It's what you wanted,
right? A prime cut, cool
in the middle and hot
to the touch— toothsome
and tender, fresh from the
embers, a just-how-you-like-it bite.

We're old swords, my
lovely— dogged, not
learning from the two
hundred years that our
city's been burning; we're
just ashes to ashes and
in between, yearning.

DOWNPOUR

The rains came down in
The darkness before dawn.
Great thundering waterfalls
That beat tattoos on metal roofs
And sailed the gutter leaves like boats
In some fantastic competition
To make it to the storm drain first.

In this parched and arid state
It waked up sleepers with a start
Who rushed to roll up windows in the car.
And sent the teenaged paper boy
Rushing after plastic bags.
In thirty minutes it was gone
And you would never know it rained.

So thirsty is Nevada soil
That deluge never is enough.
The Monsoon didn’t come this year,
The floods all happened somewhere else,
And rocky landscape withers in the torrid sun
Trying to recall the **** feel
Of moisture seeping through its stones

And every drop is Holy Water.
ljm

What is this malaise,
          that awakens with each yawning day.
Quite the tortured mystery,
          to have a mind that seems intent on being rid of me.
Staring at shapes of shadows,
          creating fables with a brain that’s addled
With a nameless affliction.
Kingdoms have lived and died,
          with only I baring witness to their fall and rise.
Scattered noon sunlight sneaks,
        between dusty blinds and sets aflame the world on my walls.
It is here that I feel,
          screams of terror and the joys of triumph.
The delicacy of a daydream.
A place for me.

upon the afternoon of snow..of his wandered love
he sang his blue guitar into the wintry sky
life burst into snow
the falling snow
...towards dusk he gathers the fallen sky
piling in her heart
and walks her home
and all at once
they arrive
they become.

i'll stay poor
if being rich
means being chained to my misery
it's a mystery
why the wealthy
aren't very healthy
mentally fit
and lack the capacity for kindness
is there a blindness
forced upon you past a certain cap
or is it the ever widening gap
between joe schmoe and the fat cats