feats of angels
try hard not to stare
lonely wild men
only partially aware
struggle down the alleys
of our new neighborhood

found your hiding place
when i came home today
try not to think too much
about what has become
of these darkest dreams
which we have undone

someone is going
to call the cops
maybe this time
they will show

the evening news comes on
we hardly seem aware
you nurse bitterness
like a lost child
searching everywhere

always misunderstood
try not to think too much
about what we have done
of these dark dreamers
and what we have become

try not to think too much
about what has become
of these empty lives
and these dreams unwon

*the city burns tonight
a horizon red glow
nobody cares
just another blow

different rivers
different seas
reaching into unknown lands
from the green hill
unbidden
sounds, evoke
some other place
some other reason
another time
different season

i had a poetry reading
last night, well not
just me, but i read
some of my poems

it did not go well
this fellow in front
would not stop
talking into his mobile

as though everyone
wanted to know
what time his girlfriend
was going to arrive

and why she was
such a ***** in the
first place just because
he would not pick her up

when she knows that
she lives on the
completely opposite
side of town and

would make him late
late? to a poetry
reading, i thought,
why don't you hang

up the phone then
and what kind of
a woman puts up
with this **** anyway

so, i paused, and
asked him to stop
talking on the phone
people clapped, i said

that i know i am not
exactly "on" tonight
but did not think he
could do any better

i was wrong this
**** was brilliant
he stood and began
reciting with clever

lines and impossible
rhymes he did not
even stop to breathe,
well, my fault i guess

his girlfriend showed
up and of course she
turned heads as she
walked past to sit with

him, and i heard her
apologize for being late
then they left so i
just stepped off the

stage and sat down
then i left just as
soon as i thought
no one would notice

i.
i awake, startled,
as though falling out of bed,
the clock read one a.m.
but something must have
awakened me

ii.
as i walk down the stairs
my eye catches movement
just outside the window
at the corner of the house
down the steps, into the living
room, as i see someone step
past the window again

iii.
looking out the picture window
the garden stands like a negative
sharp contrast in full moonlight,
shining on a family of white-tail deer

iv.
one stands at the corner
of the house beneath
the window there just
feet away from me
as I close with the window
my deer freezes in alarm
staring back at me

v.
he must not see through
the window in the dark
for my deer goes back to
eating the dried remains
of the chelone lyonii
i have left standing, through
the new-fallen snow

i spoke your name with a lover's breath
     while morning stars still filled the sky
now, i wish that i could fly

i knew that i had dreamed of you,
     sweet imaginings of loves reply
now, i wish that i could fly

content that i would find your love in
     all my day's routine, on this i will rely
now, i wish that i could fly

i'm so sorry, i'm so sorry i never should have
     let you go, so far away from me, goodbye
how, i wish that i could fly

i have wandered these forests,
     ancient redwoods enshrouding the foothills
          rolling back from the great Pacific to the Sierras

this ancient range of the coast redwood
     tallest trees on Earth. i walk a path well trodden
         above Mill Creek water flowing to the estuary

turning around to head back to the trail-head marker
     ferns and rocks protrude from the walls
          sediment of time, written in the canyon walls
          
i ramble into a growth of California rhododendron
     in full bloom, their flowers bursts of red and yellow
          against the dark green leaves

here, i pause, enchanted by the consuming
     majesty of this ancient place abounding in life
          entirely indifferent to my passing, enduring

and, once again, i am able to return to nothingness,
     suffering comes from the desire to exist, and, i remember
          that there is a path that leads to the end of suffering

my love
seems a creature of the night
the moon seeks her
     as she sleeps
to wake and write her verse
     for me

     my love
would be a child of the lake
a sweet water
     pirate
having stolen my heart
to bury as her
     treasure