Stars glitter in the dark like spilled treasures;
the countless diamonds scattered from horizon to horizon.
Angels fall to the earth, cutting the midnight sky for only a moment.

Shadows dance in the full moon's wake.
A pale earth beckons you to play while all is silent.
Accepting the invitation, brush rustles, and twigs snap.

The fire flickers, dancing with violent grace.
The scent of char brushes up against you as it passes.
Summer's cool black air whispers promise of Fall.

Brooding clouds billow forward with bolts of unrivaled splendor.
Thunder echoes through a dark green mountain valley.
Warm rain gently rolls from smooth skin, wet hair, and smiles.

A warm beam of orange light pierces the purple sky.  
Revealed stand golden rolling hills marked with evergreen.
Morning's mist pours over the valley; sinking and disappearing.

A beautiful young woman smiles, eyes glistening;
her heart beating with love too flawless for this world.
I look up to the heavens with endless wonder, and
whisper aloud, “I have found one of your angles."

I wish you could see me, the new me, now.
I’d take back the words I used to believe.
Blind faith, was all our age would allow.
All of us right or wrong were still naïve.
Would you laugh at me? Or would you smile?
If I knocked on your door- said I’m sorry?
My memories sweet, of a girl thought vile-
the cloudy night sky now clear and starry.
You were just confused, godless and alone-
given a life we didn’t understand.
Too young to have known, we’d cast our cold stone.
So strong, ****** and bruised, yet still you’d stand.
Dare I say these words? Catlin, I love you.
Funny, you’d never believe it was true.

It was raining on us, like a cartoon,
just us, and it was hard to hide
when we got outside, as it dumped.

Yet still, no one noticed— which was nice—
when we were sitting
soaking wet in class.

Clear the little storm cloud from your head.
The world doesn’t work that way,
but as sure as water— vapor or droplet—
falls from the laws of physics,
the pilot of a helicopter
could park his firefighting *** right on top of us.

I couldn’t blame him, we burned like wildfire,
but I can still hate him for shouting,

“Told ya it wouldn’t work out!”

When we were dancing on the moon,
prancing through the market,
and advancing up the mountain,
the rack was white, bright
and empty.

When we would walk to school,
undock and sail the seas,
and rock the midnight scenes,
the rack was clean, unseen
and empty.

Now I stare, loving
and loathing the rack.
Now there are shoes.
*****- worn out white.

They lie there, cold and still-
empty shells, their spirit missing.
No dancing or prancing,
no walking or rocking.

Just rotting, still
and alone.

God got bored
with blue,
and started stabbing
with white,
but forgot to stop,

the desert blue canvas
starved of brush
swallows paint.

Faded tan dunes
freckle orange
before flooding

Rust and blue
mix brown drowning
below grey sky smeared solid

green flecks
with lightning’s
silent flash.

I turn to the artist, and ask
will you paint thunder?

I'm going to run tonight.  
After the sun is down, the moon
has dipped into the starry sky's darkness
and the weekend fire pits are dancing with my shadow.
I'm going to breathe tonight,
deeply of the budding greens and mulching blacks
until my nostrils are painted with earth.  I'll let the sprinklers
drench every inch of my body until
I can flick the water from my hair
and all the world soaks through my chest
so my heart can beat against it.
I'm going to howl tonight,
from the very bottom of my breast with a smile on my face
legs never stopping to catch the air my lungs are surely missing
because tonight, the little boy, the lover, the beast—
tonight— they are the poet.

I wish I had a reason
to throw it in your face
          stab you to death with it
and put you in your place.

I wish you were filled with reason.
                         I would disembowel your thoughts,
            tear them to ******
                        oozing pieces,
but they’re already mush.

                      I wish there was a reason
you bashed me so with Nonsense,

             **** it— like cheating on your wife—
                                                           and say
                                                           by The Word,
that’s how I live my life.


I wish you’d see reason
             so I wouldn’t have to hack,
                                   smash and splatter,
cackle

rip and tear to get you back


to reality
waiting in the lobby.
A nice one, with magazines and plastic plants,
a fish tank filled with generous grants. A receptionist
with bleach blonde hair, a friend or two
who wouldn’t care that you’d gone crazy
and play it off, like you were joking.

