Your friends' new place is by the Red River;
You notice the wood signs hung on their wall:
Stencils with the first letters of their names
comprised of corks from bottles they emptied
and another--"Pasta and wine, good times".
When they talk, it’s about
parties with beer, wine, and ***** spilling
out of cups, down dresses onto the floor;
recalls of day-drinking
and smoking cigars on the balcony
in college and oh, just last-night’s partying
yes, at Jason’s wedding
reception in the Ramada ballroom.
Don’t forget the leprechaun loop of bars
downtown on St. Patrick’s.
or the party buses that bring you there;
the first stop will have a schooner waiting  
with Long Island iced tea.
This talk of drinking makes you all hungry,
at Barbacoa you order tacos
and margaritas.
and think of ordering another round.
Another day, you drink pink lemonade
at Olive Garden and ask, How would it
taste in a cocktail?
At work, coworkers laugh off a hard day
and someone says, “I need a drink.”
And someone adds, “We all need drinks.”
At the bonfire on Saturday night,
someone laughs about the campus’s bikes
being thrown and found in the Elm Coulee
and another adds, “We like to drink here.”
Someone says, “That’s why I have a big cup.”
Who needs a bike anyway? They have cars.
Some of your friends drinking are driving home.
When the cup passes to you, you sip some.
The fire flickers and blows smoke that flies
into the wind over the rest of town,
over a river that can’t quench its thirst.

There's something about
opening a bottle of colour -
knowing
that any way it spills
won't spell A-R-T at your hands.
let's call it the audacity of trying,
and
move on.

Same thing for a lump of clay -
lying in front of you,
waiting for creative violence,
but you know that your thoughts
don't have fingers,
your ideas don't have arms.
let's call it the pointlessness of wishing
and
move on.

Don't look at the camera -
the eager buttons waiting,
glinting in the hope of your touch
a lens waiting to be turned -
knowing that your eye can never
translate your sight into art,
your vision will never equal
an image.
let's call it the imperfection of waiting,
and
move on.

My last hope is a pen.
my fingers rush over it,
finding solace in known grooves
where my fingers have settled
time and again.
i call it the comfort of a story.

and this time,
*i stay

Starlight is just a crack in the night sky.
The night is just a cape for the daylight,
a shadow spanning the earth's blue surface.
The earth is just a blue marble spinning  
around the sun, catching a flash of light.
The sun is just a yellow bonfire
roaring in a space without sound or air,
like in your head when you read these lines.
This is just a poem trying to describe
the magic to be glimpsed in the night sky.

They say repeating your words loses meaning.
They say repeating words loses meaning.
Say repeating words loses meaning.
Repeating words loses meaning.

This is a cliché for you.
I would decorate you.  
in these rows of letters,
maybe paint it on your skin
because just saying it isn't enough.
I want to see it.
I want to hold a mirror to you and me,
and say, See baby, don't you see?

So, I write it and hold your hand and kiss your cheek,
my head on your shoulder.
If only I could give a touch
of the love
you give to me.

Out for a walk today, you're looking out a ***** window.
You squint against the overhead sun and see a sky,
ripped and faded light-blue like denim--
the clouds wispy and thread-bare
receding into the white horizon.
Here the sky meets golden-brown grass,
flattened and dry like a pancake.
On the road, the cars dusty and dull,
not even the clean ones shine that much,
but they still sound loud and rushing
like high wind or running water.
You wouldn't be able to tell it's spring here,
except for what it says on the calendar.
Well, the snow is gone and left last-year's trash;
plastic ******* and grocery bags
litter the ditch and empty lots.
It bothers you, so you focus on the patches that look green,
under the brittle stems of old grass.
This is what spring is to you:
dirt, dust, dead grass, and
Marlboro packs and canisters of chew on the sidewalk.
It's the planting of seed in an empty lot,
watering the dry soil,
and clearing out whatever winter buried.
Here, the first stirring of life clears the dust from the window.

I.
 So well, honest people make poor poets,
since they want dockyard receipts from Sparta
for how many ships Helen’s face launched there.

II.
Honest details make the best poetry.
Poets plant made-up gardens with real toads,
where clothing and china patterns are art.

III.
Poets write because they have things to say.
They write because they have things they can’t say,
and so, start with the sobs they can’t swallow.

IV.
Poetry is like life, being one big question
that you live until the answers arrive,
And emotion finds thought and thought find words.