There is a massive distance
between her smile and tears
when she writes about the rain.
Because her faded dreams
put her mind at ease
behind the places
where she stands
in pain.

Sitting in the garden
where one finds love
in those eyes
that speak of alone.
She writes lines
which intrigue mysteriously.
You can see her words dance
where she's walked,
when dawn breaks
across the trees.

The inner deepness of her words
hold on to each cloud,
crying out to the depths
of our bones.  
They tell us our worst hours
contain the time outside
of her faded dreams
and that they too.....
will soon be gone.

When she writes about the rain
we smile
behind the places
where we stood in pain.  
You can see her words dance
where she's walked,
knowing......
they never speak
in vain.

Let's taste the ocean water together 
just you and I
we will dive into the deep blue sea 
holding hands til our heads are just floating on top 
riding with the waves 
and let's dive in even further after that 
until we're kissing the ocean bottom 
gulping in copious amounts of sea salt and shrimp brine 
lets just dive in 
dive in 
dive in 
and sink with the mollusks and octopi 
give up on living this sham we call a life 
cloistered in our clam shells we don't have a room with a view 
always protecting our pearls from those that are out to poach us for our inner treasures 
remember all the gold memories we've collected in our troves 
like we were hoarding them away for some rainy day 
well it doesnt get any rainier than drowning in these murky depths 
we're like treasure chests sinking to the bottom fast 
lost from some forgotten shipwreck 
we're collecting on the ocean floor waiting to be discovered 
over centuries we'll rust and be covered in barnacles before we're found 
Crumbling in the hands of those that try to rescue us 
lets just give up 
give up 
give up 
but we can't give up 
Not yet anyway
Not while we're treading these waves
with sharks lapping hungrily at our feet 
With rows of ravenous razor sharp teeth
savoring the slow taste of our defeat
as we inch closer 
And closer
With our heads fighting to stay above water
til we can no longer tread with these useless arms and legs
we take that last gasp of treasured breath into our lungs 
and feel the water pressure collapse around our tired bodies
feeling the ache of our worn out limbs 
we sink and we sink 
We sink
We sink to the bottom of where we started 
filling our deflated hearts with all the failed dreams and squandered hopes of all the shipwrecked treasures that came before us 
And all those that join us sooner or later on these murky endless bottoms
We've been here before
And we're all destined to be here again
And again
And again 
So let's just keep treading these waves for as long as we can
Maybe we'll luck out and find an island in all this oceanic bliss
We'll crawl on shore 
Grasping for dry sand and a warm place to hole up in
Before we find ourselves back out
Lost in the sea
Treading water
With sharks licking hungrily at our feet 
With rows of ravenous razor sharp teeth
Savoring the slow taste of our defeat

If experience has taught me anything (an unlikely assumption)
it is that if a woman ever tells you
-straight up-
that she’s a *****
she is not lying.
this advice is not at all useful.
at least; it hasn’t been for me
since every single time it happens
I insist that she’s just got low self esteem
or she’s  joking
or she’s just had one of those days.
But a few months to a year later,
I find myself on the blindside of the road
bags barely packed
rushed out with the trash
in shock and agreement.
But see,
at least for me,
It’s hard to believe someone
when you’re in love -
which is not unlike losing your glasses
and sort of seeing blurs of people
not nearly as clear as you would with sober eyes.
I don’t expect anyone to heed my warning
I believe it even less than you do
to be honest.
I’m just a little drunk
and in a funk
and thinking way too much,
as I’m prone to do from time to time
in bars like this.
So, don’t pay me any mind
or do
I don’t care, really
how’d we get on this topic, anyway?

it’s loud in here
between my eyes
and my soul
in the neural synapses
that make up the “me”
that we all know
and when I ask you to
say it again or
speak up
or yell
know
it’s nothing
to do with you
and all do with the
rushing whir of gears
that I long ago
stopped trying
to quiet

the social imperative is to
get drunk
ok let's
get drunk
and today
there are so many ways

idlers watch
flickering shadows
of color in boxes

impatient inebriates
burn through
leaf or fuel

innamorati
drown each other
in each other

intelligentsia
drink deep
sophist poetry

not enough
never enough

not to feel the burden
of time and space
two in one
inseparable restraint

to touch what is
beyond
all things in one
Great Name

the divine imperative is to
get drunk
amen let's
get drunk
and to die
to the slavery of any way

Dressing the day,
Beaming purely, on bankers
Hours, spinning such fine, spine
Wheel ways, painting the stones
Of grey, never so faraway, showing
Mighty, mirth in maddest Midgard,
Bearing blooms dizzily, trailing
All the new, children who play,
Pick and count, humming with faces
Bright as the late bedding stars
Joyous in the offered cheers
Of the crowning sun, gifts
All, in endless amount.

Last words with her,
So indifferent, so short,
The spoken tongues lashed
Indecipherable, unearthing
Doom, whitewashing the truths,
Forgotten blues of California sky,
Abandoned in that glean, garish glare
Of yellow sun,
            Fearing naught, the dark moon
Would soon arrive, taking place of all
Our glazed, lost, light.

And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
   And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
       The song-splayed sounds of light
   And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
       Brambled in bay, garland in violet
   When blades could ***** and not make bleed,

And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
   In that glow, once knighted we must serve
       Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
       And the vernal song sang lowly
   Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.

At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
   The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
       Brown as the yellowed beech
   Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
       Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
   I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.

Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing ****, heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
   And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
       Damp fires hailed the rising
   Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
       For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
   In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.