I remember
sometimes

her voice would quiver

like paper lanterns
dancing in some
foreign nighttime glow

I fancy
sometimes

I knew that sweet tremble

at a tea ceremony table
beneath Chinese skies
many years before

it first caressed my ear

See the stories in the snow
Footprints, and the ways they go
Side by side
And all alone
Setting out and going home

3am is so unkind
to a lonely longing mind

I am struggling
To stay focused
To show restraint
To persevere
To accept grace

I can feel my heart
beating against its cage
like a couple missionaries
dressed and pressed
at my door on Saturday
eager to explain to me
the queue into heaven and say
nothing of God

it's night
or morning?
Some muted twilight
seeping through the shades
in a season between the
wholesome seasons
where it's too hot for closed windows
too cold for open ones

I have to measure my
fingers against the bottle
having long stopped counting
the drinks that are downed

I remember you
a bit
the best parts of our
scant fifty-two together

that night
maybe amid the seasons
where the clock sets
all wrong against the
charcoal skies,
but that night,
you bit me

I still feel it pulsing,
electric in my veins

abandon caution
the moment I began my trespass
the way you meticulously attacked
every sense I knew

peeling away all these
unnecessary layers
as the shadows were already
heavy enough
but peeling away
every apprehension
simply to press against you
and let, like butter,

my tongue melt

on your tender skin

Honestly,

I broke apart last night.

I broke

Over broken promises,
Failed friendships,
Innocence undone.

I broke
Over this last lost year
With all its fear.

I broke
After losing you,
And learning
Where you now are.

I broke.
I simply broke
Apart.

September has
Slipped in
Almost unnoticed

Soon the leaves
Will redden and dry

Let go their
Summer home

And play upon the
Fore-winds of winter

A smile of innocence

Is a most dangerous thing

It astounds the heart with joy

And makes the soul sing

What am I doing with my life?
     Looking through my past
     And all these little things
     The error of my ways
          What are you looking for?

The only one who didn't fold:

A worthy brother
Upon golden sands
The soul of a warrior
Like nobody else

until the waves stain red the shores

we will not hear 'peace'

we will only hear 'more'

Her laughter has

worked its way

in between my heartbeats

I gave her a circlet
of sea foam pearls
from Hanok Village

perhaps some might think it
an expression of how
I felt engulfed in her loveliness

perhaps
it was merely
a gift

A meager means to share my heart

And
I suppose

she kept both

I'm eager to









Lay her down

And

Eat her up

I love you.

I only wish

I could teach my younger self

I didn’t only want you;

I loved you.



If I could do that,

Perhaps tonight,

I could breathe that honest truth

Into your ears

And not spill it on paper.

I feel myself at the
Edge of this great
Desperate
Chasm
Where the pebbles
Beside by my toes
Break away to
Hurl themselves
Into this fearful unknown

Four books at this bedside

It's not yet eight o'clock

But I cannot bring myself to
Crack any of them
Right now
To escape this weight
Another restless night

I am overwhelmed
This flood of reminiscence
And desperation
Pressing down and drawing out
The last air of these
Over-worn lungs

I can count names on
Catalogued fingertips
I can see faces, somehow,
In faltering memory



I hurl impatient prayers
At the ceiling of
This dark room
In hopes the Lord still
Seeks out sinners

Even those foul as me

We might have
laughed our way into age,
growing older,
shorter,
wider
together.

Instead,
we parted,
while yet young
and thin
and proud.

Rains are rare
Upon these plains
Near Tornado Alley
Snow more oft
And winds blow
In this little valley

I wait beneath a marbled sky
where darkened clouds linger high
Ready to relinquish rain
to this dull and dusty plain
One more day here will I chance
but I will dream in dreams of France

the empty tree branches

reach out for the moon

as miserly fingers

straining for a doubloon

An unsettled life
Yet pens with such

Veracity

A sort of way,
          perhaps, we

All

Might hope to trek
Through these
Long and quickened years

How much joy
Can the desperate heart endure?
Weighed down with
Bittersweet
Longing
Gouged in to the soul

And no words
Can suffice

And great hope
Cannot seem
To weather this ache

Sunday night

After dinner and impromptu dancing

My hand strayed over the zipper

At the back of her yellow summer dress.

Her eyes fixed on me

As I gingerly drew it down.

She pressed close to me when

My hand slid onto the small of her back;

Her skin as smooth as butter

As pretty and perilous as whisky.

She laid a tender smile on my cheek

Whispering ‘hurry up and kiss me.’

