your kiss is like a flame
beautiful, widespread
fire upon leaf
your touch like a soft sweep
across skin revealing
a black pocket of quivers
your body an explorer
over the peaks and valleys
of the caves in mine
your hair a brush
over black ribbons of ardor
your thighs the driver
against hard and soft
lines of rapt pleasure
a dance where you
hold hands
in your alternate universe
of diamonds across night skies

There at three a.m.
on a dark and empty street
I was out walking
The demons kept my sleep

The music I recognized
Coming down from the open window above
The Eagles "Hotel California"
A song I dearly loved

It was the winter of 1977
Perhaps the coldest on record I know
All I remember was the cold and accumulations of snow

Mike had just bought the album
Invited me over to share
After we were blown away
The music cleared the air

We played it over and over
Every song on it was so great
The chill that hung in the air
Made it easy to relate

I walked back home after midnight
In the cold and frozen snow
Not realizing it was a  -10° below

The cold soon penetrated
I became concerned for sure
I was having my doubts and my skin was turning bluer


To make the story short
I ran to the door the last few feet
I fumbled with the keys
And fell inside into the heat

So now all of those memories come flooding back to me
There's someone up above and they can never leave

So I ease on down the way
out of range of the sound
And I am thinking to myself
To the words I am forever bound

"You can always check out
but you can never leave"

A shoal of fish, my thoughts
flit about aimlessly,
succumb
to the pull of eddies,
get lost among the rocks.

Love and pain
are the water lilies.
Beautiful.
Recurring.
Temporary.

The mind is a river.
I am the riverbed.

The river drowns me.

The river makes me.