I smelt the rain before it came, as
The smiling sun was tucked away.
I knew then that the time had come-
For singing children with kites were done,
Their joys and smiles gone with the sun.
And butterflies
(yellow, orange, and blue)
Had to run and hide
Until the storm was through.
These daffodils, lilies, roses, too,
Will stand beside me,
Water rushing at the knee-
A thousand city skylines,
Waters fallen previously,
Gigantic ships tucked in a bay,
All stand waiting for this day.
Like abandoned cars upon a country road,
They will take on every load.
Here I am,
Arms to the sky,
Like those daffodils on the
Cloudiest day, the loudest night.
Every piece of grass,
Every grain of sand,
The rain stops for no beast,
The rain stops for no man.

He'd been watching the world
Through a whiskey glass,
Seeing every distorted image
Of her that passed.

A decade ago,
They were adoloscent children
Living on their parents' means-
Adolescent children,
With adolescent, childhood dreams.

Sometimes, it takes separation
To recognize guilt,
The meaning of content,
What matters and what does not,
What lives, and what will rot.

Whiskey, they say,
Has a habit of wiping you away;
Legend states that
If you pour it over a broken heart,
The cut will heal...
But legend also has a way
Of blending what is false
And what is real.

Skip a few heartbeats
And a few pyramid schemes,
Stop half-way and you'll see
How they did love eachother once,
But not like she needed to,
And he
Not as much as those childish dreams.
Chalk it up to loneliness,
Weariness, curiosity,
Or what have you,
But there was an intimacy,
That much is true.

Sometimes, it takes lonliness
To reach an understanding,
A sense of self,
How to keep your heart upon a shelf.
Sometimes,
If you can figure out the grief,
You can figure out the relief.

He'd been watching the world
Through a whiskey glass,
Noticing how those images passed,
Feeling he was free at last.

Standing silently upon his raised throne,
His stage,
His front porch to the world,
He played his fiddle
Like an Appalachian yell,
So that even the dust in the air
Hung on every note
As they rose and fell.
They fled from the man in perfect time,
Like jewels falling from the crown,
Like a storm leaving its cloud,
Like Earth birthing her leaves and grass,
Like memories
From an empty whiskey glass.

What I mean to say,
Is that if you're sitting there,
Listening to 'Mozambique',
And trying to figure out
What happened to 'you and me':
Release me from you
Like an Appalachian yell-
Yell, yell,
Until to feel the quell,
For I have screamed you out of me,
And then,
At last,
'You and me'
Can both be free.

Pressed together like autumn Oregon leaves
Wet with morning rain;
Hot like the taffy liquid in a
Chipped mug leaving coffee rings;
Mysterious and hurried like the breath of
Two young people, standing on the porch in love;
Weary as a new mother tilting bottles,
Preferring not to sleep, but instead
To thank her Lord above;
Rested like a helpful hint nobody will use,
Which came in the night but
Went with the wind too soon;
Pensive like two friends sitting
Like bookends on a fallen log,
One sighing, the other patting a faithful dog;
Airy as a Venice lady in a lacy dress,
Planning parties, creating the most beautiful mess;
Stretching like the blue sky over the dry fields of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Pelennor;
Hushed as an old street in Ishpeming just barely
Coming into dusk-
Your understanding of my appreciation for you 
Is a must:
A must,
And nothing but.

He didn’t know what time it was,
Except that it was early,
And he wouldn’t need to be up for hours.

So he turned his head toward the
Only window in the room,
Which was so white that it appeared
To be encasing ten feet of snow.
It was April, though,
He remembered through the neon glow,
And the room was 17 floors up.
The old hotel was silent,
Bathed in this new sunrise, so
Cold and refreshingly bright;
This new day- this white, ****** light.

And then there was the girl-
Sleeping beside him like a kitten
In a sea of pale linens and downs,
An arm over her forehead,
Like a dozing damsel in distress.
She’s fragile, he thought,
Fragile and rare as a glass unicorn,
The heart-wrenching, Tennessee Williams type-
No broken horn, but something
Indistinguishable setting her apart;
Like the pure sunlight, here lies
A beauty so blinding, yet hidden from plain sight.

He didn’t know what time it was,
Except that it was early,
And he wouldn’t need to be up for hours.
Her arm twitched.
The room was boomingly silent.
The infant light made a golden bar across the bed.
The air was crisp.
His breath was warm.
He felt chilled.
His skin felt raw.
His eyes felt raw.
His heart felt raw.
Her skin looked soft.
He wondered if her heart was soft.
He swallowed quietly.
He felt his head pound against the quiet.
Her arm twitched again.
A long-forgotten childhood scar shimmered,
And he decided that this particular mark
Is innocent, but…
He would move a mountain and
Protect her always; keep an eye on her,
In all her wild wonder,
Rather that give her another.

And then there’s the slight voice:
"Beautiful as if made of marble,
Untouchable as if made of glass,
If you’ve ever wondered how an angel sleeps,
Now you know at last."

And while he slipped back under the covers,
He slipped helplessly into a love from which he'd never quite recover.

Sometimes I just want to stand all alone in the middle of a forgotten field on a sunny day, with my hair down, singing at the top of my lungs until I begin to cry at the feeling of sweet release, when all my raw emotion is just hanging in the air around me instead of crunched up inside my heart, making me feel weightless and heavy all at once in that one brief moment, because all of those things I've been holding inside about how you make me feel, how you were my magnum opus, my greatest work, and how after I created you, you still left without me and didn't even look back as you were strolling away, are finally free from me, even if only for a tiny, earth-shattering second, but I don't know where I'd find an open field at this hour, and I could never pick a song anyway, so I'll just sit here and think too much like always.

It lingers in those midnight moments,
During the black stillness
Of the cold, technical mornings,
When all is silent,
Unnervingly frozen in time.
It hangs in the air,
Desperately waiting
During bouts of repetitive silence,
When memories move into focus
And doubt sharpens,
When the only noise
(Your shaking, lonely breath)
Rattles the walls,
And old thoughts accumulate,
Suffocate,
Like yellow fog circling the hall.
It's the little creature that
Perches on the shower curtain rod
As you stare at your reflection
In the bathroom mirror and nod,
Giving him his cue
To fly down to you,
Landing gently upon your shoulder
So you can feel the breath,
Hear the whisper loud and clear,
Saying, "everything will be alright, my dear-"
And at last you give a smile, 
Stretching from ear to ear.

