I waited all day for you
and then I waited all night
it was worth the wait
you made everything all right

before you came along
the words didn't come easy to me
and now I see you in everything
the world became my dictionary
wistful beauty
graceful humility

you have a way of moving
the things around you seem to fade
I could see you coming from miles away
just from the way the earth shakes
the way the air trembles
from the electricity you make

but you don't know it
you can't see
everything that you do to me
you walk around like a greasy fingered kid
leaving your mark wherever you've been

my heart is a crime scene
you are the evidence

I used to be lost
and now I just wander
where are you?
I'm coming my dear
don't you know?
I am always on my way
if I am not already here

the scared lost child has grown
turned into a wanderer
with no place to go

and there's nothing left for me to do
but search the skies for signs of you

will you be my home?
will you be my warm place to sleep?
will you be the roof over my head?
will you be the shoes on my feet?

even a nomad must lay down roots
all I can ask for is the truth
just please
don't forget me
let me take up residence inside your mind
a place I belong will finally be mine
a lost little child grown
a wanderer who now has a home

Suddenly, desperately
I thought, "No, never
In millions of minutes
Can I for one second
Calm-leaving my own self
Like clothes on a chair-back
And quietly opening
The door of one house
(No, not one of all millions)
Of blood, flesh and brain,
Climb the nerve-stair and look
From the tower, from the windows
Of eyes not my own: ...
No, never, no, never!"

Today, a poem should be palatable, cute
As a Kiwi fruit,

Dumb
As a horse battalion's scudding run,

Strident as out of tune horns
Of basement bands where the gloss has grown—

A poem should be bloodless
As the slight of words.

A poem should be film of ocean brine
As the reel unwinds,

Cleaving as the gear greases
Spoke by spoke the light smearing breeze,

Blowing, to the temple outhouse
Exalting all the ****** functions—

A poem should be not true:
Equal too.

For all the history of vanity
An empty room and a bass relief

For lust
The keening masses and no light above the stream

A poem should not be
But mean.

(the city had fought the fortnight before)
fire burned through the little skirts
and plastic lunch boxes
carrying the nourishment of our future
doctors and worldshakers—

                                 Future
tax paying Americans
And beacon of the nation.

Wide awake, in the thoughts of a light bulb,
(Where sidewalk stairs politic with the devil,)
A raindrop fell and whispered to the asphalt,
“Tell me what you know about happiness…”
And somewhere, in the middle of a pineapple parade,
A Pepsi can smiled and danced the night away with Nyquil labels.

There are certain tones that pierce us-
the tremulous "I..." which precedes the first
halting "...love you."
The static of a stilled phone line
a lace tying two ends of the country
that carried happy birthday to a dear ancient man
"Thank you sweetheart," in the same voice as his son
knotting my throat in the lonely homesickness
of a true Father's Daughter.
There are certain tones that pierce us-
those which remind us of what is most beloved
and what we must accept to lose.

the air hangs heavy
of dignity in spaces meant
to house a golden king.

despondent, alone,
i am the silent sunken stone
of understanding pebbles
bathed in shallowater sighs
of quiet far-off longing.

all one; air
rushes in and fills my wings-
i fly and breath the sky.

a sun of your heart
warms me through the cracks
of injured earth
centuries apart from day,

i rise and smell
the song of your smile.