write when you are getting a haircut;
all that hair has a story.

Write while you watch a woman.

Write while you watch a woman
lugging a rolling suitcase.

Imagine what is in there,
what is so important to her
that she must roll it around
in the darkness?

If you get the chance,
write in New York.

New York is writers writing about writers.

Write when the
most
beautiful
girl
turns around
and
gives you
heaven.

Write because heaven is costly;
heaven is elusive.

Write because heaven is rich
and know that you will be there
again.

Write because of anyways, well-****-it-thens, and don't-call-me-ever-agains.

Write when there is nothing
to write about,
there is always something
to write about.

If your writing is ****
feel freedom
instead of
disappointment.

We ****
to make space
for
reason.

I feel like our relationship
was too short.

Too many times did I take
your
******* in my fingers
and listen
for the ocean.

Your stomach
was fired in a kiln,
and still tastes like heat.

In your bed
we made out,
with t-shirts on,
and I slid my fingers
underneath cotton
because I wanted to
play in your belly button
and work the clay.

I know that you like to
Dance in fields
with cotton
on your lips
and talk to God.

Talk to him
in a subterfuge
of light,
and not in the marrow
of darkness.

Our relationship was too short,
because we snuck liquor
into dark theatres,
and left bottles in the aisles
like empty artillery.

We kissed in your car
and never cleaned up.

I had breakfast over at your house once,
and met your mother twice.

And it seems the alpine
was too much for me,
because I never took you to the mountains
even when you asked.

Carolyn,
when I see you
again,
I will take you to Appalachia;
as far from the ocean
as we can humanly get.

Carolyn when I see you
again,
I will not eat the fruit
of the fired bowl,
and will not
think of playing
with clay.