yesterday’s hope is a mystery
walking a hidden line
I hold tight in my throat
with beauty raging in a torrent
below me, tell me when to release
as my faith cascades over
this roaring masquerade

His love
is the winter  
solstice, mounting  
the top of her world
where  
her love  
is the summer  
equinox, embracing  
the basis  
of his

cooling whiskey flames
pool in the corners
of my eyes, drying
under the afghan
crumpled on the floor
where fallen pieces
from the puzzle of time
count off the ticks
of my grandfather clock

Light needs darkness 

to shine in the sky 

as warm trades 

cold for comfort

in depths of night 

while miracles meet 

tragedy, our love 

forever is born

So many shoulders rounded

softly, the moans always climb

to fall around every curve

following distant stretches

lost in the rhythm of rain

on a roadway far too long

for a poet whose muse sings

sweetly in the dark of night

from just beyond the sunrise

To everyone
and someone
climbing a mountain,
you and I - you
carry the spark
we need, you forgot
you have - you need
the tinder I carry,
the fuel - we need
each other
at the summit, warming
the glow of the fire
we build, laughing
like children -
while thoughts
drift away as snow
covering battlefields
we forgot -
we won

My dream began
with a pronoun waking  
in the morning light,
followed by a verb  
carried in the wind
from across the lake,
as the adverb
whispered a preposition,
adjectives modified
a proper noun, and
I sailed quietly
to your beautiful name

I taste
the summer's end
with a rainstorm - in time
grace embraces these dampened fields
as dew

The angel of glass
has not fallen
yet, hanging still
by a thread so
thinly - as ice
skating lovers drift
closer to a fire
cracking like branches
laden with snow

The wind that carries
          wishes where they go,
Whispers with the way
          your breath should blow,
Lifting me to worlds
          I would not know.

Tonight we walk
around the merry
go round - for 29 years
colors change
but we don’t
get off

The sunrise betrayed the furnace
pouring heat into this atmosphere,
beauty deceives in pinpoints of fusion
spilling light on these nights in silence

We are all made of stars - we burn within
this core, unreached and untouched
as science fades in its approach -
Who can test the mystery inside?

I stand at the edge

reflecting

in just enough light

to dive in the current

surrounding our skin

bringing nothing,

reality

spilled from yesterdays

bathing our souls

in a swirl of possibility

in the catwalks, high above

this city, sleeping

in the parapets, twisting 

through darkened fire 

escapes to stars, lost 

in this complex maze 

the architects left 

behind - hope

runs out of the arteries

of their dreams

take the next exit
after the full moon, and
turn right at the end
of losing yourself
in the next song,
then ask directions
to the best place
for watching people eat
their favorite food,
where you’ll find me wondering
how long it took to find
the pleasure of your company
as I hand you a compass rose
open to the direction
of our hearts breaking
over the horizon

Zodiacal signs shift
zones of time through
zephyrs swirling
in our breath - distance
zips down to zero

We float like fair weather
clouds in a deep blue sky -
a dragon here, a sailboat
there, running together
with the wind when  
the dew point transforms us
condensed or vaporized  
until the universe pulls
this miracle together again

an unusual compliment  
quenched a peculiar slight
like justice playing on the edge
of my glass, teetering above
the solution where these
strange kingdoms
cannot reach

no creativity, accepting to resolve
structure, as fitting inside this pattern
of no distractions and no instructions
and the promise of a plan tomorrow

no affection, except in the fruitless
domestic ambitions of making love
look like it is outlasting the neighbors
and saving the children from our future

If the sun does not, then the moonlight will
fall on my chest as a nightingale sings
with delight in knowing your beauty still
in this darkness - my breath is held until
you delight in what your desires bring
if the moon does not, then the daylight will
wrap you in warmth while the heavens are spilled
in your heart as all the secrets of spring
find delight in knowing your beauty still
with each heartbeat drawing closer to fill
in your spirit with what you are longing
for if the day does not, the starlight will
reach into your soul through your window sill
to grant my wish on a nightingale’s wing
yet if the stars do not, I always will  
find delight in knowing your beauty still

Draw me in the font

overflowing the causeway

submerged in your ink

my simple words - unspoken
as time stands still, my heart beats
harder until the ties loosen,
smoothing the edges
unbound in the curve of your lips,
leaving my world
speechless

I began to swim
stronger in shifting currents
though pools of winter -
meeting poetry
in winds of spring, riding
rails and roadways
into the summer and
running farther than ever
away from my doubts -
until an early
autumn frost began melting
my pride - the same way
I count another  
lap around the sun - again
I begin to swim

you cannot see within your room
where secrets lie to hide
the truthful beauty of your bloom
alluring you outside

through open windows wider still
to see what has begun
unfolding in your present will
behold what you become

the covers wore smooth
like the sound of your name
and the binding cracks
open as our aging skin, dry
as the ink kept
on the pages within

Whenever you emerge
catching a breath of air -

I will submerge,

to the twist of an urge
fulfilled with a flare,
whenever you emerge
at the summit of a verge -

without a care
I will submerge,

ready for your surge
with a gasp of air
whenever you emerge
your strength is purged -

with a tug of your hair
I will submerge,

until our breath has merged
our souls aware,

whenever you emerge -

I will submerge

dialects of dogma in the corner
coffee shop - I recognized them
too easily, as an expatriate  
heard clearly in the crowd across the square,
where I’d rather be blending in,
forgetting my mother tongue, speaking
an unknown language, written
by the dust of my boots, learned  
through the salt of my skin, weathered  
as the pages of my Bible are worn  
and consumed alone  
with God in the corner  
booth of this coffee shop

I thought about God
making time and space and you
and I fell in love

life spills in red ink

penetrating soft skin

drawn on a page

death filled - in a tragedy

as if the artist is not

the finisher of the scene

I freely play behind 

this dimly lit veil

as the author enters

our romance - unfolding

beauty conceived 

in a never ending poem

make me float, drifting
     down your mountain streams
coursing through your valleys
     forested with dreams
of swimming in your rivers
     and diving in your night
drinking from your wondrous depth
     while drowning in delight

My dreams are moonlight

swaying on the open sea

your words pressed in mine

I removed my cap

placing it on her

for her hair was

as beautiful as her

secrets - I treasured

the future whispered

into her ear as she
prayed her present

inside my heart

We live in other
places, born at other times
to love an other

with no thoughts
to speak
I think
with no sound
to write
I speak
with no words
to think
I write

I began to smile this morning
at my kitchen table while I
poured my first cup of coffee
as sleet tapped on the window

I lost a chess match today
against an opponent I didn’t
take very seriously and her
trades worked in her favor

I watched a movie tonight
where the conversation was over
a chess board and the coffee
cups were the pieces

just pull lightly and slowly
on the thread, it’s satisfying
to feel the unraveling - thoughts
flow like a lazy river, slowly pulling us
along - the threads of our covering
disappear as we swim, bound
by the shorelines, loosed
in a current between

Hold my hand, tracing
trails of whispered wonder to
discovered delight

We left fate behind
these nets cast in the sea
right in front of me

gifts that are not
found, but taken
away with each breath lost
unwrapping the unending
layers of your beauty

Where some see the stars
I feel your beauty stirring
where some taste heaven
we smell a  fire raging
where some touch the light
you hear my pleasure calling
where some smell the forest
I see an ocean rolling
where some hear the wind
we taste the night dreaming
where some see the stars