I need a love that walks at a leisurely pace;
I need a love that's poor, with a handsome, lucky face-
One that can hold the world in its big, rock-steady hands,
Ready to lay foundation to its best-laid plans.
I need a love I can look in the eye;
I need a love that's loyal, that proves it from time to time-
I need a love I'm not scared to touch,
That will not bend, that knows too much.
I need a lonely love:
A heretic-of-the-heart hognose snake,
Preparing to strike at mid-day
In some familiar place,
Grinning mysteriously
As it walks at a leisurely pace.

I come with a deep stillness;
I was born with a great shyness, a long quiet, a demurity.
I feel it in the way a thousand notes play softly in an orchestra,
Yet I have no adequate speech to show my appreciation.
I sense it in the way the wind blows warmly in the springtime,
And I can not begin to describe the beauty linguistically, so I do not.
I’ll keep it within my mind, where it belongs.
I can tell it by the way I sit alone,
Writing bland, thoughtless poetry in the dark in late December,
So that even my fingers freeze in uncertainty:
To bring the thoughts from mind to pen- impossible.
I need to make up my mind, I’ve been told,
I need to speak out loud,
Show my heart,
Wear my pride,
Hide my silence-
Once in a while, anyway.
But I find it so hard,
Searching for my voice in the middle of the winter,
Like standing beneath a snowy tree, about to speak,
But you see your breath and so you stop and watch-
I just watch.
I feel that coldness, the quiet, the reserve.
When I’m boisterous, I regret it.
Being loud is fun, until you’re quite again.
I’ll speak tomorrow, I think, knowing I really won’t;
Maybe the next day, but probably not.
But tonight,
Tonight I come with a deep stillness,
And I revel in it.
I have no shame.
For deep stillness
Is mystery,
And mystery is intrigue,
Intrigue leads to complexity,
And complexity...
Is me.

If you must,
Then hold him tightly;
If you must,
Then pray 'til your heart's content;
Whisper unto him your sweetest desires,
Beside either
Raging or dieing fires;
Hold fast his irises in your memory:
Brown as rolling rock,
Green as that Last Homely House west of the Moutains...
Adore the man, then,
Purely, honestly, hotly,
With every muscle and hair and bead of sweat
Your body can bear;
Love the man,
If you absolutely must,
And by all universal means,
Sing to him a song as gentle
As the very breath he breathes-

Unless, of course,
The man already belongs to me.

I come from a long line of make-or-breakers, and for that I am thankful.
When strangers say hello to me, I greet them back, just as my mother taught me.
When I try, I sometimes succeed, and
I sometimes fail, but I breathe an innocent breath,
Knowing that I did my best.
I have a thousand stories to tell, stories you may not believe.
I have standards. I have feelings.
I have emotions. I have a heart.
I can hurt.
When I sleep at night, I dream of the real and fantasy.
When I breathe, I do so thankfully.
When I laugh, I do so joyously.
I have a past. I have a future.
I have beliefs. I have morals.
I  have opinions, and I have rights, and
I understand that those two things are not always interchangeable.

I am a proud, intelligent woman.
I am a caring, understanding woman.
I am a wise, hopeful woman.

I know how to nurture, and how to be nurtured in return.
I am honest, my heart is as pure as possible.
I mean no harm.

I will die someday and let my epitaph be such: that if I ever hurt a soul on Earth, it was done so unknowingly, for if I had known, I’d have rather died a much sooner death.

I understand that love is the greatest universal power there is, and that is my religion.

You and I will do magnificent things,
For we are the well-wishers
And dreamers of dreams.
We will flower and conquer;
We are the hope-spreaders
That know no bounds,
Our home is the clouds.
We will do magnificent things,
You and I,
Wearing love on the front
Pockets of our coats,
Our pride spread thick across the sky,
Smoothed with emotion like a silvery knife.
We stand in back alleys and laugh,
We look toward sunsets and grin,
We hover in garages and sing
About such wonderful things,
Hope circling like a diamond ring.
You and I,
We are the children of soon,
Watching yesterday's moon
Sink like a vessel-
Wherever we travel,
Our minds are the vestibule.
Tripping the light fantastic,
We will do magnificent things,
For magnificent are we,
The well-wishing dreamers of dreams.

I was stung by a bee right between the eyes when I was casting one of those cheap little Mickey Mouse fishing poles. I froze as two hands lifted me onto a counter, and ******* dabbed chilled ointment on my skin. I sobbed quietly in humiliation. I was 4, and it was the first time I realized that Mother Nature could be a real *****. 

My father fell in lust (not love, he swore) with some curvy young something which hovered around the company where he and my mother both worked. He drove us back to Oklahoma, then left again. I spoke girlishly with him on a pay phone near an elementary school once, but I didn't see him for two years. I always knew the color of his hair was close to mine, but his face was a mystery. I was 6, and it was the first time I realized that you can love someone, even when you shouldn't. 

I swam past a little boy in the community pool, which belongs to the University in town. He told me plain as day that I was fat, blunt as a butter knife. I cried for half an hour lying on a hot beach towel in the sun, then all over again in the changing room. He was ten years my junior and I am now an adult, but to this day, I glance at my waistline every time I pass a mirror. I was 14, and it was the first time I realized that people can be unhappy with themselves, even when they don't need to be.

It was the second Saturday in March when my work phone rang, and my mother screamed that my stepfather was dead. She yelled at God the whole way home, angry with Him for taking her heart away. They were supposed to grow old together, she muttered, through thick curtains of tears, and I remember the ambulance lights, my aunt holding my mother to her in a way that only a sister can. My brother was silent and white-faced as my uncle kept repeating things like, "It shouldn't have been his time, he was too good of a man..." Some woman said later that my stepfather was already an angel, that he just needed to go home, as if that was supposed to help. I was 17, and it was the first time I realized that things happen for a reason, even if you don't believe.

I watched a tow truck haul away my first car, which still ran, but conveniently equaled my share of rent when drug across a scale and stripped for parts. I was hungry, I was tired, and in my head, I was all alone. I had never felt so burnt-out, used-up, and sad in all my short years. A few phone calls and hugs goodbye later, I packed my things and moved across the state. The feeling of leaving left me smiling and shaking like hell. I was 21, and it was the first time I realized that sometimes your only choice can be your best choice, and that jumping in head first makes the water look less black and cold. 

