Zebra static screens
Solo chess

A fallout winter
Quiet ash

Empty cans
Jangle across cement

The image of you
Dissipated

Sealed up
The final request

I am a soldier

I was a soldier

can't say it's something i totally admire
but his propulsive desire
i can't really blame
for so many of us are drawn to the flame

A cracked frame
Broken smiles

The ink runs
Down the alley

Red spills
Into the doorway

I glow

The invisible tattoo
A translucent flame

Rage detonator
Molten eyes

Violence in three steps
Two steps
One

I glow

"Who goes there?"
Cheerless and pitiful

A short cry
Then stillness

*I fade

the ring didn't fit quite right
but when she told him
it was simply too tight
the light in his eyes got a little less bright

"what do you mean?", he asked
"it's a little uncomfortable", she said
and his face appeared downcast
as if he'd just learned that a loved one had passed

"it's very beautiful, though", sensing his dismay
but then he surprised her
when he spoke urgently, without any delay
"what, exactly, are you trying to say??"

she didn't understand
she was taken aback
by some issue at hand
brought to light by an ill-fitting gold band

"um, just that the ring doesn't fit"
his silence she could feel
deep in her stomach's pit
so with tears in her eyes, "no really, that's it"

"yeah that's it", he exclaimed
and walked away angry
with her left ashamed
and confused for being blamed

a rain began to fall
soon she was soaked
standing there, feeling so small
right in the eye of this sudden squall

then she felt something had gone
so she held her hand up
to inspect the finger it was on
it had slipped off and was somewhere on the lawn

she searched in vain for the ring's reflected shine
but just when she finally gave up
the rain ended, which was clearly a sign
that everything, anyway, was going to be fine.

electronic screens
exploding news violence
tabloid fantasies

if emotions are music, then the mind
is the instrument we learn to play.  we
get better with practice, but every now
and then we hit a false note, and hope that
the audience has the heart to forgive.

your hot dust kisses stick to my sweat and
sink beneath my skin and melt into my
blood and rush through my heart and pour from the
cuts that you made with your tongue and dry in
the wind that carries them back to your lips
as

dust

Little Billy's best friend was a tree.
One day his parents had it chopped,
and the pieces were shopped.
So little Billy put rat poison in their tea.

he had a dignified stillness
that communicated confidence
and an air of quiet dominance

but the truth he long denied
for despite his surface pride
he was panicked on the inside

so as he walked to work in the rain
he looked up, and a thought splashed into his brain:
"even the tallest, strongest buildings sway"
and that calmed his soul, at least for the day.

honest expressions
that come from our one, true self
make us our own art

Long table
Tired mouth

I feel your stare
My shoulders hunch

Loud and louder
Snow on the pane

Fumbled wine
Bleeding grip

Cries in the corridor
Wind in the parapet

Judgment knife rises
Your heart slows

Loud and louder
Snow on the pane

Red river
Red river
Red river flow

saw a movie once where a submarine
went into a tunnel underneath a
glacier and surfaced in a tropical
paradise full of dinosaurs and cave
people, then a volcano erupted
and destroyed a bunch of stuff.  i thought to
myself, "this movie is really about
people's hearts", but i guess everything is.
sometimes the world speaks to you in weird ways.

the familiar creep
of night skeletons in dreams
toward infinity

always seeking the
exact words to marry for
the perfect haiku

midnights in the hidden smoking rooms
and reading lounges
tucked deep in the crevices of Manhattan

the distant honking of tuxedo cars
and shiny-clack footsteps
through scattered manhole steam
that swirls like silver pinwheels

all the soundtrack noise in my head
as i move across the silent room
everyone's eyes in their books

except ours

i've never seen a new mexico sunset
the desert rocks like watchmen in silhouette
and a wax sky melting down in violet and crimson
like a secret ceremony from some forgotten religion

a new mexico sunset i've most certainly never seen
the clouds bowing their heads for the rising night queen
who comes in with the wind and kicks up the sand
and blackens the sky with a wave of her hand

the sun sets in new mexico
what a beautiful show
my dreams fill with colors
my eyes don't yet know

twinkling whirl of light
spaghetti straps, satin dress
diamond glitter sweat

baby owl faces.
next world of forgotten air.
timepiece creatures work.

night snow
silent snow

hills like white waves
of rough paper
sprinkled with diamond dust

moonlight ribbons
flutter with the pines
as a gentle rush of winter
tickles our window

warming your hands
with mine

i daydream of watching
the night snow
the silent snow
with you

be assured:  the way
things are right now become the
way things were back then

knowing you is as
easy as knowing the shape
of diving raindrops

face ripples in watery reflection
straining to see the bottom
i crouch for further inspection
and vanish into the colors of autumn

orange umbrella
lying open on the grass

or

sunset
over a green sea

tiniest fractions
of lost time, framed and frozen,
warped by perception

sometimes you make a picture in your mind
of someone you knew or someone you lost
it's torn and the colors are faded but
sometimes a picture is all that you got

poems are lyrics
to the songs inside my head
you will never hear

"what is it like to think of a poem?"

