No one tells ya
that love is a risk.

Love? You ask
with pursed lips,
that smooth one
eyebrow lift;

quizzical, indeed you are.

I am reminded of my 2 year old kid.

She's always asking questions.

It's been figured out, I say.
Everything. Just search for the answers on the internet.

But it's never to your liking

is it?

You get one, two, three,
four million answers to choose from
you can agree, or disagree
or vaguely do either;

and not
much of it will make a difference.

So is that why she asks
for a bed time story every night?

Not the one where the princess
is saved by the knight, or the one
where a group of guys take
on the witch of Ice, or the one
where the lover dies and the hero
destroys the villain
only to replace him in the end.

She likes the one
where love is simply a risk
between one, two, three, four million
strangers, and you can laugh, or
cry, or do both at the same time.

It's what you want for yourself
that makes all the difference.

OK. OK.
I admit. I was
a little scared at first.
Can you blame me?
I've been through
5, count that, 5 bad
relationships; it's like
every finger on my hand
is just another bad acid trip.

I don't want to lose myself
in another. My identity
means a lot to me. A first,
middle, and last name.
My very own pet
DNA.

These things, I cling to.

You understand,
don't you? If I seem
a little distant.
My head is in the clouds
while you're knee deep
in conversation.

But you're in my dreams now
and I no longer feel alone as I once did.

I don't feel like my solitude
has been compromised. Or
that you get in the way
of my crossed eyes.

There's still a little fear
that rumbles, and tumbles
around like ***** laundry.

But it's getting better,
or I assume as much.

I don't have anything to go
on but my word.

Please,--

Take it with
a mound of salt.

My first American love
was 4 inches taller than me,
had a muscular upper body,
(all they did were push-ups,
day, and night, day and
night) and stood on
skinny legs, pale;
mustached by thin,
fine brown hairs

They wore pants,
nothing but jeans,
black mostly, sometimes
faded when they weren't clean;
sometimes denim if they
were purchased by me
(They had to be Levi
or Calvin Klein)

And their tops
had torn sleeves;
holes punched in
everywhere due to the moths
in the closet;

nothing
but torn seams

It was rare they wore
anything else

We first made love
in a 2004 Tornado Red Volkswagen Golf
they received from their parents
as a graduation gift;
that night my body was just another present
piled on top of it

And on and on
the shape-shifting went
until we got tired
and slept

We were smoothed out
like freshly baked
carcasses under the
rising dawn; and when I woke up

I realized that great American love had gone

A promising horizon peered over the
dashboard, past the Little Tree air freshener
peeking through as though it were
a mother returning for her runaway child,
and saying it's time to come home;
breakfast is ready, father is waiting
and your future has been put on hold
for far too long

My first American love
was found in the form of a song
once the car radio was turned on

A close friend of mine was enthusiastic about his upcoming botany project;
he wanted to show me what he had learned so far;

the anatomy of a flower, a rose, a tulip, a daisy
a lily, a Poinsettia...

As he was talking I couldn't help but
interrupt his silly game of catch
with a hearty laugh

I said people don't want to hear about the inside
of something so beautiful, so perfect, so clean

They want the illusion, the absolute, the ideal!

After a couple of hours
of hand motions, direct eye contact
and awkward body language
I finally managed convinced the man to quit school,
and take up poetry.

That was 2 years ago from today.

Last I heard of him,

He was roaming around
some small city in France,
managed to use what little money
he had to phone me
and tell me poetry was the best thing
since American sliced bread.

He is now a starving artist
that goes by the name of

Hawthorne l'bouffon.

Keep a lookout on his collection of poems

entitled: A Life Worth Leafing.

Silly me. I thought I had a choice.
I assumed, like most people do, that
I could put pen to paper
some other day, perhaps
during an hour of peace,
or once I've had my
first, second, third
fourth cup of coffee

or wait till later on
when the sun crashes into the
earth exploding dawn everywhere
golden beautiful like *****

one beer, two, a shot of
whiskey, a few puffs of the cigarette
walking back and forth
mumble here and there

My roommates talk over each other

Moving on

Let's put it off till another day
My muses take their turns on me;
a ******* of creativity
So much possibility, and emptiness
is an illusion; the ego is the *****
for the masses

And I shut the door
rock back and forth
I am nothing, be something,
everything hurts and more

It comes to be,
whatever it is,
it comes to be
all that's all there is

It comes to be without me,
these hands, this vessel
the breath, the life
I live, it just comes to be

Silly me. I thought I had a responsibility
I assumed, like most fools do, that
this life was mine, and these actions
were the inevitable outcome of freewill

I'll go to bed,

and the night blends
like half and half
into the morning's
grief

He don't mind all da rain
it pours down and down, tears de leaves
from all da trees; gives da roots
some time to breathe

No sir, don't mind
if she goes away, because
it's da life we live dat has da
say

at da end of de day.

I do my best not to age you
beyond your wonderful years. Your skin
stretches far and wide. Your belly
has no end in sight;
and it's in the way you
move under such dim light that has me
wondering if questions are worth answering;

I wonder if these feelings
are worth doubting.

What are bodies,
other than lonely spaceships
without aliens?

You're my favorite stranger,
my kind of danger; the blood
that boils deep in these veins.

Is that not living?

I do my best not to shape you
past your immaculate form. Your mind
is a curious device; your brain
contains no stop signs;
and it's in the way you moan
my name through telephone wires at night
that has me wondering if questions are worth answering.

I wonder if these feelings
are worth doubting.

You're the settle of taut
muscles; the easy ***
and difficult to let go.

Can I say anymore
that hasn't already been
said out loud
and in secret?