I fell in love with the same person twice. We let each other down, no doubt about it, but I was never the kind to strip a human of his dignity. I mistakenly hoped he'd have the same understanding. What I was left with was the feeling of being knocked down to my knees, when no hands had ever touched me, and I finally stopped trying to be part of a life I had no stake in. I was 23, and it was the first time I realized that heartache should be treated in a hospital, for it lies dormant inside every living body, deadly and unsterile, but it will never be curable simply because you can't touch it.

I was driving to work this morning and saw a little girl waving from the backseat of a Buick in another lane. I smiled and waved a little "Princess Di" back, feeling my heart flutter and rise oddly like a healing bird when she grinned happily over the back seat. And so I turned up whatever song was playing just then and said a little prayer for her. She was probably 4 (making me recall that bee sting), probably fresh to pain and grief, so I said: "Little one, there are things in this life which will make your heart bleed and your body sore, but hold on, add them up, and you'll see that living's worth the hurt because someone out there will love you, and you will love someone out there too." I'm still 23, and this is the first time I've realized what it means to be free.

I can see myself getting lost in you,
Comparable to a current in a tiny stream,
For this is nothing grand,
You and I are not the sea.
I can imagine the two of us walking
In a city far away,
3 or 4 years from now,
Only then, we'd be touching less slightly
Than we are now.
I mean to say that you might
Have an arm around my shoulders or a
Hand upon my waist,
A modest and silent but lovely way
To show that 
I am not the world's woman,
But your woman,
And that this is steady and strong,
And people will think to themselves:
"Look, they've probably been together for years, 
But even so... how could that be wrong?"
In 3 or 4 years,
Sometime aroud 7 a.m.,
Sunday maybe, 
Holding coffee & hands
In the jungle-city,
As compared to yesterday,
Walking through this town's veins
Which we've memorized,
Our elbows grazing awkwardly
As we stride,
Afraid to make the next move,
Unsure of where to start,
But not quite wanting another second apart.
What I hope, my dear,
Is that after you and I fall asleep
Without a kiss but with foreheads touching,
After we wake up, grin,
Then look at eachother but don't dare shift,
What I hope is 
That you help this princess (or so you've called me)
Step down from her tower,
That you be forceful, yet never underestimate her power,
That you miss her while she's gone,
That you help her down,
But never let her down.

You say you've got the fire down below,
You say you're ready,
Itching to go-
But that fire's on your tongue,
In the form of lies, suspended and hung.
That fire's licking your teeth
And it's curling
And you spit it at me-

You're not destined to make old bones,
No babies, no little red clones;
You're not destined to make old bones,
You hardly deserve your current ones.

Now and then I think of you,
That soft smile you left me with.
Now and then, I wish I could
Say that it's okay, I understand,
That if you have to go,
Believe me that nobody
Will understand
The way that I can.

I knew I should beware of you,
This illusory complex that I wanted to be you.
And, still, when you knocked upon my door,
I answered your call.
But sunny days will always set, my dear,
I just didn’t know that
You’d make always come so soon.
Blame it on that sunny afternoon,
But I did, and maybe still do…
I really used to believe in you.

But it seems like this forgiveness
Is about faith, and knowledge,
And knowing when you’re too far behind,
And when to let go,
And how to make the best of a cliff
That may take a decade to climb.
Yes, I think it’s about
Forgiveness,
And faith,
And you and me,
And how to be free,
And cutting you off
Like a hundred-year-old tree.

Now and then, you’re on my mind;
The things you said
Were only my religion, my life,
But now and then I remember:
That it’s not about who you let your guard down to,
But why you became so vulnerable in the first place.
All the same, despite my campaign,
Some things just remain
Burned into your memory.
Like two words the same but worlds apart-
Your memory is a homonym of my very own heart.
But it’s okay, I understand,
My will is not your will, just
Rest assured that I will always
Love you like nobody will.

Now and then, I feel like a fool.
These letters and boxes of what once was
Seem so dark and deceiving,
And now and then I wonder how long
It would take to make them full again.
But it’s okay, I understand.
There’s no use in pretending
That this grey cloud’s not looming;
Maybe someday it won’t rain.
But, now and then,
I’ve got to pay,
Because you’re gone,
And that’s the way it will stay.

Baby, I know
The worst mistake I ever made
Was to put it in 2nd, and walk away.
I didn’t fight that mountain.
And still, to make it easier,
Into that something good…
I wish I heard that voice,
Telling me I should.
What good would it do?
Tell me,
What has happened to you?

You're swearing all the time,
This haystack, these needles,
They’re always getting taller,
But,
Forgive me…
I notice your smile still hasn’t faltered.
Go ahead, you feel fine, but…
Like some pawned-off ring,
Like some choir unable to sing,
Like some shoe with too many miles,
Like some child without a smile,
Like some worn-out version
Of my favorite song,
That shine in your eyes
Is dead and gone.
There’s no more room for me
Left in those baby-blues…
Tell me,
What has happened to you?

A well runs over,
A well runs dry.
A needle in a haystack,
A needle in an eye.
Where is security?
The window, the pane,
The lock, the key?
The grass is ***** and weak,
With nothing coming soon,
No sign of something good.
I’d like to make it easier-
Tell me,
Do you think I should?
I’m helpless, yes,
I wish you were helpless, too-
Tell me,
What has happened to you?

And even if the stars aligned,
I’d still be searching ‘til the end of time.
Too tired, true,
But what else should I do?
Tell me,
What has happened to you?

So, one more thing, I think,
Before I cut you down to size,
And tell you goodbye:
I’d give you everything I own,
For you to just leave me alone.
Forget our summer,
Forget our past,
And for goodness sake,
And for the sake of God,
Take me off this crooked line
That I know you drew.
Your memory,
It sticks like glue…
But tell me nothing-
I don’t want to know
What has happened to you.

I’d like to talk.
And if I could,
I’d say:
“See that path?
It’s flowers sprinkled
A foot apart,
Far as the eye can see?”
And,
“Would you take a walk with me?”
There’s dirt,
And rocks,
And a big, red sky-
“What is it about today
That makes me feel alive?”
The air is hot and thick,
My calico skirt blows,
Your flat-bottomed soles crunch,
As you pick the dusty flowers.

I’d like to talk.
And if I could,
I’d say:
“See that road,
It’s broken television sets,
Couches, and Maytag machines
Far as the eye can see?”
And,
“Remember how things used to be?”
It’s soft,
The image fading to white,
But I’m wasting bated breath-
“You never would have survived.”
The air, still hot, still thick,
Is dying, it’s sick.

