In Florida
the beach cut in half
cool sun baked cake, one side blue
the other side white in swirling sands
and after the waves of tide left
birds stamped footprints, webbed and wet
disappearing in the afternoon sun
sand art lost and windswept.

once a day I spend ten seconds sorry for me
then ten hours on those worse off
I think about my problems too long
and not enough on what I can do to help others
after all what good is pity for me I don't like it
nor do I pity others I empathize
try to put my foot in their shoe
and it makes my problems dematerialize
and one day I will wittle it down to ten seconds a year
and hope I made a difference
before I go
on to whereever
it is old hippies go to
then

from the bank
I see the ghost of a pier
old posts standing solitaire
a ramp rotted, long gone

moored to one stubborn beam,
a bass boat, tethered to time, rocking
with the whims of the waters
fickle, but steady

storms upriver may hasten
the current, bloat the stream
though the flow never ends,
lapping against the hull

hiding inside are more ghosts:
phantom footfalls of fishermen,
odors as old as Eden, sounds
which once made songs

by those who cranked the motor,
manned the rudder and cast the lines
into the depths, seeking a tug--a pull
that meant dinner, a small success

a simple surrender of one species
to another, from beneath the surface
into the sun, a sublime suffocation,
then stillness before the gutting

many a day ended this way
the boat buoyed again to the dock
bellies then filled from the sacrifice,
the waters licking long the wood

He lies flat on the rooftop
looking at the stars.

Useless worlds birthing and dying
he muses
the colossal magnificence of waste

if atrophy is the verdict
why create a complex web of universe
just because someone from an island
would stare at them
in awe of the beauty
seeking a key to the riddle
himself a grain of dust
lost in reading the firmament
and not grasping
of what significance
he is
within his shrinking space and time
in an expanding universe.

I cannot write anything, the way my heart tells it
soft in murmurs or echoing loudly as it does
cannot drift the way I'd like, floating free
as dandelion seeds wild in these fields.
I hear words like arrows piercing in.
I feel shocks and waves
the sea that comes to swallow.
I face jangled places
of these fears again
amid storms of grays and clouds
and after the washing rains
the birds come singing, flying.

i love
you've are
been:

           (alive) and i,

kissing within
the sleeping dawn:

wide white awake.

our small shoulders;
who's naked makes
our heart perspire
1 leaf of grass.

you are gold.
your hair is.
your mouth does.
i sometimes.
and have always.

love kiss laughter sleep argue sweat dream kiss kissing inside laughter

money is about priorities,
and this may not be apparent
until you barely have enough
to get by.

to many children,
it is like magic.
it appears in other people's hands
and gets you
things you WANT.

not until you are a teenager
do you realize that there
are some things you WANT
not just for fun,
but because these THINGS
shape your life, are essential
to your way of life, and are
felt as NEEDS.
a car.
lipstick.
phone.

then money becomes
abstract, once again.
credit card.
student loan.
car loan.
it's what people do.
no one sits you down
and helps you figure out
how much those student loan
payments are gonna be in 10 years
with such and such an assumed salary.
with so and so bills.
you are 18.
you don't have a clue.

the illusion will
eventually come crashing down.
the abstract
becomes concrete,
and the math doesn't
add up.

that's if things go well.

what happens if things
don't go as planned,
as they so often do not?

you may just plummet
into an unfathomable hole.
(it's really not as hard
as you might think.)

and in this state,
you realize money is
about priorities.

if you have no credit cards,
and no savings,
you only have exactly what you earn.
and what you earn may not reflect
your years of experience, work,
and education.

then what?
you choose.
you prioritize.
and i don't mean, oh
should i go to the bahamas
or iceland this summer?

i mean,
shelter.
where can i live?
can i afford to live anywhere
on my own?

transportation.
if i don't have a car
i can't get to work.
if i can't work,
i can't live.

food.
how can i make
this little bit last 2 weeks?

pay the electric or the gas?
because i can't pay both.

cable? internet?
pick one.

new clothes?!
ha! doesn't make the cut.

doctors?medicine?
good ******* luck
with that one.

someone asks you to go out,
for a birthday, just for fun.
you break into a cold sweat
trying to figure out if there is
any possible way to act like a normal
human being and go out.
there might not be, and you will have to say no.

the government would like
their loan money.
it's simply not possible.

it's christmas.
what are you gonna do,
not pay rent for a month
in order to get presents?

and you hear people
give you ridiculous advice
for a situation they
have never experienced.

just don't have a coffee.
or color your hair.

just get another job.

because they don't see
that what they are suggesting
is that you take away
the smallest, maybe only
pleasures in your life.

or that you are literally
one costly repair away
from being homeless.
carless.
jobless.

it spirals quickly.
and if your masters degree
can't get you out of poverty,
but has actually made it worse,
what is the answer?

sometimes it doesn't matter
even if you do
*all the right things.

On a distant summer
a girl walked four miles
to sell fruits at the haat
and mowed by the May heat
fell asleep on a patch of concrete.

The noon dusts played around her
sleep little girl rest your feet
the winds will play you a song
refresh you with dreams so sweet
the walk back home won't be long.

The sun had slid the shadows grown
when opened her dream dazed eyes
there she was at the haat all alone
her fruits in the basket had dried.

She had dreamed a round dime
clutched in her palm
colored gold with her wish

she had slept thru the time
and when the winds calmed
held nothing to buy home a fish.

Time has flown those dusts far away
years have grown her wise
yet when the winds blow lonely in May
her tears she cannot disguise.