Time stirring in a sermon
stiffens slowly.  The Sun
slips through the window’s edges,
softly shaping foreign faces, peacefully
broken away from the world by birds playing
tag in greening trees, draped with skirts
sewn from the Sun’s golden glow.

Images black
without the back of eyelids
dreaming beyond our benches.

Time set and solid, I get up
and leave 100 closed eyes behind
and walk into a church to see
the same Sun’s beams trapped
inside stain-glass.  Frozen shards,
holding dust, warm each red pew.

I lay down in the emptiness
of the seats, the silence of the hymns,
absence of a pulpit,
and sleep.

I never even thought how hard
it’d be, to watch you with him.  
Silently observe him sip coffee
you might have made,
while he sits close enough to whisper
the lines I love through your hair
that’d catch on his lips,
if they weren’t silent.

It hadn’t occurred to me
that seeing your left hand,
dangle there next to his, empty,
could hurt more than if your
head was buried in his chest
which a week ago
stung like watching a bee
eviscerate itself in my palm.

I hadn’t realized I had no idea
how this would end.  Could I even
see myself sitting next to you in class,
holding your hand, whispering the words
just to taste your hair? I can dream
these things, like I’m dreaming now
but it’s just as hard to know this
as it was to know we
existed.

Grey blankets of fog drifted through the dimly lit streets.  The rain only a whisper, softly seeping into umbrellas and jackets.  I stand still, watching as masses of black and brown overcoats hustle from grey cars to dull brick buildings.  Flesh, red lips and blonde hair steal my gaze.  In a sea of black umbrellas, deployed as bomb shelters, hers is still wrapped in nylon, secured with Velcro.  Yet she holds it above her head as though it were open.  Pale hands caress the black handle, and tease the button that would surely shield her from my stare.  Stiff like a gargoyle I begin to wade through the damp and dreary to witness this anomaly more clearly.  From across the street she notices me, her attention stolen by flesh, bright eyes and wet hair.  She crosses the street, smiles and hands me the umbrella.  Without once removing my eyes from hers, or hers from mine she tears the Velcro and presses the button.  As quickly as the umbrella flew open with an awful and startling pop, I disappeared into the sea of black nylon shields.

Your legs on top of mine,
sticky, you recline--
eyes wide on a book,
mine droop low
with the wine in our glasses.
The summer heat
hangs in the drone
of a struggling refrigerator

while accompanied by purr
and the cat’s warm fur,
together a symphony
sounding my lullaby.

Sunrise between leaves
ignites neon green glowing—
exploding the sky

the graffiti sleeps
yellow waiting for their disk
of light like mixed paint

coffee ambrosia
wakes us with eggs and sausage
to reality

Clear Creek washes us
clean of sin or innocence
blank slates for a day

Beer, tears and smiles
meant for you, me, meant for us
fleck public places

laced hands and sweet talk
interrupt clever timers
launching adventure

Margaritas drown
studying sailors at sea,
setting new courses.

lamp light turns moon glow,
wet metal bench, a warm bed,
flip-flop footsteps, dance

I pray to goddess
the divine will sleep in peace
forgetting our sins

Not sure how it really works
I go and ask the clerks.

Ages five and up…
it’s hard to ******,

he said.

Really? It’s simple?
Give an example.

Turn on the boy and he'll find the girl.
Everyone's given it a whirl,

he said.

*******, I’ve already:

poked out my eyes,
which left them leaking.
bruised my thighs,
which won’t stop aching!
and sealed my heart’s demise
for future breaking.

Stunned and oblivious he cocked his head
opened his mouth and said:

You’re doing it wrong.

Didn’t know I had a bite,
hidden and queer,
but the doctor
took a good hard look

said it wasn’t right, awful bad,
might just burn me,
burn me
an eternity.

Said don’t worry,
applying cream once
a week should
keep the hell away.

It had never burned,
but I used the cream,
which began to bug me,
badly

in the dark I’d scratch it,
‘til it bled, ‘til it was
black and
ready to rot

ridden with ****,
I oozed and withered,
but I was so set to
stop the burning.

A friend said it wasn’t
a bite at all, but a
birthmark, covered
in snake oil.

I fired my doctor forever,
quit the cream, and
cleared up
      just
              like
                     that.