Well, I’d like to talk.
And if I could,
I’d say:
“See that highway?
Gone is the humid day.
See that highway?
Gone is the hundred-degree breeze.
See that highway?
Gone is the locusts' song,
But-
Where have all the flowers gone?"

The Chicago Tribune called it,
“The Affair of the Decade!”
Everyone’s mothers called it,
“Another tragic heartbreak”.
When the coroner wiped his hands,
He predicted a sensation,
And so did every uniformed man
Sitting in the po-lice station.

In a cold Illinois motel,
A man in a suit smiles.
He was twenty years in,
A detective for the city.
Oh, that smile he’ll smile,
But gone is his laughter,
Along with his pity,
For tonight, tonight,
He would shoot up the city.

Regina combed her blonde hair,
And took the lift down to the lobby.
The pale-skinned princess,
That woman’s body…
How many fell for her
Remains quite a mystery.
We watch,
Ladies and gentlemen,
We watch,
As her dress moves in the breeze.
Like a dandelion in the dark,
She rides the carriage
Into the park.

The detective stood alone,
A cut-out cornerstone.
He was no longer nervous,
He looked like a statue,
And the ******-white snow
Fell quietly to his shoes.
In the moonlight, she came.
He spoke her name.
In the moonlight, she walked.
But when he spoke, she stopped.

“Regina, Regina,
Please reconsider.
Without you,
The nighttime is darker,
The cold air much thinner.
Without you,
The wind becomes sour,
The daylight so bitter.
Regina, Regina,
It’s just a few days…
Say yes,
And in the morning,
We’ll be far from this place!”

But that Regina, Regina,
She let him down easy:
“Your job is to spy,
To live in the quiet.
You’re a prowler,
You were born to sneak,
And I will proceed,
But do not follow me.”
And we watch,
Ladies and gentlemen,
We watch,
As she turns on a dime,
Leaving our detective behind.
A poor, tortured soul,
He smiles that smile,
And in an act of desperation,
Pulls out his frosted .45.
For Regina,
He aimed, and
For Regina,
He fired.

In the heart of Chicago,
Be it snowfall or in heat,
No one can be spared
When a man is in defeat.
T’will be the foggy air,
The hot metal, and
The echo of the gun
That will help us remember
The night that we watched,
Ladies and gentlemen,
We watched…
We watched...
The snow, and how
It lost its innocence that night.
And poor Regina, and how
Her yellow dress blended into the sight.
The detective, and how
He would step into the street,
Killing everyone he’d meet.
Twenty men dead,
Now the asphalt is sticky,
And the blood spilled is gritty-
For tonight, tonight,
The detective shot up the city.

The coroner wiped his hands,
And predicted a sensation,
And so did every uniformed man
Sitting in the po-lice station.

I saw your face in a paper sky,
Saw how good it looked in black-and-white.
The light in your eyes is
One of those pre-lit things-
That is, to say,
That when you wink,
The sky goes gray.

Heart Ripper, you're a decorative lover,
One red-hot summer.
Heart Ripper, what a gorgeous shame.
Love is love, under any given name,
But after a hit, it's forever lame.

You're the classic American case
Of mud inside a jar,
You air-brushed lonely-heart.
Perfect imperfection,
A photograph in a frame,
You're smiling, but dustless.
Dustless, and perfect.

Heart Ripper, you've gained a red list,
And another little lover wrapped up in your fist.
Heart Ripper, she's on my side,
If I can't give it back to you,
She will in good time.

Just like some music in the canal,
You remind me of a favorite song.
But this final number's old,
Over-played, over-sold.
Skipping in that broken-record fashion,
Really,
I mean to say,
That this is a tune from the past,
That's closing fast.

Heart Ripper, you're a powerhouse lover,
The blanket superior.
Like a windbreaker in December,
You're there, but not quite enough.
Heart Ripper, never fixing what you've torn;
The needle, the thread, the sewing hand--
Take this as a tune of pity,
As a brand new set of plans.

Hero, hero,
Get it while it lasts.
You're invincible now,
A regular rough horse from the city.
Go home,
And just for good measure,
Repent, before you receive
More than just a tune of pity.

So smile for the camera,
Leave your compassion on the hook in the hall.
Sit down, catch the call,
Brush my biggest fear right off your lap,
Over your shoulder,
Pretend not to notice it fall.
It’s just another day
In some fool’s paradise,
A paradise lost, but-
Brother, my brother,
In the end,
The very, very end,
How much will this cost?

A wolf in a wolf’s own expensive suit
Can go out on the town,
And he’ll take it on down.
And he’ll prowl through the
Half-lit neighborhoods
In which the other half sleeps:
On Newspaper clippings
In a cardboard box,
On a gusty day on a city block,
Spotted, once and again,
Through melted landscapes,
Through Mother’s old stained and
Pink-and-Spotted drapes…
There’s shallow eyes with beat-down spark,
In each and every lined and dusty face,
Whose strength is gone without a trace.
But, there remains
A yellow, crooked grin…
Some slight reminder of happiness,
But such happiness
Is a disgusting, foul-smelling sin.
He’ll check his hat, his jet-black coat,
His sympathy, at the door,
And he’ll block that door,
As it all comes to a close,
And your life is no more.
Your fate is held in the palm of some
Cold, undeserving, and ***** hand,
A beast of a man.
And then,
A wolf on the town
Is no different than
A snarling and rabid
Dog in the pound.

Suddenly, your tongue is no longer tired.
Suddenly, this precious world is on a tether,
And it’s slowly on fire.
The wolf, he tosses it around, but-
Brother, my brother,
In the end,
In the very, very end,
When can I play?
You’re uncomfortably silent,
You dare not say.
But we’re about to be through,
Brother, my brother,
For it’s getting hard to defend you,
You awful,
Grotesque,
Stereotype, you.
Someday, even your own kind
Won’t bother with you.
So beware, bully,
You are out of your place.
This is no tether ball,
No half-eaten game;
It’s nothing but a covered case.
It’s a ******* arms race.

You are no better
Than us, or the stains on
Our blistered, aching feet.
Your face is no more loving
Than the blood
Soaking the foreign, sandy streets.
So forget it all,
Run away, lest it turn against you,
And never look back.
Don’t dare for a round two.
Consider us your children,
Coming of age, and
Putting a price on your back,
For you are no better
Than that
God-forsaken Father
Who leaves,
And never comes back.

A pair of blue jeans, baby,
A cut-up magazine.
Quotes in the air,
Quotes on the fridge,
Quotes on our bodies,
Tattooed across our ribs.

