receptivity
moon yawns out day
flames flicker the dawn

con-scious-ness
rises in drowning
and bubbles up again

“here now child,”
it echos, “just feel feelings”
and the adult resists

seasons color change
blue years to red seconds
head into sunlight heaven

divine intuition speaks
out of in our hearts
essence of expanding

a single lopsided wilt rose
the metamorphosis of
a dreamer who is not here

old man in the old cafe
he reads all day
long pauses pleasing

soggy California
a deer framed by headlights
predator and prey

water cleanses me
rapids under rope bridges
wind chimes of I, I, I…

the more I relax
water cleanses I of me
the more you will see

my smirk in the light
like waves lap on distant shores
****** mermaids; higher kites

i'm afraid that i've forgotten what it means to be alone

i keep imagining a tattoo on the length of my back
a girl, ethereal, asleep on the forest floor, her long
hair flowing out amongst the ferns, over the moss,
spilling into the nearby pool, and then it begins, the
twisting and gnarling of locks turned to roots, from her
cerebral crown grows a giant of the forest, which
shelters her and creates a branch shadowed world as she
slumbers and drifts off to dream of her own deep, dark fairytales

funny how it ends so quickly
when the beginning seems
to last an eterinity and then some

all it takes is one missed foot step
or perhaps a mispoken word
or maybe just one text read out of
context to send the inevitable spiral
down the ******* drain

i wish that i cared more, that i cried
more than just three stupid, simple,
stunned tears, not because i have lost you
but because you have lost me and i
can't quite understand what makes you
think that i am deserving of being lost

i will stay awake and stare at the spot
where you told me you wanted to spend
a life time staring at the universe with me,
i will stay awake and wish that my phone
would vibrate with your name on the screen,
i will stay awake and i will do absolutely nothing
because the ball has been in your court
for so long that it's deflated and brittle and
all it does is land with a thud on the ground

i will stare at stamp ridden hands and remember
how you stared at me and saw nothing worth
saving or having and i will cut the strings between us
and wait for the wind to whisk me away

sloppy seconds turn into somber slumber
and i'm still spinning in a universe that's unsure
unrest becomes irreversible, irreplacable, irrevokable
slipping through cynical sunrises and statistically normal sunsets

grab hold to the ground, hug gravity tight as everything
tries to fling me from functionality and into so called "freedom"
find focus, find focus, find focus

hocus pocus hums under hymns spoken hesitantly
and i hesistate again and again, i hesitate
finding the magic within the madness is my specialty
sometimes so much so that i subject self to sinking slowly
into the muck that ***** my skin off of my bones

flapping floppy lips leak loosly limp ideals and i look
to my black widow for conviction, confirmation, and consistency
meditative mornings and deep dark evenings become the norm
housing imaginary friends and hoping to inspire intellectual integrity

family finds new meaning in full ****** up webs that spin
us all up and spit us out on the same ground, but we are safe
here in our humble, happy home, we are safe and we are
happy in the simplest sense of the word

i am in love with you
in the worst way

creeping thoughts that
tell me it's over loom in
crevices and corners no
matter how bright
the sun shines

every moment i'd like a
hand in mine, it's yours
i picture and then it's gone,
one ****** digit at a time,
til i'm left with nothing
but a dripping stump

i write you with depth
and decisiveness, but you
want none of it and
for some reason, i am
not deterred

i will hang from spanish
moss and bide my time
amongst cicadas as leaves
fall and seasons crawl on,
i will wait until these bugs
breathe life into this earth
again and again and again

this cannot be it,
because i love you,
even if it's in the worst way,
i just wish that you could
see how big this love is
without my wearisome words

The snow has been falling for a few days
or years now. It drops from the pines
in white plumes, needles shoot
out from the glaze of ice. Did you
know in 1849 a snowflake
fell from the Scottish sky
twenty feet wide and shattered
cloud glass across the frozen ground?
Right now the radio says parallel
dimensions may exist while I realize
I need to put another notch
in my belt to keep my jeans
from falling to the floor -- to keep
distant suns within reach. Did you
know one scientist suggested the universe
is a giant crystal growing in a five-
dimensional liquid? I try to picture
its jagged edges swelling through time,
the snow falling in clusters
while the tea kettle hisses steam
and the television talks just a little
too fast. I take out the pocket knife
and lay the belt on the ***** floor
and dishes and snow piling
up around cars and door-
ways, and empty bottles and cans,
***** t-shirts, crumpled papers,
pots and pans. The knife sinks into leather
and creates a hole to hug closer
to my waist -- to hug myself into orbit
and anchor myself to the earth. Did you know:
When I was younger the sun
would shine the flakes together
into a thin sheet of ice we could walk
on. The light's reflection was sharp --
with eyes closed we took slow steps
above all the small pieces
that would soon melt,
not wanting to break the illusion
of our height, feet above the ground,
on a gleaming surface that could give way
at any moment.