Once upon a time was a girl named Candy
Sweet as a flower and loved all so much.
She was granted a wish by a fairy named Mandy
that turned into candy all that she touched.

The town was filled with the sweets of Candy
the rocks and the houses and bicycles too.
Candy would say that the world was just dandy!
parading the streets in her candy suede shoes.

But everything ends and also for Candy
when all that she touched would turn into sweets.
Realising a candy-lover's not handy
she walked alone on candy-cobbled streets.

And loneliness came like a night over Candy
crying skittles she soon went insane.
She cursed the wish she was granted by Mandy
as she crumbled and cracked like a candy cane.

For the rest of the year the children ate candy
the rocks and the houses and bicycles too.
The children would say that the world was just dandy
and the last sweet they shared was a candy suede shoe.

Caught in a blizzardlike
Blaze of feathers; tickled
Beyond hysteria.
Cheeks strained from smiles
Wide as wingspans of
Windborne
Angels.

Chin sore from gaping
Laughter, heart from racing
Rollercoasterly.
Each step a leap.
Each breath a moan.
Each second grounded,
An eon in flight.

All the drugs in the world
In an IV bag the
Size of a city, tapped to
My soul's veins

Would only bring me
Down from this.

It is morning.
I get to awake.

The ocean knows.
Fill the world's largest container with it,
Or a shotglass. A thimble.
It will not care. It cannot care;

Nothing is ever removed

From anything.

My grandfather could barely make
Out the blond boy's head
Lost, if only just slightly|frightened
Enough still|amidst
Waves of green potatoe field.
An old man's single arm held my
Weight; I was that small.
A strand of grass to his oak.

Old ladies with veins on the outsides
Of still strong hands,
Who worked those same fields with
Him sixty years before,
Would look at me with unwitheld
Bewilderment:
You look just like him when he
Was your age...

How alien now, the idea: Someone
Knew that old man as a child,
Remembering well enough
To compare us.

And I still find myself there at times.
Lost|but not quite|yet
Worried that I am.
Waiting in the potatoe field.
Smaller than then, now that
I've grown;

Knowing that nobody's coming.

Having ripped my way through
Concrete older than my father
With jackhammer and
Shovel
I rest. As thirsty as sweaty and *****
As dirt.
Across the street
The ladies at the hair salon
Whistle and wave giggling girishly.
Clouds of menthol.
**** sexists.
I put my shirt back on.
It's not even lunch and I'm
Less than a Diet Coke ad
Without the coke.

At the tender age of thirty-one
I looked up from her pillow at
Barely twenty years of
Flesh and bone and smile.
I didn't need to spy.

Wearing nothing but herself.
Back straight, front to me,
Eyes locked with mine, though never
Once an uttered
Boy, my eyes are up here,
As they travelled across the this-is-me-ness of all of her;

All composed in some wicked
Genious proving that
God created all designers.
And that nothing exceeds the beauty
Of Woman.

I never forget thinking
This could be the one I watch
Dress and undress
For the rest of my life.

I still don't need to spy.

One hour north of Oslo
It is spring morning.
I see my bus
Through my breath.

Up here it's cold until
The sun screams in the summer day
And whimpers red and spiteful all
Night;

We've barely seen it for six months.
Winter is white ground/black air;
Colour only in the cheeks of
Dog walkers
Under thick hats and wrapped in
Yards of scarf.

Life is magnificent when awakening
From annual cryo.

I smile at it from my seat.

It's almost time for my ritual.
Friday after work.
Alone.
The one beer, and the burning of
The Long Johns.

I am a nervous poet; sleep with my pen under my pillow.
All my sheets are white. And that's despite the fact that

I sleep with all my verbs on.

I've had friends that were good who were poets that are dead,
And the poem always got them in their sleep.

I rhyme with one eye open. I give birth in my sleep like a bear
To cubs that have left their crap on the notepad in the morning.

All over it; like letters from one poet to another -a thankful thing
Since poets say nice things nicer than non-poets; and even insult with

Slightly more finesse.

But it always gets you in the end, the poem. It gets you with the
Caps Lock, and you can see the Head of the Title, and then...

I'm a nervous poet; sleep with my pen under my pillow.
I traded it for a *****.

I'll dig with it.

I hit myself with my hammer.
I know you know when I say
Pain so explosive
You laugh.
For sure, you know that thud
That says "nail" like the others, only
Other.

Your eyes hit mine like hardware.
I know you know when I say
Beauty so dizzying
You laugh.
For sure, you know that in
That says "love" like the others, only
Other.

When she reads, the way her
Tongue peeks out slightly
As if trying to taste the words,
Makes a full-day poem worth
Every second of dropping ink.

I love it all, she'll say.    
Even if only the first few
Lines make the side of her
Mouth curve in comprehension

The way it does when she's
Warm from being
Agreed with by whom- or
Whatever's before her.

She'll love it all, as long as I have
Words and blood in me.
She'll love it all, as long as I have ink
And we have history.

There are little diamonds
Delighting her
In the bits of white between
Every word.