The meaning has changed,
Yet the words are the same.
I know, it’s not quite as clear,
But the feeling’s still here.
You know, art does that, sometimes-
Have you ever seen the Mona Lisa?
She’ll laugh
Now and then,
She’ll widen her elusive grin,
But don’t blink, boy,
‘Cause now she’s only smiling again.

A hundred pairs of socks, baby,
Some bath tub with a ring.
Someone is arriving,
Someone is even smiling,
And here comes someone with
Bible verses on their back,
And…
By God, they’re thriving.

The needle has skipped,
Yet the words echo on.
I know I’m older than all the things I’m surrounded by,
Than a dog or two, and a chewed pair of shoes.
This memory of a life is like
Seeing my house burned down,
With all my possessions
Littering the ground.

A wall full of photos, baby,
A brand new television, for you but not for me.
These days have finally matured,
These days have decided to let us go.
These days are down the road, without
So much as a ‘goodbye’,
Or a passing glance
And you pass them on the road.

But art, it does that, sometimes.
In fact, baby,
Have you ever seen Van Gogh’s sunflowers,
With their heads hung down in defeat?
One would think they died in the summer heat,
But it was love that did them in-
Some protective barrier that failed them again.
It happens, sometimes;
I’ll laugh now and then,
Widen my elusive grin,
But soft, soft as I am,
I can’t turn around,
And allow this to happen again.
I’ll give you my blue jeans
And things;
Take my quotes,
The socks, my
Magazines.
For now that the past has disappeared,
The future is growing clear.
In March, I’ll be born again,
Like every sunflower who deserves
To be treated like a princess becoming a queen,
I’ll be…I’ll be.
And then, baby,
It’ll be…It’ll be
Like we never passed each other in the hall,
Five years ago,
Before I was short and you were tall,
It’ll be…It’ll be
Like you never even
Knew me at all.

I.
A gentle rivalry
Hung in the hallway that night
As you tried with all your might
To come face-to-face with that
Girl in the mirror.
I remember you stood there
And cut off all your hair,
Saying:    “It won’t let me go,
                   It won’t let me go,
                   It won’t let me go,
‘Til I let go first.”
I bit my tongue, said,
“Well, those times are the worst…”
And so I let you go,
And boy, did it show
When you let go first.

II.
A soft collision
In the middle on the night
Shook your whole family awake.
Fools, they made the mistake
Of trying to hold you down,
And you had no more hair, but
Still, you turned haughtily around,
Gathered your belongings,
And drove out of town.
Knowing it had to be so,
                           We let you go,
                           We let you go,  
                           We let you go,
Because you let go first.

III.**
A silly sort of train wreck,
One of those ancient, nickelodeon types,
Took place, as clockwork,
Before our very eyes.
But, much to my surprise,
When the smoke cleared
I saw a rose petal floating in oil,
Too precious to be spoiled.
Not a word was spoken,
The bonds of the universe were broken,
But you picked it up, quite motherly,
With blackened, blistered hands…
Now, suddenly,
Beware the smallest tear,
Measure each breath, count every hair,
Keep it pretty, keep it clean,
Keep it beautiful, keep it new,
And remember:
                    You don’t have to let it go,
                    You don’t have to let it go,
                    You don’t have to let it go,
Even if it lets go first.
Keep it beautiful, keep it new,
And remember:
                     You don't have to let it go,
                     You don't have to let it go,
Even if it lets go of YOU.

She was eighteen,
He was Twenty-three,
With an old brown Ford
And a smile in the trees.
And with his smile came light,
The kind that appears in early Spring,
In the morning, and only when
You’re Twenty-three.

She wore this black Flamenco dress,
Everyday, and, if I remember correctly,
That was some dress…
Tight from blade to knee,
And billowing from the back,
Begging for every young man to see.
It’s skirt, when she twirled, could cover a camera,
Mute the sound,
Get attention from all over town.
But what she saw was, in all her spinning beauty,
His tree-tall grin,
And it took her in,
To that desperately sought-out end of a quest,
Where mothers held their daughters against their *******.
It was love, perhaps too young,
But it was love,
It was,
It was.

He’s a good man!, she’d always fight,
Left home, one time, in the middle of the night.
Seventeen, too handsome for his own daring good,
That dark-eyed boy and his Redwood-smile
Hopped a south-bound train,
And he looked back, like in some old movie:
Cue the Angry sky, the loneliness, the pouring rain.
He needed to move along, and he had a feeling,
In every sense, that he would;
You know, chalk it up to that daring good.

Well, child?
Well, what?
Well, is that enough?
What happens when he’s twenty-four?
Is it you, for which he’ll walk the floor,
Or leave home, one time, in the middle of the night?
For seventeen, still handsome, still free,
Is not so different, child, from twenty-three…
But it was love, perhaps too young,
But it was love,
It was,
It was.

And Mama, he can dance,
Please remember that!
What was it that drew you,
Like some artist’s red line,
All those years ago,
To some twenty-something,
With hair like a wheat field and eyes like the sun-
In your prime, and also in his,
It wasn’t sin, but something drew you to him.
His hard work, his humor, his wit-
Mama said, and stopped.
And the way his leather soles spoke,
In circles and crooked lines-
When the light began to shine,
They’d whirl and sway,
Every time some guitar played.
Whenever the word “no” she’d been told,
Mama rushed for him to hold.

Mars said to Venus:
"Check out how this scene ends...",
And patted Pluto on the back.
"Dear friend, faithful friend,
This is how it all shall end.
When those Scientists attack-"
(Still, he patted him on the back...)
"-at least you'll never feel a thing!
Venus and I will walk the Black Mile,
Maybe even with a couple smiles,
But when the Sun makes us go,
You won't, for you see,
You are no planet,
You... are Pluto!"

"Do you mean to say,"
He answered, wiping a tear away,
"That it doesn't matter,
Being rejected by the Scientists and Sun,
Because, in the end, I've really won?"

"Precisely," Jupiter cut in,
(As he did, every now and then...)
"Because, although a planet
You may no longer be,
At least you won't go down
Like him, and him, and him, and him, and him,
And me!"

Pluto smiled, but his ice was thick.
"You know, I was beginning to believe this was a trick!
But new words from old friends
Are   usually   true-
I am so very thankful to you!"

And then all the stars went dark,
And all the planets had fear in their hearts.

