My mother was a writer.
I remember her,
papers spread out upon a bed sheet in the sand,
stacked pebbles protecting her work from the wind
as I made drip-castles at the water's edge
and braided crowns from wild poppies.
I would run to her so she could
rub grape sunscreen into my sandy shoulders
and I asked her once,
“Mama,
is that poetry?”
and she said “No little one,
you are poetry,
this only tries to be.”
and I thanked her,
and ran back to the water
to search for flat stones to skip,
and thought no more of poetry.

You were my perfect poem
Brief but of many lessons
Our life was the perfect paradox
For love I thought we could rhyme

You hated all I ever loved,I loved all you hated
You said dirt was clean and the sun was cold
You desired tears for years
And resisted all advances of happiness

All you hated I had to forsake
For our love was at stake
But like a toddler you had fun with my feelings
Leaving our blindest love in darkness reeling

Yet my greatest victory was losing you
My severest pain was my sweetest gain
You schooled me through experience
My all-time worst teacher

You were my perfect poem
Eternity would be short to describe the undescribable
For when my hand is strong to hold the pen
Then my heart is weak to pen the words

Do you mean the ones who live on the other side?
Clear across the ocean, two miles in from the tide?

The ones that live with little means or the ones that live like we were meant to?
That work, play, stress, fear, and cry, just like we do?

The men who were created from the earth and the women from Adam's rib?
The ones who fall asleep staring at the same galaxies wondering if we're all there is?

Do you mean the ones in straw houses near dirt roads?
That learn how to survive on the land and wear the clothes that they sew?

Others and me,
I'm sorry, pardon me... I'm just slightly confused
Because when I think of them, I think of me
I can't separate the two.

The street Yes teaches the soul
To lose all hope and fight
With standard flesh in parallel
Reflection of drowning realities.
The street Yes teaches the heart
To break and gratefully piece itself
Back together like broken sidewalks
Uninterrupted in the geology
Of parallel violence.

The street does not teach tenderness
To rise with renewed passion;
A Phoenix phenomena pounding
The chest and crushing the solitude.
The street does not teach
How to cope with happiness
Or the success where none was before,
The street always educated,
Heavily, for its burden.

Every death is a soul,
The soul knows no time;
And yesterday is here
With dew renewing
Under same skies
    The voices that echo
And the same stones
Thrown as a child
Still exist
Day of night
   Under a strange star-

  Your loss is an eclipse
Of a lonely sun.

Route 84 would not lend me
the light of a star last night
Radio blazing at 75 mph
nonsense noise to chew gum by
Crackling political commentary
Static of distance and thick clouds
Invisible mountains blocking
Memories seeping through the cracks
coating the music in a film
I rub my eyes
watch myself punch alert buttons
But it’s the angels’ jukebox tonight

Roll down the window
Watch the heat escape

Summer again

I am building a castle of ancient stones
pulverized by relentless tides
Dragged across maps by mastodons
and mammoth glaciers
The scouring hiss
the ocean sighs
Time has lulled these smoothly
rolling them in the softest hands of sand
and gels of life’s comings and goings
tenderly tumbling
in the millionth moonrise—
Time deposits them here
wet and glistening

For the girl with the plaid two-piece to gather
Shoulders sun-burnt barely say
one week only,
one week of the fifty two
“It’s the time of the season…”
and daddies on the beach are watching….

She has chosen yet another stone
And the castle continues—
in oblivion to all but her legend…

     The queen will be safe here
     from the rabble
     The disgraced Tristan will surely seek her
     Among these lofty cliffs
     Between the raging circuit of the tide
     Here winds forbid the vengeful mob
     Here lovers learn
     the debt of love’s bad timing
     “Drink ye all of it!”
     --the potion that assigns our sorrow….
     She will not sleep—
     while I chew this gum--  GUM?

Roll down the window!

Angels escape with the heat
Waking me with the brush of their wings

As that eighteen-wheeler hugs my flank
And leans on the horn
Lights flashing
Rude rumbling under right tires
Tantrum of snow
In the draft of mass and velocity

…and the angels?
They’ve chosen another good one!
They must’ve liked the 80’s
Their wings slapping the windshield madly  
Their hands steady the wheel