Ever onward into a sea of reverie
Where raindrops fall bronze by the light of the evening sky.
You and I were ghosts to the most colors we could find and that's fact.
We stopped at the green lights and flew at the red ones.
We drew a flood on the face of the desert
and danced to the sounds of the northern lights
those ever pulsating bass drums
that kept telling us it's time to wrap things up
because the end has come and new things are on the horizon.
Within all things are other things and all those things are galaxies.
A universe within a single cell amongst a million others
and they all make you.

So bless us this day our daily bed
and lead us not into nightmares
but deliver us from fear.
For thine is the brightness
The curiosity
And the adventure forever.
Amen.

Blue vessels, loving lights.
They all drifted away by the current that led them.
I watched them blink out off into the distance.
Hearts like a thousand spheres of color shining into a blackened night,
Piercing into it the dreams they carried.
Trailing behind them their intrepid wake.

The beautiful mystery of reckless dancing and ridiculous laughter.
Such is life, and such is my hope to see them again.

These are the delighted memories
that play games with each other
in my head and in my heart
bubbling with connection
these are the gifts
that keep me.

A pin ***** of an emotion,
Like the nomination of a leader.
Like a call to move forward,
Is this sensation's invite.

Follow the weave of these piano strings,
To find the stars in these longings that seem,
So eerily unattainable.

You know it as well as I.
The spark to light a flame,
And the scent to wake a memory.
A memory to invoke desire,
And desire to seek an end.

Follow the weave of these piano strings,
To find the stars in these longings that seem,
So eerily unattainable.

Mysteries hidden in these coves,
Crystal beaches all made of light,
Winter cold warmed by cabin stove,
Above caverns deep all made of night.

Follow the weave of these piano strings,
To find the stars in these longings that seem,
So eerily unattainable.

There is peace in a path.
A narrow road, though it boasts of whistling cliffs,
those taunting lips, smashing the masts of adventurous ships.

It would be a lie,
if I said I haven't tried,
to reorganize,
my innermost parts out of adolescent formation,

Because thoughts I've entertained now reign throughout my mind,
like a dictator elected by popular vote,
like the deep which holds up the glacier that floats,
I find fear is a liar and she's never been kind.

Like staring at shadows until you see your worst enemy,
horror cinematic score, as the mirror gives you clarity.

Identity a scarcity in a dull, cold chamber,
looks like the real world but its upside-down,
Not quite right, black screen that shines against nature,
A deceptive light that you chase,
while you hide under sheets,
staring down the staircase,
it looks like you yet you know it's a stranger.

But these days,
heights don't scare me the way that they used to,
jumped off a bridge to prove to myself it wasn't true,
Feet placed firmly on the stones of solutions,
of callousing hands grasping rocky protrusions,
ascending the mountain which returns with repentance,
returning to walk in the light and see it through.

My hands hold the rope, but I didn't tie it
Heaven isn't distracted, she's extended her kindness.

I always got the order wrong,
I thought the affection of a woman would make me the man of my dreams,
but that comes first.
Love bore me, shaped me, and gave me my name,
so I'll live by it.

And that's the point,
there's peace in a path,
the acceptance of name,
to face those fears and say,
"You're wrong. I'm a son of faith"

There's an old abandoned bridge
between Yosemite and here.
Take the Lathrop exit where-
(or don't, it's your life after all)
-we throttled to jump off it
when our buddy flashed excitement, a boyish daydream, and we decided.

Our clothing
     soon was hanging
         on a long forgotten railroad track

(Sitting naked on a maple board-
            Probably from the Civil War.
Dropping rocks to test the height,
            Water black with no rapport)

         He giggled like a giddy child
     trying not
to give us flak,
(For being such a bunch of scaredy cats)

Moonbeams on our skin, and also iPhone torches, and the headlights of the Jeep.

And did he jump? yes!
From a stand with only his two feet supported by a 2 by 4?? yes!
He flipped behind his head!
A backflip with a midway twist.
(Or maybe I half-remember,
It was just a normal flip)

I swear, man, it was amazing.
Off the wooden railing,
Pale and falling towards the water,
                                                          ­ which,
(by the way)
was as black as the apocalypse.

Splashing ghostly underwater,
Then shimmied up the concrete pillar,
Called out to the crescent moon,
And gave a thirty foot salute,
       plunging towards the blackened river.

Laughing, swimming,
He called up to us, quivering,
(And said),
                "Alright, you're next."

T.S. Elliot reminds me that I don't have to rhyme,
Every line,
                  or,
                      be on time, in measure,
Or attitude,
Or make sense,
Or only write when I'm depressed,
Or sad or angry.

Which is good,
Because I, (and I'm not being sarcastic),
honestly feel fine

It was an atmosphere.
It was an atmosphere.
It was oxygen mixed with southern fog,
Southpaw gloves tied in sailor knots,
Waves of golden grains in ocean wind,
The rolling hills behind property lines.

It was the question you asked,
It was the question you asked,
Not with words but in the way you breathed against the window glass,
While I leaned against your Corolla,
And we sang under the overpass.

It was graffiti,
It was graffiti.
It was the cavernous concrete cats with purple
hair and acid wash jean jackets,
Melting the light of their city's street lamps into the obsidian void of moistened pavement.

It was the way the reverb spread the major 7th across the sky with burnt orange cascading into the violet of the minor 9th which reminds me of crickets and summer nights (and violins and cellos and midwestern jazz bars), and how bar chords are a guitarists way of flipping off a crowd,
Surfing the web for an answer to why I'm still single-
handedly the handsomest man in my car currently.

It's the cloth in my empty passenger seat,
soaking up the air of my A/C heat.
And the scent of the soil spilt from the succulent I was given at a wedding last fall,
And now I don't know if my trunk will ever smell clean at all.
It was how my energy dripped away into the floods of San Jose,
And how her eyes began to sink into her iPhone 7's screen.
It's in how I long for prolonged eye contact,
It's in how close the answer is but never slips,
I'm not interested in the electric work of fingertips,
I'm interested in connection.