I am a borrower
collecting things that shine
all stashed in cracks and hidey-holes
where the rafters meet the roof
in the basement floorboards
lift one and you'll see
the treasures I've collected
two gorgeous glassy eyes
seven gilded antique buttons
a bouquet of sweetly fragrant lilies
a gleaming jar of pixie dust
three noble barristers
an Irishman netting butterfly dreams
a sorceress of the endless prairie
windmills like soldiers all in a line
the saddest porcelain doll
a small brown bear
trains screaming by on underground rails
a sprinkling of desert blooms
six jack-in-the-boxes so I'm always surprised
the hairless stuffed dog that bit me as a child
a Rickenbacker bass softly riffing the blues
a farmer's Ovation to accompany my woes
seashells that sing the ocean breeze
a merman from the Northern seas
tucked away in every space
packed within each sweet hollow
these simple pleasures I have borrowed

some say God is in the trees
but the cedar in front of my house
is always full of cackling old blackbirds

i hear the whisperings
of my Creator
somewhere
deep in the middle of me

maybe i am the church

maybe every pain is a memory
every tear a redemption

so you have a wolf inside
and you've never had a toothache in your life
but you keep tomorrow's sun at bay, moon fiendish in the twilight of a lack of grace.
you harbor hope. you pool blood in the atmosphere like shards of glass
that never forgets.
i know you by the star in your hand, but you never look me in the eye
when you deny it.

were just moving furniture.

A poets heart,
Is a very deep well
It holds many secrets,
Some we never tell

We speak in rhymes,
Or metaphors
We write of hope for the future,
Or sadness gone before

We are guilty,
Of feeling things too deep
And pondering secrets,
Life its self has to keep

Poets see things clearly,
That others cannot
We wonder about questions,
Which time, has forgot

A poets heart,
Beats at a different pace
A poets pen,
Defies time and space

We poets,
Create our own written place
We poets,
Are together, our own race

As poets,
We stand apart
And live in the deep well,
Of our poetic hearts

The wind wears your body;
I open the curtains of your being,
My touch wears your skin,
The spectre of your silhouette
Is a ghost of my desire:

We tear the night apart.

I never pitied Ophelia
enough.
Never understood her
grief-

to lose and be lost.

I think I must be crazy now.
My mind wandered off
when you did
and I don't know
how to fetch it back.

He loves me
He loves me not
rue and remembrance
and something forgotten too

the river sometimes
calls my name
there are flowers
there

In spring, green along the river
amid ancestral foothills, we walk deer trails
wild in the woods of scented pine
of silver sycamores, silken barked
stark, they pale against bluest skies
their new leaves green and glistening
we are listening for songbirds, for a language without words
transfixed, through this portal, reborn in this world
warm winds speak sweet and susurrus of spring
melodious they sing, leaving far behind
the cold, the dead of winter.

With a
thin sheet
of skin we cover
each limb,
bury
the heart
beneath flesh
& hope for
the best,
but the cracks
still come, air finding
its way in via
eardrums,
lungs, 
then finally
a soul & you know
when you see
them, more
paper
than
people, you
look in their eyes
& don't see hopes
& dreams but
city streets,
industrial
skylines,
no sign of sun
coming over the
horizon.

These are not the times
for poetry…
For lofty prose or
roses budding in
warm sunlight
to gently perfume
the wind with
a delicate reminder
of tenderness.

These are the days of
****** knuckles;
chipped teeth.
The days of beating the truth from strangers,
then strangling that truth
with a piece of garden hose.
The bad days, the ugly days
when poets take up fighting and
fighters take to ******.
The goddammitfuckyou days.

Welcome to the clinched fist.
Beautiful things must be whispered.

I exist in a
modern
       fortress
of houses &
    cars, stores
around the
corner to buy
      anything
I want &
       the sea
& dark trees
remain
mysteries,
   peripheral
things only
    experienced
in
           dreams
passing
     ships that
sail in to
erase names
& obligations,
      stretch weak
             lungs to
breaking,
reprogramming
genes to flee, 
to tease out the 
         wild seed
    from my
ancestors tree
& in the absence
of jungle
     ignite a fire
from
bits of wire,
     from you
& me
& our ancient
      heartbeat

Small Colorado mountain library
Had too many books, I guess
And was selling them, a bag for a buck
So I threw a handful in a bag
    I wanted to read
But also, some fifteen cent gambles
Which happened to include
"The White Pony: An Anthology
Of Chinese Poetry" 1947
A compilation of poems
Translated into English
Some brilliant
Some three thousand years old
Or older
(No one seems to know)
Some notes in the margins
And underlined by a previous owner
(Also brilliant)
And this fifteen cent investment
Is opening a world of old masters
Who can speak to me
From their world of wars
Concubines and starvation
To my domestic modernity
With ease
With celebration
Of life's simple things
These are not foreign souls
Masters, yes
But utterly relatable
From their quiet reflections and virtues
Under the peach blossom tree

Well Hell, Happy Birthday to me
Another year in my life has come to pass
A splash of coffee in my whiskey for breakfast
Watching tv so that I can be reminded that anyone over the age of 25 is old
Especially females
Perhaps I'll buy burial insurance
Perfect gift to myself

I'm going to put on the tiara I wore the day I entered a failed marriage
And dance to 90s pop music in my living room
I'm alone,
I hate everything, especially happy people
I'm going to chain smoke Marlboro cigarettes
And yell vulgaries at people who drive by my house
Just as soon as I get back from buying wrinkle cream
And burial insurance

Well hell