"The moment has come-"
In a mighty voice, said the Sun (or whoever...),
And Pluto began to wave goodbye,
The tears returning to his eyes.
But the Sun (or whoever...) just could not stop at six
(For who ever really stops at six, when they're in need of such a fix?),
And Neptune was surely surprised
When he discovered that Uranus, and he, and Pluto, too,
Would soon be gone-
But Mars was not,
For he had known it all along.

Two days later, he opens his eyes.
Bright sunlight, some blinding enemy,
Like heat waves upon scalding sand.
Two seconds later, he closes his eyes.
How did it begin?
And where, for that matter,
Did his dignity run off to?
He rolls out of bed,
Clutching his greasy head.

It was the annual banquet
For the Pure-of-Heart-but-Poor-of-Soul’s
Club; They dined, they danced, and
Someone grabbed his sweaty hand,
                                             and…

He leans against a round-topped refrigerator,
Stained a putrid brown, which collects
Take-out boxes from all over town.
He ought to find a chemical,
Some bleach-magic in a bottle. He could
Use steel wool, or a sponge,
Make it into a worthy possession again,
But still,
He won’t. And he probably never will.

A metal cap is flung across the room,
Landing soft upon a soil on the floor.
The beer tastes
Like aspirin and the ***** General Electric.
Waste not, want not,
He’d always say.
And so he sipped, and did for
The rest of the day.
Waste not, want not,
Wasting away.

What color was her dress?
Did she dress,
In that purple dress,
To seek? To impress?
Anyway, he thought,
Anyway you stare,
Is alright. Not okay, but did he care?
And he just might marry her red hair,
But only if her crooked grin
Would run away with him.
She’d never seen a black tie before,
And neither had he,
Until he found one on the floor.
“I see you’ve joined our Club,”
She said, stubbing a cigarette on her shoe.
“Just passing through, fair-headed,
Taffeta lady. But it’s sure nice
Seeing you."

A dripping air conditioner
Barely clings to the window ledge,
As if a seven-story fall from
The pathetic high-rise were
No big deal at all.
And it pours its sour, frigid air
To the dark apartment there,
And another ***** shakes itself loose,
As he turns up Scarlett O’Hara
On the evening news.
“I’ll bet she’s a princess,” he said
To an audience of burn-holes and broom handles,
“The woman of somebody’s dreams…”
And glancing at the dieing machine, he added,
“Well, since you are my only friend,
What do you think?”

She kissed him over an open pizza-box delight.
He was probably crazy,
But not as crazy as she that night.
Crazy will do as crazy often does,
Which explains a lot,
If you don’t think about it much.
He should have known better
Than to trust a pair of cloudy eyes,
Or the bird’s nest of a mess sitting
Confidently on her head,
Like some wilted rose painted red.
Some devil’s right-hand angel
Was kind enough to carry
Him home that night,
Staggering drunk, robbed blind.
And crazy never changes,
So the Taffeta lady will remain
Counting all his money in her room
In the asylum for the criminally insane.



Sometimes you live, other times you die;
Two days later, he opens his eyes.

I humbly believe
That it often seems
Like the sweetest dreams
Could last forever.
A perfect picture of curious and happy,
A pair of hands with ten fingers cupped,
A pair of cheeks wet from tears of laughter,
A perfect afternoon,
And I hope I’ll be seeing you again soon.

Saint Benjamin, I know of a woman
Who talks to the morning clouds-
Or, rather, to the space between,
Right where your face should be.
“Can you hear me?”
The leaves shake upon a tree.
“How humid is the Heavenly air?
Tell me, I know you must be there…”
She waits, her frozen heart beings to thaw,
But the clouds shift,
And move back together,
And the line is broken again,
Broken forever.
Saint Benjamin, she’s reaching a hand to you.
A stretching, never-ending, one last wave goodbye.
“I’ll never meet any one quite like you,”
She’ll say,
But you’ll just smile and turn away.
Smile, that’s all you’re allowed to say.

Every spring time,
Every first sunny day of the year,
A pair of bright eyes closes,
And a pair of dark eyes opens.

It’s like a foreign film set on repeat,
Over and over again, like a machine.
We live it again, and again, and again:
Can you feel the thick, hot prairie wind
Blow away your every sin,
Every time I do?
You don’t; For you never sinned
The way I do.
I still feel that perfect afternoon,
And do believe that you left too soon
With a soft praise,
Two hands upon the wheel.
If you could just return, one more time,
If only just to properly say goodbye-
But you can’t,
And that much won’t ever change.
You know, finally, after all these years,
I can see it’s meant to be that way.

Saint Benjamin, can I just say something?
I’d like you to know that I hold her,
Every minute,
Spring day or not,
Sunny day or not,
On perfect and imperfect afternoons,
And, you best believe,
I do my best to get her through.
Between the clouds, or maybe not,
You can smile,
You can turn away,
But Saint Benjamin,
I would like to say
That everything for her will be okay-
She’ll be seeing you again someday.

And I know you wouldn’t have it any other way.

I see a blue-white light
Shining on your hands tonight,
And in one of those hands
You’re clutching this city by the neck,
Hanging it by a cat-gut string.
In the other hand, there’s nothing-
I guess that doesn’t really mean a thing.
Ten professional fingers,
Each one with a degree,
And to silence us you hold one up,
Bright and tall,
And they call you all,
They call you all:

Pretty little demons
Taking the world by storm,
And never giving it back.
Pretty little heathens who
Keep on swimming,
Even when the water turns black.

There’s shards of broken glass
Laying in piles of greasy trash,
And I wonder how they got there.
A push, a shove, some sonic boom?
The effects of a sea of doom,
A sea of greed,
A hundred hungry mouths to feed?
Now’s the moment, hero,
To step front and center
One more encore, one more word,
You’ll play the mother bird
That feeds her children, so
Helpless and small,
And they call you all,
They call you all:

Pretty little demons
Taking the world by storm,
And never giving it back.
Pretty little heathens who
Keep on swimming,
Even when the water turns black.

I remember when you were crying on your knees;
You told me, “I have what this city needs!”,
And I agreed, I agreed.
Now there’s a wolf howling at
Your name in neon lights-
He believes in you.
After all that struggling, you were right.
Was it only yesterday that you were a nobody?
And not just a nobody, but a nameless nobody?
No food upon a paint-spattered table,
An aging Mercedes dieing on the road,
A yellow bulb flickering in the hall…
Yes, I still recall,
But you don’t remember
Life before success at all.
And they call you all,
They call you all,
(how long will they)
Call you all:

Pretty little demons
Taking the world by storm,
And never giving it back.
Pretty little heathens who
Keep on swimming,
Even when the water turns black.

