Your hair is rich and dark,
but it's a mess, a bird's nest,
maybe a bit oily.
But as you boldly affirm,
you don't need tidiness,
or even beauty.
You fail to object when I throw
your little poem
to the floor on my way
to your body.

Belted star! Swing from the sea,
the gin is free, and we will drink out here
against the rail, needed company:
To my chagrin I’ve called her once again,
sleepless in Chicago’s restless drives.
She lets me know it’s not the night
to reconnect the nervous histories dreamed
between us in a single anxious twitch -
imperfect people love imperfectly.
Belted star, half-drunk on gin,
let's begin to count the countless
wraithly sheetings of the wind,
before I'm called inside by spills
of sotted laughter, and you're dimmed.

I don't recognise any
Of the things
You sing:
Whispered tunes,
Broken lyrics.
Behind you,
I stand:
Amongst the ruins.
But when you're
Wearing headphones
And I catch your eye,
I'm transported
Into song.

Dry January finished
With a
Splash.
A blissful darkness
Beneath the waves:
Thousands of
Miniscule bubbles
Bursting in my ears
As I
Tumble.
Then,
Head back above
The water.
I'm poisoned now?
Grey-green flesh inside,
But sleeping like
The newly dead.

from one who knows
the hours spent
honing a voice
to cut through a room
the days lived
seeing the unseeable
until the lyrics
bleed onto paper
and the sacred moment
when the masteries
and the mysteries
combine
to rend my soul
and salt my eyes.

Years ago, we went down
to the wheat field, it was freezing,
& we idly plucked some burst chaff
before fumbling against a split rail,
the neighbors all watching
from kitchen windows,
let them watch, you said,
as you kissed me,
knees shaking in the yellow lake.