I could see Montana in your unopened eye lids
Vast valleys in your chlorophyll

Your fingertips dipped in rust
And then you shook them to
Dry

I love your sky Colorado
Split ends that could spilt
Appalachians

I would touch you if I had hands
Rub our rust like tectonic plates
My ridges are cold like Alaska
New England Industry booms me out
Like bullets

But I found you near the Delaware again,
Like I did back in the winter ‘76
Or maybe ‘74

I can’t remember

I hated the combat but I loved the war
Reminds me of yours

Your crashing Colorado
Runs down your spine
The Mississippi would cut through yellow stone

If it could

But

You are dying, I know that now

Like everything else, like Vietnam

I see your red and your white
But where is your blue?
I’ve seen the hands of America

I’ve lost mine too.

The grass knew back then
How easy it was to hitchhike
On shoes and knees

The Oak tree nearby knew
The kisses I gave her
Underneath its leafless
Frame of winter

The village below
Knew me
The time I stole
His peaches from his
Yard

The graffiti of my youth
Covered up
By Vogue and
Chewing gum

There in the little ancient house
With green shingles,
That knew me

Sits grandpa meditating
In front of her picture
Hung from the ceiling
Border with flowers

Over there, past
The wide dusty road
Yellow from the soil
Stood the brutality
That knew me

Can you still smell the cherries
Over the February gunpowder?
Everyone that knew you
Misses you
Your tone, bells in the wind
In front of service

You spoke the same
But I spoke differently
Now
A battered dream in my voice
But the optimism is still there
Still lodged in my throat
The people are still there
The weight of the peaches
On your shirt is still there
Everyone is still there

Someone had painted the trails with blotches of shadows
And the evergreens went into hiding within them
Crippled leafs descend and ascend beautifully, reinforced by gust  

Elsewhere, in the Gulf of Mexico, the sun had been drowned
By the approaching night
And the sea waves flirt with the crescent shore

Here, the trail traces the forest vertebrae
Its coarse finger tips rips through maple tendons
And fossil stone cartilage
It cries and endures

It bleeds as we carve whispers in to its bark
Things that we are too afraid to say

Elsewhere, at the summit of Kilimanjaro,
Dawn swallows the foreboding night
And a young sun crawls out from underneath the white cap
The savanna shifts its eyelids open
And with a fray the old titans emerge

The tent stood under a basking tree
A young man lays inside quivering
From too many exposed bones
The flies rally and take turns exploring
His skin rots invisibly
And the stomach bugles from the weight of starvation
He would have swallowed the world if he could

But here, we trace the shadows of these trails
And carve our whispers in to dying woods
A sun is drowned every day.
And these crippled leafs shatter.

There is no Kilimanjaro here.
No Gulf small enough to save the sun

In the forest near the
river, along the sides
of the bushes
towards the vastness
of nothing,
we walked on a
trail that marched
deep in to the tall grass
our feet were sore and
colored with earth mud
there was a wave of salt.
The ocean was nearby
we ran the rest of
the way
the tall grass split open
and in front of us was
a crippled house we could
hear it,  standing
on the hilltop
just before the crescent shore

I wish I
Knew how to
Build relationships out
Of construction paper
Instead of Styrofoam
Cups, something that
I could tape
Together when it’s
Ripped, something I
Could un-wrinkle when
It’s crumpled up
But Instead I
Have These Styrofoam
Cups they seem
Strong and sturdy
I don’t mean to
But when I
Step on them
They snap and
Break, their White
Beads come off
Flake by Flake
They are so
Easily blown Away
By breaths How
Do I Tape
Those flakes back
Together when I
Can’t even manage
To get all
The pieces

I hear you
Through
The gaps
In-between
The splitting oak

Whirlpools of dust
Lift from the steps
You ask me to
Leave
You ask me why
I’m here

I smell you
Deep in the avalanches
Of your mold
They had killed a child
In you
Asking me why I come
Three times now

Cavern of unheard voices
Your cries seep
Into my stomach
Fill it with ash
Enough to roll
A useless cigarette

I felt you
Aching and in pain
Those who touch
Your rust
Pour lemons
On your wounds

I heard laugher
In your wood
The scratches
Of tiny fingernails
And the screams
Of a boy




They told me you
Carried them
Said it wasn’t
Your fault
They have grown
Since the last
Time you saw them

No longer the children
You use to carry.

I’m sorry that I’m not okay enough to give you what you need
There’s a point when trying your best no longer matters unless
You actually succeed and I’m failing you; I’m not well; I wish
I was but all I want to do is feel something for once know how
It feels to grasp something and not let it run through your fingers
Like sand; I’m not dead inside; I’m very much alive, running
Savagely through my darkness away from what’s behind me;
I don’t know what’s behind; it looks like my childhood, like
My parent’s disappointment in me, the lack of everything; the
Problem isn’t because I’m scared. A building is set on fire inside
Me every day and every day I have to find a way to put it out
And save what remains of that building; charred black oak,
Crumbling walls, a roof torn wide open left on its tendons;
Photos outlined by carbon and touched by the flames leaving
Traces of embers and Polaroid ash; negatives were use as fuel
Every time it’s the same building, the same house; the house
That I grew up in; the house that’s still there; Why do I keep
Trying to put it out when I know what I really want
Is to watch that ******* burn;