I turn right,
Right before the railroad tracks,
And all I see are dark eyes.
Get yourself together, girl,
They seem to say to me.
You’re bigger than this side of town,
But be sure to flee before the sun goes down-
Hang that right,
Or else you gotta stay all night.

I never travel this road in daylight.
I’ve driven through a hundred summer nights-
When the wind is like velvet upon sweaty skin,
And the air is no cooler than
Than the air in Satan’s smoke-filled lungs-
Can you help but think of here, July, and being far too young?
I only travel this road at night, and
I’ve looked up to many a-blackened sky,
But all I see are dark eyes.

One arm around my shoulders yesterday,
One moment not to be relived again,
No matter how hard I try.
And now I drive through this
Black-silk, thick, and lonely night,
Trying to get you here,
Or there,
Or anywhere
That’s off my mind.
One day, one for the books, my dear,
Was all it took.
Yes, that smile hit me with a hard right,
And now all I do is think of you at night.

A bright color,
An innocent color,
That’s what I long to see in my sight.
Ophelia and I,
Coffee-haired
And told too many lies,
Will always search for blues,
But all we see are dark eyes.

Dark eyes in the rear view,
Dark eyes down the road.
There’s nothing all around me,
Far as my dark eyes can see;
A million years from now,
A million miles away,
These dark eyes will remain.

And if I saw you
Standing in the pouring rain in the dead of night,
Shakingly anxious for a midnight train,
That speeding, steel pill that will
Relieve you of all your pain,
Would you remember my name?
Or would you make like the rain,
And fall away again?

And when you reach your final destination,
When that platform creaks under
Your thirsty boots at that nameless station,
As the fog moves to embrace you and
You feel the great feeling, a mighty vibration
Of a heavy railroad monster
Abandoning you at some remote location,
Will my eyes creep into your imagination?
Or is the past on permanent vacation?

And when you’re finally alone,
Silently, painfully alone,
You will crack open that dusty luggage,
You will begin to aimlessly rummage,
But will you see my picture
Tacked inside your suitcase?
And furthermore,
Will you recognize me?
Will you recognize my face?
The color that my hair really was that day?
Or was that such a different place,
A completely different time and space,
That my smile, once occupying your heart,
Might as well have been born into some
Nonexistent place?
Will you ever remember those days?
Or are they gone without a trace?

Heavy-hearted,
Heavy-browed,
Self-conscious,
Snapping pictures,
Struggling to say ‘please’.
Too tall,
Not tall enough,
Thin enough,
Not thin at all.
Crooked smile,
Goofy grin now and then,
Born with a heart that
Skips a beat now and then,
Demure, quiet, shy to speak,
Short attention span,
Stories that could fill a book,
But the kind that one skims
For recipes, dusty, in a kitchen nook.
Never been a statue,
Never been a muse,
Comes with a deep stillness that
She has no clue how to use.
Lost,
Found,
True and tried,
Dark-eyed,
Weary-minded,
Trying to be kind,
Trying to find the time,
Having nothing but time,
Time after time.
Long feet, long toes,
Long fingers, long hair,
Long time coming,
Long time leaving.
Stumbling over the long feet,
Stumbling over a small vocabulary,
Wearing a peace sign at the neck
Like it’s mandatory.
Tattoos,
Taboos,
She’ll remember you,
But you’ve gotta impress her
For her to recall your name too.
No dark without some kind of light,
Barefoot in the dead of night,
Or dead of noon,
Barefoot anytime feels alright.
Lyrics and strings,
Colors and wishing she could sing,
Hoop earrings and other pretty things;
Ins and outs,
Screams and shouts,
Awake and dreaming,
Asleep and living,
Taking it one day at a time,
Learning how:
To be healthier,
To be more productive,
To be better,
To be honest,
To be herself,
To laugh,
To forget,
To live,
To raise those heavy brows,
To yearn,
To show concern,
To love,
To learn.

It’s like how you
Can’t see the fireflies at noon,
Or how you think an
Ocean is amazing, until
It takes a life.
Or how we can be so distant
To those we say we love,
Only to part from them and
Find we can’t recall how
It feels to hold them close.
It’s like how, when you look
Up on a cloudy day,
It hurts worse than the sunshine,
And like how my trust
Doesn’t compare to his riches
When it comes
To your piece of mind.
Like how, when your love has parted,
And you try so **** hard
To season the heart that
Won’t stop aching, leaving you thinking:
“I will watch tonight, perchance
T'will walk again.”
It’s like how nobody will ever know
Why learning how to walk again
Is so much harder than it was at infancy.
It’s like how,
Even though an infant has no
Experience of the outside world,
Somehow, infancy is so much
Easier than adulthood.
That’s exactly how it is.

The snowflakes fell
Like talcum, softly, from a rusted tube.
Pure and silently, the
Pine trees shrugged
Against the blanket they were forced to hug-
Evergreen arms
Cut the blue sky and
The white clouds became gray,
And they cried.

As a mirror thrown against
A brick wall in the dark,
The wind blew harshly,
Demeaning,
Unforgiving,
Like tiny knives, tiny shards
Of broken glass, fast and hard.

Drops of dew looked up to the sky-
And now it is springtime;
Spring is the temple,
Love is a new day
To open your eyes and
Count the
Births,
And blooms,
And beginnings
And things.

The raindrops fell in a gentle mist,
Fat and slow,
Onto blades of dark green grass
And when they landed,
They kissed.

Light
Tangos on the tops of heads,
Perches in the hair like
Crown jewels,
Liquid like gold
Above faces of lovers-
Lovely, bright, and bold.
Births,
And blooms,
And beginnings,
And things.
And now it is springtime,
Stuck inside a blissful moment,
Snapping vintage photographs in
Hues of yellow and green,
Chartreuse, something in between-
Light falls down though eyelashes,
Dancing upon toes of shoes,
Hoping this moment doesn’t
End too soon.

"Are you alright?"
She asks,
That tell-tale look of
Worry, concern,
Maybe a little bit of love
Flooding her face-
Imagine:
A complexion gone tight,
A pulse skipping as quickly as
Young child in Brooklyn skipping
A rope in fright,
Waiting with anticipation for
The object above inching over
A skinny high-wire between
Two of those Brooklyn city towers,
Waiting to hear it, the thing, the
Invisible power!
Of-
Of a voice. And a smile.
And he smiles,
Drunk without a drop of the poison,
Wrapping an arm around her tired waist as
He gazes out at the city skyline,
Saying happily, "I'm fine."
Just like that he breaks the line,
Sets the hook-
And she falls from the high-wire
As if collapsing into a pile of leaves,
And she closes her eyes,
And she breathes.

