where the river runs
is a ghost
blue as the sky

i want the beauty
of my mind
to run through
my pen

i want the sky
to cast its shadows
of the shadowy clouds
to where
darkness flows
and the moon,
the arching moon,
grows cold,

love could not be
more beautiful
when i am,
flower of the wind
sea of dark sky
ghost of a river
that runs.

Drink the first beer after you wake up. The door to her bedroom is closed, so don't play the acoustic guitar, loudly, if at all. A dog is laying on the lumpy couch. Try your best not to disturb the dog who’s name is Pasco. You hear her talking upstairs, but you don’t go say, hi. Put on your coat, grab your smokes from your pocket, go outside to the porch and light up. No one is outside. It’s dark and the birds are chirping, and she hates when they do that. Do you best not to drink too fast, as you down the second beer. Try not to think about how she accepts you, or rejects you. Think about Virginia. Think about Chicago. Think about LA. Then breathe in deep. Don’t pass out, as you drink the third and fourth beer, one after the other. Throw the keys into your laptop bag, so you don’t try to reach in there and grab them. Sit down on the stoop. Pick up your cig from the ashtray, light it again, and smoke it. She doesn’t care as much and you’re going to have to be okay with this fact of life.

Don’t sleep on the couch tonight.

We walked through the woods,
when it was growing thick with shadows, the way smoke funnels
out a chimney. She wore a hoodie and yoga pants,
attire to match her mood: relaxed and comfortable.
Her eyes reminded me of what lies beneath puddles,
after a rainstorm had passed through
the small hometown, which disowned you.
We wrote songs while sitting on tree stumps,
chewing tobacco and drinking gin.
Because, we wanted people to write movies about us,
like the ones they played before the explosion
took out a half of Paris, DC, and Sydney.
Test me again, and I will never talk to you,
you said those words and you meant it.
I regret ever running
into you at the house,
and falling for you,
like how I'm falling
over on my ***.
And now we will never text,
have a conversation,
or hold each other in bed.
Kiss me goodnight,
but don't say
that you ever cared about me,
because I don't believe
in the lyrics,
your favorite musician sings.

I read that he lost a suitcase full of manuscripts on a
train and that they never were recovered.
I can't match the agony of this
but the other night I wrote a 3-page poem
upon this computer
and through my lack of diligence and
practice
and by playing around with commands
on the menu
I somehow managed to erase the poem
forever.
believe me, such a thing is difficult to do
even for a novice
but I somehow managed to do
it.

now I don't think this 3-pager was immor-
tal
but there were some crazy wild lines,
now gone forever.
it bothers more than a touch, it's some-
thing like knocking over a good bottle of
wine.

and writing about it hardly makes a good
poem.
still, I thought somehow you'd like to
know?

if not, at least you've read this far
and there could be better work
down the line.

let's hope so, for your sake
and
mine.