It's like trying to repaint a Jackson *******.
It's so ******* easy. But you can't.
I tried to do the same thing E.E. Cummings did.
Attack sight with a keyboard.
Drag it onto the page.
Semi-colons for fluttering wings.
But it didn't work.
Of course it didn't.
I'm not him.
I didn't see it like that.
It's not that it's bad to copy something.
It's just a thing.
But **** me for lying through somebody else's words.

The howling wind.
Through the shrieking trees.
The creaking fence.
The clanging chimes.
Everything I can see, I can hear.
As what I can't wraps around it.
And carries sight to my ear.
It's all an echo. Deja vu.
Meeting again those dull things.
Alive tonight.
The fury of a storm is not in the wind.
It's the ordinary finding new life.
Ghouls on halloween and the trees roam,
In the hurricane.
Don't be afraid of the foreign winds
From far off seas. Now in your yard.
Fear the familiar.
The family dog biting.
A tree house in its jealousy destroys your own.
The still and the quiet are loud in the wind.
Alive again.

It's the changing perspective.
How deep is a puddle? Cool your hands.
What about when you've seen a pond?
Wade to your knees and feel the mud on your toes.
A lake? Swim on a summer day. Dive under
with the quiet. Sleep by it on a calm nights. With
little rushes of air. Stoke a fire with your friends.
Make little circles on your expensive boat. Know all of it.
From the two kinds of fish. One frog. Seven sunken logs
and the dam on the other side. Your lake.
Then a sea. How deep is a sea after the puddle and the pond and the lake?
there is no bottom to see. No other side. Salty water. Floats you up.
How easy it is to swim here! Like it's keeping you up. Out.
Full beaches. To mountains to tuck it secretly in.
Windward waves and wild things in it's belly.
Sunken ships in the harbor and in the deep.
How deep is the sea with it's wild things and
buried boats? How deep are they hidden?
Sail away and the ocean begs. Did the sea scare you?
Could it hold you?
The oceans call.
Surely the seas were shallow when in your strong heart
you drop as far as any have dared go here.
What rests in the dark is not wild. It has never seen the tame.
In the dark there are monsters.
And mirrors.
When your light shines on them, which will you fear more?
Take one breath. It's one face twice.
How deep. How far.
Then Dante's door. From the deepest circle of hell
to heaven.
In the worst of someone else, there you are.

A crow lights on a low branch of a bare mesquite tree.

Yesterday a hunter shot a deer. His aim was poor. So was the light. He ran a long time before he remembered he had died.
'Bang.'
"God. I must be dead. But run? I should run?"
A long ways off. Deep in the woods he slid down to his knees. The adrenaline faded fast. When there was so little blood left.
"God... I forgot... It was only... So long ago... A minute... When you're bleeding so much... It's slow."
His big, cold body slept there through the night.
His chest looked to breathe. But it was the swirling, slicing winds tearing the night in all directions. Swaying his short fur.
The morning crept in blue. After a mourning black night. Navy skies swept in.
Coyotes catch his smell as the winds choose a direction and slice that way only.
The Family trickles in.
Drip. From the woods. One. Lonely. Follows the air.
Splash. He finds him. Deep in the woods. But darts away.
"Deer don't fall like that."
He watches crouched behind a cactus. Watches for kicks. Shakes. To see if the fur moves like he's breathing.
The wind made its mind and his chest rests still.
Still as the dog. Nobody else is. So he does.
He rises up and cracks int the morning with short, sharp howls.
And the family drops in. Rains in. On that dry navy morning.
There's eight now. They watch each other.
Not the body. They watch each other.
"It's free." They say.
"Free to me." They say back.
"Howl lucky we are." They laugh and laugh and lust. Lust for the free wet meat on a dry day.
Circled they tear into their free meal. And each other. A little.
When they get in the way. Can't blame them.
There's so many. So hungry. Don't get in the way.

A crow lights on a lights on a low branch of a bare mesquite tree.

The first to see.
The sky shed its navy suit and starts to see.
But first came the crow. The first to see.
The day began. It shines first on his feather. The first they see.
He drops neat to the earth and rips the lid from the eye of a little coyote.
'A test.' He tells us he thinks.
To the family. Blood is blood. From the little nip they rip more. A hole as wide as their hunger has made their lust. For blood. Blood is blood.
It took a little nudge. A nip. To do what's natural.
Little coyote died more naturally than the deer. He was splayed much more quickly. In the dust and the blood and the fur. Who could tell?
'Who can see this but me?'
'What you've done to the least of you, you've done to yourself.'

A crow lights on a low branch of a bare mesquite tree.

This day as the last day. Begins as it ended.
But the night was quiet. Still.
And the crow is quiet. Still. On his branch.
What more is he to do? They can't be taught better than any of the others.

I'm gonna take you up on that offer. You're
right I have to get out of here. It's a trap
that will hold me forever if I only wait
for rescue.
there's no pain. No screams to draw soft
hearts attached to thick arms to pry me
out.
They told me routine would make it pass
easier. But it passes too far too fast.
Go into work everyday at 3. Off at 10.
Get up at noon. Watch tv until I throw
on a tie and those ugly shoes I hastily shined.
I'm scared.
I'm looking into a well wondering how far to the
bottom. I'm a million and one too many
analogies for falling in too deep. Screaming
in anticipation of the water slapping against me.
It would be deadly if I hadn't died in the air
already. I can't breathe now and I should
know by now why.
Fly or die.

I deserve you.
And you deserve me.
This isn't about time or ***.
Distance and days apart
Can't hold me back.
My heart is raging forward.
My body is just the foam on the wave.
A pretty face,
With no control
On what's below.
But I want to come for you.
I want to be yours.
I don't have a choice.
But I want to ride the wave.

Had to stop. The color outside
Drew me.
The air smelled like a lake's.
And I begged for the water again.
That's gotta be the next step.
Find water. Float under it.
I gotta see it. And smell it.
The dying light of rain.
It makes me feel like
Dust floating.
A million different pieces.
Thinking for themselves.
Held together. Happy like that.
The dew makes me see lines,
in the grass blades.
Follow us.
I wrote about those connections
In my little pocketbook.
There were flowers.
Thrashed in the wind.
Didn't care.
Wanted to.
Maybe I can. Floating.
Looking at the water.
Maybe paradise is at the shore.
Atlantis. Happy. Under water. By water.
I can see it.
Lawn chair. This book. Me.
Smiling or too happy to move my face.
Just laying there. Sun. Orange with the evening.
Sunglasses. My grandpa's.
He can see it. I can see it.
Found it.
Paradise.
Fresh water. I'll fish in it.
I can run down and swim.
For. Or float.
Not feel nasty when I walk out.
Let the sun bake the water away.
While I figure myself out. In here.
Paradise. I'll go.