We share a view (the one I promised you)
        in my heart,
so you could photograph the very best
        of my home.

And the view this morning, my dear,
        looks beautiful,
just like the last day of summer
        looked beautiful.

I wish you took a picture of us
        sitting on my balcony,
looking over the city, the lake, the hill,
        and then, the Cascades!

That was the best day;
        I memorized every inch.
But now we are thin memories
        printed on cellulose strips.

Still even now, I wonder about you,
        the young, wild photo taker.
It seems, you never did learn how to romance
        a boy who sits, who remembers.

Like all of my relationships -
acquaintanceships, chumships, courtships, worships -
the connection between poetry and me
is a little queer.

Because I write when I feel like it
is going to burst out of me.
I write to get the feeling out,
throwing it out, like refuse.

So when the feeling is there sitting,
staring at me, on unblanked paper,
all that's left to read it first
is Reason...

who shows it to Judgement,
who defers to Knowledge,
who laughs it to Shame
who wears down my Ego.

And if I am a clue,
maybe that's why
there are too many poets,
and not enough poetry.

Wind - well, a whisp whipping
Weak and wet wights
Woefully waiting and wishing
Weeping while we are without
When will we welcome wafts,
Whispering whisks wilting over,
Wrapping the sweltering

Trapped! Tricked to take
Time's tedious torture
Telling turbulent tumults
To tarry, tolerating terrible
Ticks trained to trip towards
Typed twos and twelves
Too tardy am I to take
Thought to tend to time's
Temporary turnabouts

I hate the haiku
Its form is so restricting
I just want to break

                              free

From home in the morning,
I take the bus routinely
As often as the sun rises
Or as I, asleep, assume it rises
Behind the veil of Washington's overcast

But today I am awake for it all
And watch the caravan of I-5
Puttering in inches, billowing exhaust
As I imagine the dust kicked by as many oxen
All hoping to reach the Emerald City

But some of them don't make it
Or decide to settle elsewhere
Sometimes even my fellow passengers are lost
Perhaps they've gone to malaria or the pox
And I pray I'll see them again tomorrow

For when the sun goes down
Or I assume it does as my eyes close
We've drunk the waters of that Platonic river
That as far as I remember begins with an L
And, reincarnated, come back up as always