I saw you tonight

Perhaps it was shame I felt

That I stole glances of

A white spring lily

After I've so esteemed

Weeds littered on the sidewalk

This summer seemed to take an age

To finally fully blossom;

And there, within, the smallest things

Have burst forth truly awesome.

Of all my regrets,
For Man is granted
Not a few;

Of all my regret:
My deepest wound,
My keenest loss,
Has settled there upon
You.

Still,
I remember
     your lips:

Understated, yet
     strikingly sweet,

Like the scent of plums
     wavering on the breeze.

Her neighbors were her friends
Her friends were her family
Her family went unnumbered
For with a smile she won strangers
And called them her neighbors

I'm a child in the warmth of your laugh

And as aged as the pillars of the earth

I'm at every point I've ever been
     and never been

I'm coming together
     completely undone

You've altered the course of my story

I will never again breathe normally



You're every chance I have to take

Glorious morning;
The fog has lifted, and now
Fishing boats are out.

I catch her modest glance
As she scans for mistletoe.

And upon its discovery
She quietly strays below;

Gentle eyes fall on me, and,
Drawn by that coy smile,

We meet beneath the greenery
To linger there a while.

To think

That in the end

We were

Almost

Reconciled

The highway din is much the same
At 3am as it is at ten
Here I am in an oversized bed
Probably subconsciously
Praying for an early dawn
A day ago I was
On the other side of this odd world
In a place where dreamers
Could fall in love every day
Now hastened back to this dreary place
Too readily reminded of this
Weight of loneliness

Seasons, optional

Summer, endless

Laying out on golden fields

Holding on to the sunset

As a matchless fire opal

For eons in my mind

even in the outlands

of this shameful world

wildflowers yet burst

in twilit hues

an earnest assurance

goodness cannot be

truly overcome

Your thighs

As golden Caribbean beaches,

And my lips:

Marathoners.

Oregon in winter

With patchwork fields

Of green and gold.

Woodsmoke lingers;

Memory bursts in;

And maybe it’s okay

To be growing old.

Seattle scent this Denver night
Hazy are the city lights
Away in flight sets her plane
But I below am kissed by rain

Below by rain, kissed am I
As her plane takes to the sky
Lights now dimmed by city haze
We yet count our numbered days

By her smile

She’s adorned in such a way

That silks and gems and

Polished gold

Have little left to say

Her whispers tingle at my ear

As she plants seeds of expectation.

Thus I draw her in to a night

Of pleasure, and culmination.

it seems the focal word is simply 'survive'
as if any of us get out alive
and all these suits think they determine my brothers
by little more than all our skin colours
well at the end of the day
we wash it all away
and after all our years
we have to leave this place here
it's not just about the desire to survive
what good is that if we cannot thrive?
beyond the ***** and *** and ****
we all have within a fierce unmet need
till the day he calls and bids our blind eyes to see

don't give up here
don't give up now
don't be a coward
don't be so proud

stop fearing love
as if it were some mere emotion
fools lean on such notions
like propping foundations
against ocean waves

let's not take all these petty things
to the edge of our graves

some of us get a hundred years
of swiftly burning days
some of us get more or less
before we must continue on our way
and it's not nearly
enough time here
so let's not take all these petty things
to the edge of our graves

Would that I might

Yet adore your *******

With tender kiss

And attentive caress

Saw a comment
In this age of interwoven everything
Incensed that Bourdain's death
Receive more attention than those
Of many lost veterans

(My father a veteran
With yet a glint of hope
To live out his years
To their natural end

And my grandfather
A serviceman long ago
Carrying light betrayals
Of this said great nation

Great men both, and)
Great those who give their all
Yet what gave us Bourdain?

Just as much
In equal measure

A life
Hard lived
Worn and weary and truthfully
Desperate

All peoples feel
The terrible weight of their sins
Even,
At days end,
Those who profess no belief

Bourdain gave art
Bought with sweat and blood and
Costly time
(For all of us
Time is valuable beyond gold)

Art
And food
And good cheer
Spent in the late evenings
And long mornings
Surrounded by all manner of
Gripping yarn

A double life?
Not unlikely
A wounded wanderer?
Most assuredly
A value immeasurable?
Beyond doubt

And what would we all do?
Should we write, or read, or sing, or paint, or eat, or travel, or labor, or rest, or weep, or laugh, or cook, or question, or answer, or defend, or break?

Love,
And live.
Veterans of this warring world
Cooks of worthy creations

It's some time

past time

for the evening lights

to be lit.



The only sound,

the kitchen faucet:

drip

drip

drip