There is a place where the birds go
When the air grows heavy
And it is not South


It is here that I will find you
When the dust has settled


You say you want to sing my bones electric
You want to whistle from the rafters of rainclouds
Become the weight of the rain
The kind that only comes
After the locusts have gone
And we are all waiting for something new
To keep us inside


This century was the moment
In your late-night lunch break
When you got so close to the end of your cigarette
That you wish you’d left the filter on


We are one race with seven billion shotguns signaling GO


Still we spin
Like tornadoes in plastic bottles
Cursing hands and the landfills we all fall into
Eventually
We might stumble into sanity
And mistake it for a honeybee sting


Resurrection
Is breaking past the parasitic anchors
In your skin
Propaganda over-fishing
Sinking 5th dimension realities
Into yesterday’s tomorrow


I will dig you out of this town until my fingernails are black from trying to touch every color at once


Hold me steady like September
The birds do not need compasses
But I do


You asked to leave the lights on
That night on the forest floor
The canopy rising and falling in the rhythmic breath of night
Tracing a circuit on the inside of my spine
The curve that proves that
We do not belong in boxes
With straight edges


Learning to breathe does not become easier the second time around


Catch my breath in a butterfly net
Send it back priority


In some other city
You spend the night with my footsteps
I spend the night folding swans out of your conscience
Jimeny-cricket style


There is a place where the birds go
When the air grows heavy
And it is not South


It is here that I will find you
When restlessness tempts you to fade


See you in my sleep
See you breathlessly awake
And shaking at the pearly gates
Because excuses were the birds
That flew from your chest
when you put regret to rest

Time is a watery reflection of the universe
give it to me straight and drink with me
hold my hand and walk with me
into the steel-toed footsteps of society
my heart's supposed captor
the director of minds
the decider of dreams
and the definer of happiness
who lead your eyes to my soul's window
and allowed you to see so clearly
what I desire?
was it I myself
when i let slip
through trembling lips
all that was left of what I was
when the light threatened to expire
with words that shook the stones beneath our feet
with iron tones the empty street
with my word rings
and like the footsteps of ancient kings
can be heard for miles
echoed by the voices that dared to speak them again
my words find their rhythm
they don't need me
I'm part of a chain of speakers
as long as the hands of humanity
reach back
and longer still
as heavy as the rain that beats
growing stronger
i speak to that beat
the beat that breathes
the beat that lives
the beat that leaves
traces in our blood
like tracks on a road well-travelled
like a river after a flood
like poets of old I cling to the grass
and speculate on its origins
wishing for a moment to hear the voices
long silenced beneath its feathered stalks
I read immortal words
etched on paper as if on bone
they inspire words like the desert sun inspires thirst
no longer a passing interest
but a necessity
a sonic perscription
I watch those used phrases like clouds
forever morphing themselves into new shapes
born again to the imagination
the waters of diversity rise
bursting through the floodgates of human limitation
I put my stamp on an unsealed letter
and send it in desperation to the earth
I don't know you-
I don't know you.
but allow me to be for a moment
the page that catches your falling words
as you shed them to grow your soul anew
and i might know a piece of you
and take it as my own
I'll add my name to the list of people
who look at the night sky
and in uncertainty find themselves not alienated
but surrounded
and think their eyes too weak
or their souls too young
too see that which
in undue haste
to surpass the insurmountable
has gone to waste
and left us spinning
trying to shove meaning
into the hours during which we cannot see the sun.

His hands belong to the hammer
And the hammer to the spikes.
Every day, ground is harnessed
From San Francisco to Vancouver.
Exhale, and the muscles in his shoulders
Kiss the dirt and the strain.
One foot buried deep, the other to hold him steady,
Smearing life thin between the tracks.

Now, every breath he stuck in the dirt
Can still be felt
Rushing into your skin
Head out the window
Of these cars, tethered to midnight.

This is the only life
Where progress and purpose
Paint themselves in the sutra of our eyes
And it is here that I wish I lived.