Insects mimic man,
swarming the street lamps warm glow.
Only G-d knows why.

i want to stand like a boy on a rock,
in the middle of rushing water;
unafraid of snakes;
and holes and the unexpected whale.
shouting, "Here, look at me now."

diving down
into brackish transparencies;
chasing bubbles
and rippled light,
and all the while wading out
to a smooth dead tree,
that stood long before you,
or me,
or this hushed river,

d
  r
    i
     p
       p
         i
          n
            g

                 off
                        
                        of this lonely
                                                   sphere.

Abbye says i am a finch
because i can swallow thistles
and other things most birds can't.

me and my steel esophagus.

So am i the finch?
or the cat that digests it?
or the dog who eats others excrement?

even if this poem is neither deep, nor strong enough
to answer that
at least my stomach is...

i've sung to you at traffic lights,
accompanied by a fanfare of car horns.

all our lives:
intersected and interwoven.

longing the measurements
to cross over,

as our impatience
collides with travelers,

also lost
without an atlas,

all so concerned
with where they are going

and not where
they are.

inspecting fashion and make up
in rear view mirrors,

intoxicated;
by how they appear,

and not by who
they are.

so it is there,
in our most rushed hour,

i ask that you
hold us still,

in suspense
of your orchestration.

For a year now,
that cat balanced on the fence,

mewing the distance
of the alley ways.

Oh, how that animus
loved to complain.

his lonely cries
and the sound of clocks keeping time,

could keep me awake,
my sleep scattered for days.

Unprepared,
my eyes form rivers

spidered into tributaries,
that ***** out, in search of Your Seven Seas.

my hands treading the water,
attempting to pull out consistency.

i am amazed,
how at once You can both

stand me
and buckle my knees.

Quiet, now.
The Conductor speaks,

wet your mouths
and reeds,

for soon,
He'll point to you

and say,
"sing! small child, sing!"

i want to stand like a tree
and reach my limbs out in every direction
i will let any breeze brave enough
shake these branches and flap these leaves
i will let every last drop of precipitation in
because whether you believe it or not i am thirsty
and whether you believe it or not i am searching
every root and every seed is probing
looking for heaven somewhere in this earth
because i know it cant be made of clouds
No, no, its more likely made of dirt
and I will stand still for the lovers cut
as they carve hearts and letters into my bark
because it is through the pain that i find love
indeed its beneath the cuts and under the bruises
where butterflies slowly devour me, inside
oh how i dream of pinning their wings, to a slide
and through careful meticulous interrogation
i will find the reason they fly, flutter, and burn up before
they migrate
to the poplar, to the maple
anywhere far from me
to any other home, any other tree
i suppose they too are searching
circling the globe
these hitchhiker bugs
creep into the skin, hearts, and stomachs
of many
but oh, how i wish
oh, how i dream
that they would
stay
stationary...

Lately when it rains-
Your articles on the floor.
The whining pacing dog,
relieves himself, what can't be stomached.
No, I don't think he likes your work.