The adventurer returned home years later,
Carrying bags of seeds, stones, and rarities.

He found that his house had been painted
Green and white.
He didn't like it.

He found that his son had been born,
And named "Jean-Baptiste."
He didn't like it.

He found that his wife had figured him dead
And remarried.
He didn't like it.

He planted her the seeds,
Built her gardens with the stones,
Gifted her the rarities,
Then smiled and left her to her happiness,
But he didn't like it.

One day I'll learn to roll my R's,
And on that day I'll wed
An Irish vigilante who
Will shoot my villains dead.

I'm riding on ideas that won't quiet down;
Ideas of someone that continues to leave.
They shine for a while, a light between trees,
Then fade like an old song with notes overplayed,
And feelings like comfort soon make me afraid.

Stuck in an attic with old, molding floors,
A witch in the corner, no windows, no doors.
The roof just above us, I crawl on all fours.

Her eyes are too wide and her hair is too red.
She says, "One can leave when the other is dead."
The only solution is cleaving her head.

I tear up the floorboards as she crawls up close.
I find flies, a knife, and a Cherokee rose.
I do the sick deed and step back in repose.

Escaped, I walk soberly back to my home.
Avoiding more danger, through green hills I comb.
I crave coffee, music, and more time alone.

On the sofa we lay,
On his shoulder I leaned,
And he smiled and said,
"Play me a song."

So I grabbed my guitar
And began to pluck strings,
But then paused and thought,
"This is all wrong."

What I held was a fruit,
Yellow, bruising, and curved.
I peered up at him--
He didn't notice.

I continued to play,
But it squished with each strum--
He laughed as it came into focus.

The child dreamed of flight since she could first walk.

She dreamed of stepping not on earth, like the workers--
Not on workers, like the rich ones,
And not on rich ones, like the gods, no.

She dreamed of stepping on nothing.

She looked first to the stars, with a hunger.
She wanted them.
She saw the spacemen with stars in their eyes,
Stars in their pockets--
Stars wherever they wanted them.

She looked at the lack of workers, rich ones, and gods.
She looked at the quiet.
She looked at all the nothing there was to step on.

With her feet on the earth, packed into painful solidity,
She looked at them and ached.

All it takes is an approach,
And memories begin to sing to me.
Their melodies are darling, lush,
If puzzling in their tempo.

And if ever it moves further,
I am brushed over by joyous calm.
I wish to stretch out everything
And bleed each sweetness dry.

The precious things are mine now;
I've kept them all, breast pocketed.
I thought that if I didn't,
They would wind up in the sea...

... Irretrievable, devoid of lovers' touch.
You'd have cast them,
But I've seen to it
They're not 'disposable as me.

I realize that one day I will cease to be,
As Keats recognized umpteen years before now,
But he knew himself and he didn't know me,
And when Earth spins without me, I'd like to know how.

Will each of my thoughts sink into living minds,
Corrupting the dreams of the children below?
Will every idea then reside in the sky,
Polluting the night with a whimsical glow?

Will my memories be seen through strangers' eyes
Who happen to walk past upon my dead hour?
Will each feeling be honed in on by passersby?
Will each beauteous moment draw up a new flower?

When death is so honest and ugly a thing,
I say truthfully, I don't want to let go.
But e'en on the large chance that death won't grant me wings,
Can I honestly say that I'd first see you slow?

I thought that I would take a dip
In water lapping o'er my eyes;
I thought I'd take a cautious swim
To see the mermaid I despise.

While bedding sharks and cuttlefish,
She calls my love below the air.
So stricken by her beauty,
He ignores her crimes and strokes her hair.

She holds him blind to her misdeeds
And softly beckons yet another--
He's swallowed too much ocean
To return to land-bound lovers.

His fishwife, I wade angry shores
To welcome him back from the sea,
But she's the siren he adores,
And I am just in love with he.

Don't touch me--
Not with hands;
Not with sight;
Not with words, as was your custom.
I've retreated into myself,
And you are not invited to ruin me further;
You may not follow.
So please, don't call out to me
With your voice or your eyes,
Not with your hands or thoughts,
And don't include me in your activities,
Deceitful or otherwise;
Exclusion won't upset me as much as you do.

One Oregon day,
The princess awoke
To discover that outside it snowed,

So she strapped on some boots
And zipped up a large coat
To adventure the cold Oregon roads.

On the bridge was a prince
With bright smiles and kind eyes,
And he asked her, "Why doth the wind blow?"

The princess replied
With her head slightly cocked,
"Just what makes you think I would know?"

He averted his eyes
To the white sky above
And then to the valley below.

He took her small hand
And she pointed out west;
Down cold Oregon roads they will go.

Jessica Winter once burst into flames,
Leaving me with a terrible shock,
And Amie and I played a distasteful game
Until we met a man with the pox.

My lips met the lips of a boy I adore
And his hand met the curve of my waist,
But he pushed me away with a shake of his head;
I awakened with only a taste.

She's slowly come to understand
She's not the type of girl he needs;
The type of girl who doesn't heal--
The type of girl who bleeds and bleeds.

The type of girl 'can't feed a man--
The type of girl who waters weeds.
The type of girl who tries to sow
Her garden with ill-gotten seeds.

She understands just thorns will grow,
But prunes each futile plant she sees.
He tells her that he's off to wed
A woman 'can fulfill his needs.

And now she is a barren girl,
The type of girl who's on her knees.
The type of girl who doesn't heal--
The type of girl who bleeds and bleeds.