"it's like walking down an empty street at
midnight, listening to your footsteps, then
hearing a song way off in the distance,
somewhere around the corner, maybe from
an old radio in a windowsill
and you only hear certain words, certain
phrases, so you write them down and hope that
in some broken way they read like music."

when we ask, do we
believe, or do we ask so
that we can believe

the valley of gold
closer and closer, always
just over the ridge

rain bolts beat the hood.
your look.  sodium yellow.
this street runs downstream.

i'm a midwesterner, born and bred.  but
i lived in the neon dust bowl for a
little while and learned that open space is
good for the soul.  souls need to breathe, and roam
like horses over the sands.  i loved the
drive from Las Vegas to L.A. because
there's nothing like the desert wind in your
lungs to make you feel like living again.
something pulls me back to that time and place.
i don't know exactly why, but i guess

you just have to return to be reborn.

bats in the kitchen
flaming records spin sweet noise
house party chaos

the fair queen held her bouquet of white and
pink mums so closely to her heart, the loose
petals clung to her mother's blue dress like
sequins. nature's perfect touch as she saw
mom smile at the back of the school gym. then
she was gone. the crowd watched as tears trickled
over the fair queen's cheeks as she began
to proudly wave. but it wasn't for them.

Projector rattle
Dusty light

Wallpaper cracks
Fluttering memory

Burning tin
Black timber

A face in the window
Melts

Calm air endures
Scentless

Streamers
Gold and pink

Puddles and shadows
Lips and necks

Smiles and hips
Angels and fountains

Night slips

The abandoned square
Sleeps

Sand and salt
Cold foam

Wind across the pier
I hear the sea

i've fallen under.
my own. spell. i now see. all
that i want. to see.

she wore red for him because it was his
favorite color and she wondered if
he ever really noticed.  like, really
noticed.  the tight dresses, silk slips, even
stockings and bras.  that special shade of red.
not candy, crimson or cardinal.  it
was that unique hue.  or tint.  of blood.

ghosts born from the ash
of our burning silences
haunt us forever

overcast, slight chill
theater popcorn scent drifts
my footsteps echo

scattered snow sticking,
a shape forming to my eye,
swan wings on the lawn.

as i trudged home
one wintry day
i saw a deck of
playing cards
wilting
in the snow

i took them home
and played them
back to life

that was years ago

now they sit
in a dusty corner
and whisper
never forget

but i do sometimes

the wind ravaged her
hair out on the moor as she
clutched her ripped green dress

summer ghosts roam the islands
floating through flesh and bone
winter ghosts haunt the highlands
where lonely travelers are never alone

spring ghosts dance in the midlands
leaping through hearts like flame
and autumn ghosts chant in the woodlands
where the song is never the same

a pile of old tvs at the edge of a road
below a "dead end" sign

some upright
some sideways
some upside down

still tuned

through their cracked screens
and broken dials
and crooked antennas

to a red, white and blue test pattern

memory is a story.  it's not a
clean story.  it is a story without
a beginning, middle or end.  it has
many words and pictures that are unclear.
plot points can be revealed at awkward times.  
supporting characters become leads and
leads become extras.  the narrator can
be unreliable.  rising action
can build to an underwhelming ******.
quotes seem to appear from unknown sources.
it is full of story threads that don't go
anywhere, like romances that never
bloom and confrontations that won't happen.
many problems are never resolved and
there are stories within the story with
no discernible meaning.  the hero
confronts many obstacles, but it is
uncertain as to whether a goal was
achieved by doing so.  despite these flaws,
the story reveals a truth, like all good
stories do.  the reader is the author,
and the author the reader.  "and so on".

one sunday in the park
i sat across from a woman in white
her head was hidden
beneath a big pale hat

and a dachshund
with a sunshine yellow collar
sat at her feet
brown eyes
droopy and searching
   staring

as i ate
a hot dog with mustard

sunshine yellow

swan's wake
ripples
rusty leaves bob

tap, click, shuffle

"where are you, sister?"
echoes of the old house

old wood
hard cherry

the staircase unfurls
from the haze

the hallway recedes
out of focus

laughter
pitter-patter

up and down
round the corner

again
and again

white dresses streak
"don't look back, sister"

tap, click, shuffle

the stairs
hold our secrets

aging lessons
written with chalk, sweat and years
for ageless pupils

A detective married a witch.
In a few years, he wanted a switch.

He slinked and slunk out every night,
and thought he kept his sins out of sight.

But one thing he could not hide from her nose,
the scent of strange perfumes on his clothes.

One night when the hour was late,
she conjured a fitting fate.

She cast a spell.
He fell down in a well.

So it came as no surprise,
no one ever got wise.

For the only man who could solve the case
was lying forever and ever, in a very dark place.