I made a list of the things that I love
The things that make my world turn
The things that I covet
And things that are not on the list but still surround me
Are put in a box and stacked in the attic
To collect dust and grey with the panellings
To make companions with the discarded Christmas decorations
To make conversation with the hand-me-down clothes
To be forgotten until I need them again
The things I currently don't need are stored up there
But maybe one day I'll climb the decaying ladder
And reminisce on the out-of-date fashions
As well as the out-of-date loves
I'll see you again when that happens
Until then, I look for new that don't remind me of you

The clouds as I see them, rising
urgently, roseate in the
mounting of somber power


surging in evening haste over
roofs and hermetic
grim walls—


Last night
As if death had lit a pale light
in your flesh, your flesh
was cold to my touch, or not cold
but cool, cooling, as if the last traces
of warmth were still fading in you.
My thigh burned in cold fear where
yours touched it.


But I forced to mind my vision of a sky
close and enclosed, unlike the space in which these clouds move—
a sky of gray mist it appeared—
and how looking intently at it we saw
its gray was not gray but a milky white
in which radiant traces of opal greens,
fiery blues, gleamed, faded, gleamed again,
and how only then, seeing the color in the gray,
a field sprang into sight, extending
between where we stood and the horizon,


a field of freshest deep spiring grass
starred with dandelions,
green and gold
gold and green alternating in closewoven
chords, madrigal field.


Is death’s chill that visited our bed
other than what it seemed, is it
a gray to be watched keenly?


Wiping my glasses and leaning westward,
clearing my mind of the day’s mist and leaning
into myself to see
the colors of truth


I watch the clouds as I see them
in pomp advancing, pursuing
the fallen sun.

Walk in full of anxiousness
Take a look around
Wonder how you got there
When you got there
What do you do now
Do you continue on
Do you walk away
Let saw you take the unknown
Take a big step
Wipe your brow
And drive in

One summer's eve, with sleepy eyes, went I to draw a bath
When through the open window spied a light upon my path
The gleam was small and cold, and yellow-white as lightning
But due to familiarity an image much less frightening
As I approached the image seemed to grow
Still ran I, for said my mind, "This picture do I know."
The glimmer was more steady than I knew it should have been
Yet nothing else could glow like that, from nature nor from men
When closer still, the light looked blue, and then it turned to red
And as I came upon it, two spots shone instead
The final step was taken and the light became a band
But without hesitation, upon it closed my hand
With joy I looked, but shocked became, for lo I held a snake!
And with a fiendish grin, behold the serpent spake,
"You ought not to search for bugs until you are awake!"

It was once when it rained,
I decided to get trained,
But I never made it to the gym,
Because I didn't know how to swim,
So heavily it had rained.

Before taking out a clean sheet of paper,
I hold before the blue of the window
a freshly-sharpened pencil pointing toward heaven
and blow the imperceptible dust
from the needle-tip
before getting down to business.
For in life’s long journey
few things afford greater satisfaction
than turning the crank
and powering the cylindrical burrs
of a mechanism which sharpens
the dulled mind of a yellow number 2 pencil.
In the silver pencil sharpener
I witness the marriage of utility and beauty
—a model for art and a purpose for life
celebrated each morning before this small altar.

And I will kiss your shoulders,
When they are bare and
Wanting for a kiss.  
I will twine myself deep into your hair
And pull,
Until the back of your neck prickles
With delight.

I will creep in a single stream of honey
When you wrap in your shades and shutters
And pour golden, sticky sweet
Directly into your heart.

I will get lost amongst some cloud or mountain
(You cannot blame me, for as I do
you do often, too.)
And just when you have forgotten
How I warm those certain spots you knew not existed
As I creep through the blinds as you bathe,
Illuminating where you are broken, or soft,
I show myself,
In all bright and shining splendour.
You will forget me not.

I will let you indulge in me,
Take me in until you flake and rip
In chunks of bitter rust.
I will delight in how I eat away
At what once was white and pure.

Come night, I will leave to those
With sharper tongues and bigger hooks,
And you will be cold.

You will claw at the walls on which I once shone,
And with bleeding fingers
Rest amongs the grasshoppers and watch,
Waiting for my reflection in the new moon.