Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

Mother, I have failed you,
         Participated in the destruction
         Of the beautiful land you gave us.
                I have cleared away emerald life,
                And replaced it with stone,
                Building metal towers
                As hollow as my soul.

         Mother, I have failed you,
         Joined the hunts and butchery
         That so indifferently rip apart children.
                A decade I stood strong
                Against the cruelty of it all,
                But I was weak, and they pushed,
                And so, I did fall.

         Mother, I have failed you,
         Disobeying natural patience
         And giving in, throwing away the virtue
                I thought I wanted to,
                So I allowed the lust  
                To consume me,
                I thought that I must.

                                    The petals fell from the adolescent tree
                                     And fluttered in the winds of change.
                                       I'm sorry, Mother, for growing up,
                                        And entering a world so strange.

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.

home decorating magazines say, avoid blue walls
instead, opt for yellow, sunshine, cheery
my mood matches the walls here
blue blue blue blue
four days
chin deep and alone
my companions I bought for thirty six dollars and change:
Bukowski, and some young unknown poet’s first anthology

I have starved myself for four days to begin loving my body again
today: one orange
shrunken and underwhelming without its peel
why is it? when I love myself I find
only contempt for the people around me

it’s stormed for four days
bone rumbling thunder
spiking veins of lightning
liquid bullets soak into my skin, pound into my bones

at night, I dream of becoming water

I am clean.
I have walked home in the rain.
I've never done so before.
Hood down, chin up, pants sopping.
I've never seen what I looked like, dripping rain water and mascara, with a look of peace in my stormy eyes.

I am new
because I have walked home in the rain.
With every boom of crashing thunder, I was re-baptized in the purest of conditions.
I, myself, have been denied such a cleaning for so long.

But now that I have walked home in the rain,  my mind is fresh. I am acutely aware of all senses and emotion, like someone has cleared my mind's plate of old and set a new table of knowing before it.
When the drops hit my skin, and I felt my pores pucker, I was tingling in my very bones, and I no longer felt the need to crawl out of my own casing.

Now that I have walked through the emerald grass, wet with purity, over the hills of the silent past, and in the pouring rain of new, I praise my content stay.

I walked home in the rain, and I am whole.
I walked home in the rain and found the sun.

If you were only one inch tall, you'd ride a worm to school.
The teardrop of a crying ant would be your swimming pool.
A crumb of cake would be a feast
And last you seven days at least,
A flea would be a frightening beast
If you were one inch tall.

If you were only one inch tall, you'd walk beneath the door,
And it would take about a month to get down to the store.
A bit of fluff would be your bed,
You'd swing upon a spider's thread,
And wear a thimble on your head
If you were one inch tall.

You'd surf across the kitchen sink upon a stick of gum.
You couldn't hug your mama, you'd just have to hug her thumb.
You'd run from people's feet in fright,
To move a pen would take all night,
(This poem took fourteen years to write--
'Cause I'm just one inch tall).