I was thinkin’ about Colorado,
I was thinkin’ about Maine,
I was sitting in a Greyhound,
Trying to remember my name.

I must’ve been crazy
To do what I done-
It must’ve been a thrill,
It must’ve been fun.
To sit here in wonder,
To sit here in shame,
To try and forget you
Is like trying to forget my own name.

I was thinkin’ about Oklahoma,
I was thinkin’ about the law-
How one day you’re tall and
The next day you’re small and
How we never really knew each other,
After all.
I was thinkin’ about
Paint-by-number sunsets,
(Where Highway 9 meets 12th, looking west);
I was thinkin’ about saving people
And abandoning the rest,
About who I would choose,
And what I could afford to lose.

I was thinkin’ about sugar,
I was thinkin’ about spice,
I was considering how it ended:
Bitter… but nice.
I’d like to get to know this city,
Forget what I came to do,
And forget my name in a Greyhound
A time or two.
But a rose is a rose
By any other name,
So there’s no use pretending,
There’s no use shifting the blame.
I’m thinkin’ about a few more years
In Colorado or Maine-
Whether in crumbling mountains,
Or in dry, dusty plains…
Add on a few nameless nights
In some abandoned country bars,
Then it’s only six more steps
Straight upstairs to the stars.

O sad American night,
With her fingers stretching
O'er the fields, prairies, and streams-
O sad American night,
Falling on top of faces of
The poor, the helpless, and meek,
Hard-faced bretheren building
Houses and streets.
The lonely American night-
Quiet, wise, promising,
She allows her men, women, and children
The silent moment to think
Of future, getting out of this place;
When the sun rises, leaving this
Insufferable space.

Heavy American night,
Joining fellows around fires,
Whispering tales of hope,
The end of her people getting tired.
The night time,
Like hands covering eyes from behind,
Is clever,
And she disappears as a whisp of smoke.
So- lonely, angry, and forlorn are the realizers;
Blissful, unaware, joyful are the rest,
For those bretheren have not met
The underbelly of the beast,
And like a pool of tar is their current situation:
Sad, dark, and hopelessly infinite...
They shall forever have an ankle stuck in it.

---------------------------------------
7/21/2012

"... and as of yore, he too was telling his life story and never dreamed we were passing, at that exact moment in the highway headed for Mexico, telling our own stories. O sad American night!" -Jack Kerouac, On the Road.

But who regrets love?
Who doesn't want to love?
Who has never had that feeling
Of lying on their bed alone,
On top of the covers,
With no one else at home?
Who has never stared
At the ceiling in the dark,
Watching that God-forsaken fan turning
So fast that they can't tell
One blade from another,
Seeing another blur they could live without?
Who has never seen the little chain hanging,
Shaking as uncertainly as
Their spirit these days?
Who has never remembered their voice,
The tone alone,
Saying "Someday you should just get
That **** fan fixed-"
And who has never wished,
Who has never wished
Those blades would cut the memory away,
All the while knowing that,
Like the heavy midnight air,
It isn't going anywhere?
Who has never turned onto their side
To watch the wall,
Considering it all through
An alarmclock's acidic blaze,
Hearing an uncle's, aunt's, cousin's,
Best man's, best friend's question again:
"Was it worth it?"
And who has never breathed
A thick little sigh in the dark, answering,
"...absolutely..."?

Today,
John took off his sunglasses
But left on his hat,
As he smiled at the lady behind the
Counter at the motel.
She had a beehive hair-do, he noticed,
Two feet tall and yellow,
But he didn’t say anything.
She smiled back, slid a key to him,
Told him, “Room 303”.

Yesterday,
John put on his sunglasses,
And stopped at the screen door,
Reaching up for his hat.
It was sunny yet windy,
And he planned to be rebellious.
Windows down, top speed,
No destination,
He drove.

In 1987,
John met a lady named Clara,
And fell in love with the way
She served him coffee and pecan pie
In that old greasy spoon,
Built inside an old railroad car,
Which sat beside the river’s shore
Out on Interstate 24.
She had a yellow beehive
That was twenty years out of time,
And she could have been out of her mind,
But she knew how to smile,
To drive a lonely man wild-
But how she refilled his coffee for free,
Without a doubt, was his favorite part-
She seemed to just dive right through
The hotness and steam, straight into his heart.

In 1991,
John and Clara got married.
She had one of those tiny, white,
Lace-covered cowboy hats that matched her dress.
It clung to her climbing hair, and
Tiny leaves and babies’ breath were everywhere.
Why those hats were ever in style, he never knew,
But he said nothing, because
Her sister wore one too.
They smiled for the pictures,
She held up her heavy dress.
They held hands and waved,
Before climbing into
John’s beat-up Cabriolet-
In love, driving away.

Now it’s
Eighteen years,
Eighteen excuses
To try to hang onto the past.
John liked to close his eyes sometimes, and
Picture her: pink apron,
Arms loaded with plates of food.
Meatloaf, mashed potatoes,
Every kind of bean:
Red, black, pinto, kidney and green;
Number one was the free coffee,
Or was that reason eighteen?

Yesterday,
John put on his sunglasses,
And stopped at the screen door,
Reaching up for his hat.
It was sunny yet windy,
And he planned to be rebellious.
Windows down, top speed,
No destination,
He drove.
He drove until he passed
The sister’s house in which
His Clara now lived,
The cowboy hats, like their love,
Forgotten and gone.
In a different town in a different world,
He drove into a tiny motel parking lot,
Not paying attention to
Whether he was okay with
Moving on or not.

Today,
John took off his sunglasses
But left on his hat,
As he smiled at the lady behind the
Counter at the motel.
She had a beehive hair-do, he noticed,
Two feet tall and yellow,
But he didn’t say anything.
She smiled back, slid a key to him,
Told him, “Room 303”.
But before he went,
Ready for rest, dying to sleep,
Perchance to dream
Of anything but what happened to
Half his life in Chattanooga, Tennessee…
He took in her friendly eyes,
Mysterious style,
Warm smile.
And John couldn’t help it,
He felt delighted when she said:
“The coffee in the morning
Costs a dollar-forty-three.
But I like your sunglasses,
And you seem alright by me…
So I may just pour you a cup for free.”