No river bed rock ever
Kisses the same water
Twice.

Autumn opens her arms
To September, and I close
My window for the first

Time since May.
I have had better
Summers. Love left behind

In a deluge of tears and regret.
Doctors sharing bad news
With honest concern;

Waves upon sand castles,
Moments; memories, then
Nothing.

I rest beneath the
Cold stream, perhaps
Allowing new waters

To feel my face in time.
For now, the rain strokes
Nothing but the glass

Of a window shut
To the chill of a dying
Summer.

I have this place
no one knows about
between a field and a willow tree
along a pastures edge
a creek down around the corner
I go to when
things get oppressive
dark and hard
and I sit there
I don't know if I meditate
there in this place hidden
but I get peace
I see love I hug this earth

the sea the skin of a wet dog,
black the beach; a ruined church,
the coastal lights a string of lesser ways;
we are as empty as a dropped shell
pulled across the ebb, a ripple of salt..

and as the night gets deeper
a dragon breathes like the tide:
no mistake, the dark needs its hours

when it rains,
i sometimes stick my
arm outside
the confines of my room,
close my eyes,
and try counting
the number of kisses
the rain makes
with my outstreched arm;
i never keep count,
i just keep thinking
of the attiring
trees and other plants
with my own,
inverted set of lungs.

I keep my inner poet
Put away.
She is dangerous.
Doesn't understand her own power.
She thinks she can fly
And she'll make you believe
That you can, too.
But her wings are paper thin.
Too fragile for flight.

Her eyes shine too much
When the poetry is flowing.
I've seen the devastation
That can follow in her wake.

Grown men don't believe
In poetry.
Get lured in by siren songs.
Feel cheated
when the music ends.

I keep her put away
And hold my gaze on my hands
In the dirt.

We are safer that way.