My heart
is the sound of water swishing
at the bottom of a large jar.

My emotions
are soft and quiet, making ears strain
to hear them:
they are a small sigh leaving my body.

My soul is bread
left unattended in the oven.

And my body,
is a house visited
every so often,
by dinner guests bringing
smiles and light.

Shower kisses and wet hair,
It is my beloved who has the stare,
Of someone much much older than I
While she uses a towel that's not yet dry.

Silent at the kitchen sink,
Happy faces as we drink,
And dance to our favorite songs
As the universe twirls along.

I'm

Whispering on her bed
About what to do when we're dead
We pull close to the other
And fall asleep under the covers.

His face in the mirror
was not his face.
It was clean and seemed out of place
It's mouth too wide and its nose too small
It was not his, no, not at all.

But,

the more he looked, the more he stared,
he wondered why he should care;
it's just a face made out of skin,
a face does not even begin
to define a person, that much was certain,
so he left his face,
by the bathroom curtain.

The light, golden, made you a portrait.
Your hair framed your eyes
and I am captive of your beauty - at
ease with itself.
Hunching over your book,
Your profile turns even more seductive.
Others obscure my sight, and I squirm
to see. To see you read with elegance;
you, who will not fade.
You're clothed in a deep
blue. Like royalty? And, as you sit
and read, I wonder: whose words do you honor?
Inviting them into your dwelling - the chamber of your soul.

Slowly, I rise and walk out - with one last look,
in solitude asking, will this be the last?

Dancing on stars, they warm my feet,

My words are lost in the laughter.

I find myself floating

And I fall into orbit again.

I found ground for my love-weakened legs,

And now an ocean of dark is no longer mine.

Palms kiss as the planets float above,

unnoticed.

I was as lonely as the moons of your eyes that glow with life.

My head is now free and your smile is the light that races outward.

Oh the vastness of this unexplored room.

Fear.

For no trees are grown here

None to replace the oxygen in my breath your beauty has taken away.

Have an eye of compassion.
Have an outstretched hand.
Have a gentle mouth with which
to carry sensitive words.
So that you might:
see the love in others,
reach those stranded in the outer orbit of life,
and speak words that carry
others to the heights of love.

Tonight is a night for smoking.

I know it is.
The evidence is in
the music playing in my head,
the jacket of calm I'm wearing,
and the sudden slowness to my movements.

Tonight is a night for smoking,
and regret.

With setting-sun eyes I look upon your face.

I see midnight coffee refills (no decaf), and
2 AM train rides in your day-after-rain eyes.
There are secrets in your smile.
The concrete breaking wall we used to sit on
is now on top of your brow,
and the high tide is coming in to meet us.

In my face you might see the daybreak.
My smile has honest longing,
but my eye brows are a never-ending forrest;
you will find no answers there.

Please,

sit down beside me,
and hold me in silence
until we are better.

Say 1,000 "I love you"'s
and blow 1,000 kisses,
but my love for you my darling,
all of these, misses.

Hold my hand in the rain,
and kiss me in the sun,
walk with me through stars and space,
for us time will not run.

Give my heart some wings
or rather let me float away,
yet in your orbit I'd prefer
to stay and stay and stay.

Here I'll float quietly,
"typical" has no power here,
here silence binds us together,
in silence, "have no fear."

to sit.
Let my thoughts be like
soft clouds passing over head.
As I sat,
as I meditated,
my mind escaped my body.
I felt nothing.
And in that nothingness,
there was peace.

If I but
get up
out of my chair and leave,
I will have defied
natures will:
"do nothing,
and let me cover you with moss."

So I will leave my chair, desk, and house,
defying nature.

But if I
leave everything, and go to nature
as a willing and feverishly searching servant,
have I defied it,
or obeyed it?

The non-dominant slightly less coordinated one.
The one with more knuckle scars;
the expendable one.

There is a healing pencil eraser sized scar
where the capitate bone
(the part where your thumb sprouts from your hand)
should be and is the last time I checked.

I know how I got this one,
but I'm not sure how much longer the memory of
my flesh separating from my flesh will last.
Scars fade, memories disappear and,
hands tend to stay the same.

My left hand is often ignored and will continue to be,
until at last on my death bed I'll look down,
notice the scars again
and be grateful for the dutiful service
my slightly less coordinated hand provided me.

I can hear the tears in your eyes.
Is that right?
I can hear the tears in your eyes?

I must be mistaken.


Then you said,
"I can taste the thoughts in your head,"
and I knew we were the same.

When I left my house, the morning wore a shroud of fog.

