Among the desolate crowd we felt that welling of times long held back. The cloud had come. Release, pouring down. Over. Washing away what all had been left discarded. Disinterested. Pouring down the cliffs of a world we can't fully come to terms with while the rest was nothing more than grease stains sliding streetwise to cracks, corners, stagnant pools that left them short of those drains put in place to siphon them off to somewhere.
    Somewhere.
    New?
    Lost?
    Forgotten?
    Why. Why would they work so hard to take all of it away just to let it sit. Lie (lay, I mean, but **** it) in the streets causing those perfect souls passing by to deal with the failed drainage systems put in place. They promised, again, to fix the streets, why did they do all that work to have people feel their failings in the posting rain as their boots soaked through.
    What was the thought?
    Money? Gold? Ambivalence or hatred could be candidates if there weren't such a stranglehold on the decision makers. The streets, department or otherwise, knew how to address it, why don't they?
     And the drains clear. With them, concern. The puddles, disappeared. All that is left is the penumbra of promise, silhouettes of stagnant process producing not but the petrichor reminisced for. But it's always a memory left, maybe tomorrow problem. Matters not when the gatherers gather once 'gain. The sun still shines it's oppressive rays and once again these cloudy eyes start to well.

i tried so hard
to send you winter
in a letter

i went outside
collected snowflakes
and foolishly pressed them
into the pages
the ink ran
and my thoughts
melted away

i wanted to save winter

capture it in a bottle
and hide it
between my lungs
so my every breath
would be cold
and my voice
would taste like snow

i thought
maybe
if i could take
that bluish-grey sky
and shove it between
my ribs
and swallow
every
dead
leaf
you would see frost coated grass
and think of me

... and
i could give you
winter

f o r e v e r

ten days into january
but my soul already
ache for the
softness and warmth of
december; to be cradled
again in his arms

In the deep corners of 3am,
I find her.

when I was 16 I thought love was a dark corner
I thought she was someone else,
and her words dripped down the walls
until they were all I heard,
all I breathed in through my nostrils
lips pursed
trying to keep my secrets from pouring out.
but I let them (too soon)
and I limped about the house for days
like I was embarrassed to have stubbed my toe

she said it had gone on too far (of course it ******* had)
but when you believe your darkness is alive in someone else’s words
you feel almost nauseated
the taste of bile stuck to your tongue the morning after being sick
why did we like it?

she came to see me sing
and 12 others sat in silence, thinking but not knowing
the thickness of the air
are they breathing it as deeply as we are?
can they taste what was said between us?
I used her words
she said they belonged to someone else
I wish they had.

one winter I almost did not survive
the infinitely consequential moments, all merged
indeed
into one dimensionless experience
where the pain of my entire life (embraced) was
all around me, all at once, and forever
do you know what I mean?
and I could see it all, even behind me and underneath
and I was crushed beneath it and yet,
in that endless vast untime
a winter?
even then
held it upon my palm to look down at
from far far above me
as though it were a tiny diamond
impossibly durable,
sharp,
with all the shining upon all of the surface of the oceans on the earth
and unbearable, I looked down at it,
I held it, unbearable

but it would never fall from me, and it hurt and cheered me to be beneath it
for if God had (known me) long enough
in the untime with no breadth
to lay this curse
the form of grief
down upon my head,
was it not also the most solemn blessing?

       and he is faithful, and the suffering he lays down upon you, he will not allow
to be too much, that you would die while you are alive
one time, but again,
again,
and more after that

that is the winter of indelible clarity
a hard glass memory
behind the curtain, the coldness off the window
freeze against the pane
still I feel it in my hand
heavy (unbearable) and familiar
coming down on me again

what did I do
to turn the eternal gaze
toward my face? I disintegrate in excruciation
but never turn away

I walk out to the bottom of the lake
whispers and snaps under my more worn feet
and high over my head huge cumulus creatures
look down on me in their reflections
as they creep by echoing the atmospheric wails
so I smile facing heaven
along the edge the wind blows an impatience into the heads of fall- budding trees
a worried crowd

I am impatient too
to open my lungs in a worldwide gasp
to be then overpowered and brought to meekness neath a wave
of the form
of all things

in the morning
to wake to the dissatisfaction
the kind that only sleep envelops
to stir to stir
and wander into long halls
of a million doorways
in one: a simple smile
another, painted earthenware and a child's laughter
a third: needles before euphoria and neurotransmitters
pouring out into blackness
the next: a single blank page and a sigh echoing out of eternity
the doors stretch farther than I can see
contain more than I can bear
cigarette ashes, beloved footsteps fading away, a thousand different accidents with a thousand different grief-ends, a foreign home, one white bird in a flock of black, tie dyed bed clothes, a foggy road, a scientific discovery, a one-night stand with an unforgettable face, a creaking porch screen door, lost pets, piles of bills, purple lightening, long hair, a fathers tears, a city of bare concrete and rain, a moment beside a wood stove, a lost job, a yellow poppy on a green hill, a bottle of whiskey, a tarantula behind the toilet, a convenience store on a special block's corner, ****, last messages, pill boxes, promotion, a long exam, a homeless man,
in one a wedding, in another; divorce papers
hospital rooms, persian rugs, leaking rooftops, eye contact
some doors locked with years lost
some with no turning back
oh
sometimes I can reach the very last ****, to touch for a moment
the room with death itself
but I wander still for there are many more
wander whispering prayers
no guide but a burning light, following always
the center of being