Barefoot
in hazy summer
dew on honey skin.

Sun sets over
new chapters
blown  in
by warm wind.

My body burns to rove far from man-made
buildings, prisons for the modern soul.
I need to traverse the frontiers white man stole
from those who made it their home.

I've been down to the Everglades of Florida.
Fan boats flew through the estuary lines with roots
of mangroves. I've been to the Hoh Rain Forest of
Washington where fog descended on the shoreline
and married the sulfur smell rising from hot springs.

I must experience America's coast to coast beauty.

Every spare seconds I spend luxuriating in the
sun, thinking of all the places untouched.
My list of desires grows as the glaciers
of Glacier recede in Montana, beckoning
me to the Rocky Mountain Peaks.

Old Faithful gushes, surrounded by wolves and grizzlies.
Someday I'll cross Yellowstone's expansive mountain ranges.
from Idaho to Montana to Wyoming. On the arches of
Utah I'll face my fear of heights and find solace at
the tops of time-layered sandstone towers.

Descending the Grand Canyon I'll study beautiful
colors exposed by years of erosion. In winter
Death Valley will be braved. The lowest and direst point
will exhilarate me with scaled creatures as sand
dunes whisper my name with every hot breath.

The Badlands of South Dakota will hope I come
backpacking through prairies to watch precious bison roam.
California Redwood trees and I will stand side by side
as friends. Yosemite will call me to her cliffs and I will chase
waterfalls and sequoia groves until I've seen it all.

I ache to explore the terrain that bears
my name, the country I call home.

I
Summer came with scorching tar, grit
whipping up in the warm wind getting
stuck between the gaps of my teeth.

Boys come in sheets like rain,
leaving my curly hair a mess of cotton candy,
loving with marvelous humidity in the air.


II
I crave the familiar in fall. Men with
beards the color of dead leaves that absorb the smell
of cold air, bring the freshness inside with a kiss.

Will the dying season bring better things?

Naked trees shiver bare in the breeze. I could run
away, until the trees are cloaked in rich green.
For now we mourn the shed leaves.


III
Winter brings darkness
short but brilliant light.
From childhood we have been
tricked into seeking
someone to make us happy.

Muddle through the memories
holidays bring. Purple skies shine
late at night but the months
move like molasses as
snow turns ***** white.


IV
Rebirth brings light. Curtains on fire
with your eyes in morning shine. Haze
settles on the room but everything feels new.

Open windows coax goosebumps like your fingers
early in the morning. Transparent chill clings to air
though the longer days I've been lusting for.

Read the cryptic writing on the foggy
bathroom mirror, you'll never understand it.
My words have blossomed into more.

Glass is cheaper than the stone skin
tattooed on their foreheads. The palace, a splendid fantasy,
half built when the idea will be abandoned.

Freedom is a powerful nuisance! Their only
sin is looking at the world through rose-colored
glasses, make people feel at ease despite distress and disease.

The right wing redneck reactionary republicans continue
religious slaughtering. This nightmare scenario should
be nixed, said with a sneer, I hope they’re wearing warm socks.

Still, I couldn’t crack the code. Changed envy to admiration
to cultivate mystery rare as it is rewarding. The weird thing
is the high-end whiskey collecting dust on the on the shelves.

Nothing short of astonishing, like the space farers gazing back
at the home planet. Distant. They fascinate people.
Animate the inanimate environment. Isolation above.

Looking back I am ashamed of the mess we are leaving
our children and grandchildren. How to allocate these limited
resources? The key is to engage. No easy fixes.

Morning light comes crashing through the
windows of my terribly mundane room,
the same place I wake day after day. Dust has settled
on the picture frames week after week and leaves
a pall of sadness over the bookshelves.

Misery isn’t always some place we speak of
so distantly, as if waking up here wasn’t akin to
tearing off a scab and rubbing salt and sand
into the wound. My first thought of the day was
a wish, that love could be more than
just a blank page staring back.

The first sip of hot coffee reminds me of the
velvety words that always fell from your mouth. I’m
wishing that I was in another place or knew
another language, like the one I already know
somehow isn’t good enough for writing you poems.

I’m snapped out of my nostalgic mind
by the neighborhood children playing on the street.
Their screams echo down these barren halls; I wish
I could be five and full of pure joy while
learning the world all over again. But I have aged
and my innocence was lost so many years ago.

Everything I had tried to write you was full of guilt
and sadness and missing my genuine joy. Before I had to
picture my mother in a casket. Before I knew you’d leave
for someone who could fake happiness better
than I ever could. Before I lost that last bit of naïve light.

I’ll be searching for the beauty I once held inside.
Today my thoughts are shrouded in what was better
about yesterday. There is no use in counting money and
moments already spent. Maybe for a day I’ll forget you and
force myself to write freely and be childlike. I won’t try to
quantify beautiful, writable moments of everyday life.

Maybe today I’ll actually let myself write.

I've tried to write you a sonnet so elegant
but like daggers my words are too sharp, too harsh.
Crumpled pages liter the floor and all of my ink is spent
from my attempt to twist phrases into proper English.
Nothing can better describe your eyes but the color blue.
Perhaps the ocean or the sky? Every metaphor is too cliché.
I can’t capture the rich color with words as I see it on you,
everything I want to say defies the rules I’m to obey.
Sure, I could compare you to a vast and cloudless sky
but I’d be missing all of the nuanced details of your face
as you send a silent wink and an expressive smirk my way.
My inability to describe your eyes has made me into a mental case!
I've tried cyan and azure, turquoise and sapphire too,
but nothing compares to the beauty I see deep in you.

The blackness of night screams alive.
Voices shouting from the deepest place
buried away in my scarred mind.

Flashbacks,
and the penny taste of blood keeps me awake
dragging and twisting my exhausted
body and psyche further away from sleep.

Liquid of life burns through my veins.
I feel it flow knowing those under the sheets
lined up on sides of streets were left cold.

The smell of blood is thick tonight.
It persists on the hands of any soldier
long after arriving back home.

I swear I leave ****** finger prints and
stray scatters of crimson spatters all around.

The secrets I keep
are starting to drip
slowly out of me.