When I arrived at the church,
I knew there would be no weddings,
(which she loved,)
only a funeral.

When I left her grave, the church-bells cried,
so I wouldn't have to.

When I finally slept,
I heard my prayers being answered
with a "I love you too sweetie."

Dont.

The bones of a small bird were
in the exact center of the sidewalk.

The slowly falling snow
frosted them like a cake;
I wonder what its last thoughts were?

Did it even know what was happening,
when the color of its life faded?

I imagine the birds
scarlet agony, and bruise-colored fear.
What did it feel? Perhaps

nothing.
I wish it could tell me.

So sad to be so small, so helpless,
but,
the bird could only be a bird.

All of these thoughts made me colder
than the December air.

The night loves me.

Its hands are soft,
open,
               inviting.

I love the night; I might just take hold of those hands one day.

I love the feel of my heavy eyes
tempting me,
yet I remain awake: pure defiance.

The silence I keep lasts for hours, and will bring a smile to my face
when I think of it
in the morning.

When I'm sad
I feel crumpled.
I'll play some lonely chords
on my uke.
Next I'll get shivers
and tingle
all over.
Next I'll feel cold
especially in my arms
and in my chest.
Finally
I'll fall asleep
with a relieved heart.

The rain that dripped
into my brain,
also stripped away my pain.

The light that danced
into my eyes
also sheltered me from lies.

The sound that echoed
in my ears,
also pushed away my fears.

The sound, the sound,
the lovely sound,
of vibrant life,
all around.

my gravel-headed daydream,
or
is your head a cloud?
Your eyes must be water droplets.
Behind tired eyes, I see you
and
the sun is breaking you open
exposing your inner fog.
Why did I think you were made of
small pebbles?
You can be nothing but
the morning clouds drawing their lines
across the sky.

What happens when the words run out?
Me? I'll probably kick and pout.

What will you do when I have no more?
You'll probably beg and pound on my door.

Who I am kidding, that's not true,
because the truth is I'm a slave to you.
I want to want you,
        I want to need you,
                I want you to make me want you too.

I need your attention, I need your likes,
you are the breeze to my word-kites,
Please don't leave, please sit and stay,
I promise the words won't go away.

Sincerely,
Yours

His eyes are red
he should have said,
"Goodnight" an hour ago.
His hands ache
he's about to break,
from the sleep, he feels below.

He needs more time
to take what's mine,
and put it on a page.
His head falls
while the night calls,
and the room smells of sage.

Could you walk around the world?
You would move your feet
through red sand,
and dark green kelp
amid the darker-than-black
ocean floor.
Wouldn't that make you happy?

Imagine:

the people,
the many pigments,
the smiles and weathered faces,
the feeling that there is more.

The silence,
so real you can grab it
and wrap yourself in it.

The stillness,
embrace it, fight the fact it feels wrong,
and adjust.

As you walked, would you learn
to become part of something bigger than yourself?
You could be a mountain, a tree,
a bird you've only seen in books.

You could just be.

In a dream the word found me.

“Absolution” took my hand and brought me to tears
in a coffee shop.

Here’s to achieving illusive (and blatantly present) forgiveness!

To start
let me make myself worthy of grace.

I’ll be a bicycle tire left alone during winter, but now needed in the spring.

Would that be ok?

Now I’ll be a bouncy castle waiting
to be purchased for the hour
eager to please
quick to quadruple in size
easy to get lost in.

Next I’ll spin my own mythology,
would you like that?

So as Strabo immortalized Orpheus
Jensen immortalizes Jensen.

“I walked to and from school uphill both ways in the rain”
but
my truth is Swiss Cheese
carried in torn pockets
completely and unflinchingly real.

Here’s to forgiveness for others,

uplifting;
something special, easy and

a hand-written letter you
clutch close to your chest
not letting go until you and only you put it in your lovers mailbox.

Here’s to forgiveness of self

(once viewed as one views making a trillion dollars,
or being able to carry [your] my house
with [you] me
wherever I would wander)

and here’s to forgiving
to reliving myself of pain,
not a pardon
not an acquittal
but an opportunity to notice I am human and understand what that means.

Now at the end of this journey the ever-dawning sun of immortal love has broken my clouds, and here I am and here you are and here’s to accepting forgiveness!

So with an opened heart and sharpened mind
I’ll find the word again or let it find me
and choose to feed myself
what I earnestly feed others.

I made her worst fears come true.

After
I climbed the set of seemingly endless stairs,
walked silently into her apartment,
whispered “hello”
to her roommates,
and softly closed the door to her room
behind us,
all I had to say was
“yes”

and the tears came down in sheets.