The stars hid behind clouds that night
and the cacophony of the bustling city was silenced—
drowned out by a symphony of frogs and crickets.
The summer breeze blowing off the lake was musty
but refreshing.

As my brother and I walked farther from city light
he asked the same question again, “But why?”
I’d ramble, “Because I can feel it, and see it.”
“How so? Why don’t I? I don’t understand.”
he’d reply.

It was the same walk, and the same question.
But tonight was different— I was frustrated.
God’s symphony sunk into silence, and His curious
creature grew louder.  He asked one last time,
“Why do you?”

“Because Mom and Dad do!” I blurted out.
An abrupt yet fleeting silence struck.  My feet were
crunching on the dirt path again, and the frogs
and crickets returned, louder.  I walked,
mind swamped.

I was scared to think, but yet I did.
l listened and looked around with awe.
The stars came out, and the wind blew the leaves
in the trees and the tall blades of grass with hush,
and I knew.

All of a sudden consciousness was a billion stars—
a full yellow moon setting over houses’ silhouettes.
I smiled.  “So this… all this, really did just
happen on its own?” I whispered to my brother.
He smiled.

I spread my arms and lifted my eyes to heaven,
floating in the cool breeze.  The stars, wind and
frogs singing to me as my mind danced. I asked,
“Do Mom and Dad know why, does anyone know why,
they believe in god?”

I'd like to pluck you from the speck of a hot Colorado summer,
sprinkle you with ambrosia until you've grown enormous,
then together we could stomp through the cities
laughing, "Let's make that catawampus."

I'd like to tug at one of your shoelaces in the kitchen,
crawl up your arm and then climb into your ear,
shrink you down with a spell's whisper
and together, just disappear.

I'd like to say goodbye to our titanic ways
then goodbye again to the microscopic,
find our regular size in the fall
once all is well.

there’s more
than 1 theory
in string theory, more than 1 dimension too
sometimes 4, others 26
all of which but few
are flat

genus 2 donuts would have less dough
some things are super
symmetrical, quarks
didn’t exist ‘til 1968, my attention span
shortens
to 5 feet 2 inches, when a String smiles back.

it’s intuitive
that 2 quarks attract
when pulled apart.  a tachyon
fits cross legged
in a chair.  gum pops sing
and the theory is boring without fermions.

strings absorb in the D-branes
of blue eyes
and matching glasses. stray
hairs, electrified with brilliance
warrant cats
that even Schrodinger knows are alive

Still winds catch silent and intent
sun beaten faces.
Dusty fingers effortlessly stretch
and find broken bits of sandstone.
Rapt eyes
never leave the primordial pool of sand
before gentle hands bestow return.
Like the two year old tosses pebbles
into the flush of a creek,
and the fifty year old throws
horseshoes to the metal marker,
we meditate.

Baffled this was a question you’d have to ask, I sat tremulous.  I’m insular; I’d be enamored with even the most amorphous love, but I’m not inept, and won’t preclude that answering the question is salient.  And although I’m not taciturn, I’m rarely extemporaneous, so please excuse my need for verbose prose in answering said question.
You’re attractive.  Your strong jaw, small chin and cheekbones were sculpted to make your own eyes glow and an artist’s eyes expostulate dreaming of anything else. Don’t dismiss this as delirium, but rather relish this recondite fact—my first crush came in the fifth grade.  It was on a diminutive, outspoken girl, and I was enormous and timid, which developed into a village girl vs. Mowgli, me Tarzan you Jane, King-Kong-Ann Darrow complex.  And although I believe with zealous fervor in your strength, your size still incites the young jungle boy inside me.  And I hope I can say, without being terse, I’m afflicted with a mysterious affinity for red-hair.  
Although I could dwell in the obvious all day, I’ll redirect from the blasé.

