we had orange juice in jelly glasses
          that taste so fine
and a hundred broken promises
          standing in a line
you touched me with such tenderness
          it felt just right
to see you stretched out on my mattress
          in the morning light

we had white wine and compromise
          to last all night
bundled me off to nothingness
          without a fight
you spoke to me with such finesse
          as though a sign
with a hundred millions empty lies
          none of them mine

i have come to discern
a great breach
a chasm that stands
between
apprehension of the world
and the world
itself

like some character
in a play by Chekhov,
perpetually seeking answers
yet, offering no
truths...
as an eternal madness, a seeking,
ever seeking, yet
accomplishing neither end nor
resolution

a tune, played almost to
conclusion,
missing that final chord,
so that we see, that life has,
tampered...

(as grief enters, stage right)
"line please..."

once again
dawn awoke
with a simple
grace
life's breath

no one quite remembers
how this came to be

let them come
let them all come
in the remaining hours of daylight
i can see them as they run
down to the shore
out on the sands
of the impossibly green ocean.

it had been a hot northern California day
but as the sun sank low in the western sky
the wind picked up and the air got cold
i sat in the back of a rented Ford
when i saw you standing there
among the young surfers camping
on the beach near the parking lot
of the Clam Beach county park.

the most beautiful girl in the world
with your long gold hair
your back so strong
and your legs so long
you smiled at me
as you walked along
to the back of your car
parked three spaces from mine
you pulled your wet suit off
with your eyes on mine
i fell in love at that moment in time.

let them go
let them all go
in the fading black star-filled night
on this western shore
i can feel my heart break
as we drive away
frozen in my memory
the girl in the parking lot
at Clam Beach county park.

the little lies
go creeping down the alley
to hide

what sadness is found
lurking in the rainy night