Abandon
beats within us both
like hearts to the same pulse,
we don’t coax smiles, we let them slip,
we aspire to happiness like falling of a log.
I have to pry open time’s lockbox and plunder
the night just to relegate the dawn.  Bliss becomes
a tangible ****** making even the most existentially
exasperated docile.  Knowledge that every other thought
is dominated by one another without it attenuating the magic.
Knowing that if all I have to say is it’s raining outside, you
want to hear it.  Twenty-one years of my life I thought
I’d have to hunt love with a knife but you showed me
roaming where you like to wander can wake
the irreverent gods.  It’s your superlative
honesty that’s only for me; that virile
smile in your eyes that bid
doubt vacate my mind

Knowing that if I went catatonic, one reproving look from you would cause my heart to break and force my hands to put the pieces back before I stopped breathing.  If I could, I’d dawn you like a blanket before every dinner, dusk and dream.  And most importantly, we both like crowns.

When my day,
like a flask
is empty
Chances are
you're absent,
like the salt and pepper.

On that day
like the green
leaf turned ash
my mind is missing--
run off with the salt
and the pepper

Somewhere
with a sunset,
margaritas,
potatoes
for dinner, and maybe
cottage cheese
for breakfast,

The shakers,
waiting for you
to notice my
stainless steel finish
and how perfectly
it compliments
your eyes.

My children will ask questions, “Why’d they stay behind?” I’ll tell them they liked the desert and had always hated white Christmas'. They’ll laugh. I’ll smile but stop after I think about the baking streets and buildings—the emptiness.  Every day for the last 200 years the news’ doomsday clock counted down.  Eleven billion people ignored it.

Burned inside their homes
knowing life had lost meaning.
Trapped forever.

Three quarters of the world watched instead of digging, building, saving, living just a little bit longer.  We had time, help and everything we needed to build The Underground.  But they said there was no point hiding from the horsemen. Life went on like cinema in fast motion— there was love still fighting behind the madness and dawning doom.

No flowers for you.
A feather to remind us
how birds used to sing.

She had striking wit and long blonde hair that made most people jealous—everyone cut their hair short because of the heat.  Today, it was announced that at our latitude, sunrise tomorrow, the surface will be too hot for human life. We held hands as we waited in line to enter The Underground and watched the sunset. I kissed her forehead.

That was the last time
It was only beautiful,
and stars would be seen.

As the last ray of sunshine touched her locks of golden blonde hair there was no sobbing, no weeping for we knew Earth was finished.  It was lost before the Sun gave up, to billions of bright galaxies glimmering so far from home.  Hope had hid somewhere in the vast void between our worlds, frozen and dying with every scientific discovery.

My children still laugh
and my wife will smile
just a while longer

I think I am
therefore I am
in love. You say
you only think you're in love,
I say, therefore I am.

We are wine with cake
without calories, not
like icing or drunkenness,
but being frosted with intoxication.

We are stain glass caked
with sunbeams, holding light
suspended in time, like if right now,
just this once, it was standing still.

We are fragile but delicious,
like little Eiffel Tower replicas
made from buttery sugar— not hardened—
but the soft store bought kind without directions.

But I’m pretty sure we aren’t
a car window's fracture pattern
caked with cracks,
or shards of a beer bottle
in splattered birthday cake,
or even a recycling plant’s office celebration with catering.
Unless it was really good catering.

So to clarify…
you glass
me cake

Amputated human beings, only
gears, nuts and bolts that make up
the machine.  Oh woe, who are we
post industrialization

but the first positive proton
to survive its opposite, the first
fiery bursts of fusion
to breathe light into blackness.
The first hydrogen atom
to find its partner, the first
galaxies to swirl and dance
to gravity’s tune.   We are
the Earth’s first rain, mud puddle
and microbe. The first furry mammal
and the last dinosaur.

We are the last breath of humanity,
the Sun’s last ray of visible light,
the first collision of galaxies
and the last supernova.

We are the last breath of the universe
the silent second before heat death.

We— not humanity, not Americans, or any nationality, not **** sapiens but we, the consciousness that exists to say the universe knows itself— are the widest rings in a ripple, riding waves set into motion over 13 billion years ago.

a funny feeling it’s
all just fantasy
can’t shake the facts before you
until the
pockets empty
to sort through the change
you have to
trust that it’s there
which isn’t hard
really
you hear the jingle
observe the bulge
but
you still can’t believe
a million dollars’ worth of
quarters
could fit into those
size double zero
jeans

Your
Fire Gobi eyes,
ethereal portals
to lucid dreaming

in the deep ocean,
now lakes of light
through which

I can walk,
never needing to fly