If she were a song,
no doubt she'd be on vinyl--
stuck in her old ways.

* * *

All too familiar
with the sharp dissonance of
a needle's cycle.

Loose coins sing like cheap nickel-plated wind chimes
in the side compartment as she slams
the car door behind her.
For half a second, I consider getting out after her--
following, so she can give me those petulant puppy dog pupils
she's perfected through persistant practice.
A better plan: I make a face at her back reminiscent of
three "na's" and a pair of "boo's."
As if somehow cosmically aware I've just hit my daily quota of immaturity,
she speaks.
"You know, I just find it funny h--"
but I'm already in reverse.

*

What is it about driving with nothing but stars and trees as companions
that makes a night cruise so much more thought provoking?
Could it be because I can finally hear myself think?
No. I always think out loud anyway.
Maybe it's because they actually seem to listen?
"****, you are way too high right now, my guy."
"Nah, I'm good, brody."
Okay. I don't even listen to myself;
why would nature be any different?
But there's something.
Picking up speed,
back pushing against the seat,
feeling every imperfection in the road through the chassis--
eyes peeled for parked patrol boys.
Making turns onto streets I have no business on.

If she were here, she'd be giving me one of her looks
instead of standing with her  head out the moonroof
as I would if I were passenger with someone driving this fast
in unfamiliar territory.

If she were here, she'd give me **** about the wind tangling her hair
like I won't use it as an excuse to run my fingers through it later.
If she were here, she'd give me **** about my music being
too loud in this minivan heavy neighborhood
like I won't use it as an example why we shouldn't be mad at kids
who do it to us twenty years from now once we've settled down.

If she were here, she'd be a voice of reason.
For whatever reason

Lately, you've become the last place my mind wanders before bed.
Why it would choose such a place is beyond me.

The moment time you find
the answers for which you search,
the question changes

There's an old forgotten cemetery
just through the woods we used to pretend was Narnia
when we were young.
Defaced and orphaned, it sleeps.
An early morning fog hovers
lazily atop browning blades of grass.

The headstones not repurposed into gravel and firewood by
bored teens read numbers that speaker much louder
than the names above.
1937-1939.
1943-1944.
1948-1953.

I can see it--
pink, chubby legs stuffed into tiny dress slacks;
soft eyelashes kissed for the last time
before the waves of dirt storm the beach
of a casket much too small to seem real.

*

I wonder if your mother knew
that this place would fade from memory.
That it would dry and shrivel from neglect and indifference.
That you would inspire poetry,
Rowland


*how many baby boomers never bloomed--
their escape from the womb punished too soon
by a God with whom no take backs isn't a rule?

Tell me something I've heard before...
convince me I'm not dreaming.
Pull me from that forgotten space way back on the top shelf
between the rapidly growing families of dust
and those god awful boxes of stuffing you're saving for Thanksgiving

Lying here--
Can I look at your face while you search my chest for those twin kicks?
I want to memorize every shade in your iris
and color them by number in my head from memory
in case I ever lose the originals

You tell me all you want in life is consistency,
so I'll continue to tell you the lies you want to hear.
I can still feel your palm's pressure on my body;
have you found my heartbeat yet?

the mane of countless
flowers, mutilated in
hopes of finding truth

I've always detested poetry in which
rhyme was thrown about
without reason.

And you truly are poetry
with neither rhyme nor reason.

Let me inspire
your poetry. Rather that,
than your decisions

Most mornings I wake from my sleepless nights
and catch myself particularly deep in shallow thoughts
of impossible futures born of better decisions in a
past that never really seems my own.
Incoherent branches of thought grow and snap
under their own weight;
their fruits sunken with decay before touching
the sands that nurtured them.

In an attempt to brush away the *******
I step into Minerva and her soft tan leather bodice
and stare through the top of her body at the dead stars
whose luminescence have yet to match their
state of existence.
Beautiful, yes, but even this does nothing for my nerve.
Born of immense pressure to endure countless millennia
engulfed in the flame of their own energy in order
to survive…
The thankless agony of bearing light

You know,
you and I could make a star.
I, the invisible pocket of dense gaseous creativity;
you, the insistent force of gravity surrounding me–
allowing me a leap…but only so far.
Your eyes whisper psalms (off key, mind you, but I’d never tell)
to the frozen vacuum my chest cavity houses,
and embroider pillows day and night so that my fall from grace,
however un–or disgraceful, ends safely enough to preserve my body
for science.

A tree outside of Minerva aborts an arm
as a lizard does its tail when threatened, and I wake with a start.
Moving from daydream to daydream remains the only way my mind
will allow the retention of my sanity.
Am I a star or just another tree feeling winter’s pressure?
I sure as **** wouldn’t cut it as a broom at a rodeo

How does a lie taste
after it leaves the tongue and
floats past lips?
Does it thicken, sweeten, and
caramelize like vindication?
Or does it quickly evaporate
and leave in its wake a thin
layer of salt
like tears or a nervous sweat?

I’ve always licked my lips after
doling deception…
I taste only skin.

A kiss--
Your lips have much more to sample

The great irony:
nothing blinds more than seeing
more than needed be

The cake is but a
bittersweet morsel of dough
when it is a lie

Slowly, as if by
some force stronger even than
love, we drift apart

We are stuck in life’s
autumn. Fading, waiting for
our winter to come.

Do you remember when I told you I never dream?
Now I can’t stop these ******* dreams of you.
Dreams that start mundane enough:
a trip to the store; a walk about campus;
and suddenly, you.
Where you shouldn’t be.
(I thought we drew an imaginary line down I-29)
Sometimes you call out to me,
and others, you pretend I’m some stranger,
instantly interesting in my mystery,
easily forgotten in my absence.
Invariably, I approach.
Invariably, you’re not alone.

Who is this brown eyes, stupid smirk, gold watch?
This pressed collar, boat shoes, jawline?
I ignore him and focus on you.
“Why do you haunt my dreams?
Does my waking mind not chase you enough?
All I want is rest.”
Sometimes you laugh at my childishness,
and others, you and jawline stare at me blankly.
Invariably, I ask for a private word.
Invariably, you oblige.

“Why are you here? Why are you always here?”
“This is all in your head”
“Even more reason I deserve an answer;
an honest one–though you were never too good at those.”
A pause.
“I’ve never lied to you,”
“Sometimes I’d omit parts of the truth,
and others, I’d spare you minor detail.
Invariably, you’d rest easier.
Invariably, you’d dream of me.
You always did.”

I wonder if you think about me.
The way you hand fed my heart
while I mended yours
piece by piece.
The way I held you
against my body when there was
nothing in your head but
death and doubt.
The way I’d smirk when
your jokes fell flat because you’d always
laugh through the punchline.

I wonder what makes you laugh now.
Is it still me?

The way I swallowed my tongue
while you shoved lies down my throat?
The way I held on to you
while you found pleasure in another?
The way the corners of my lips would
tighten as you set me up to be your next
perfectly orchestrated joke?

Because I think of you.
And am torn.
Piece by piece.

You don’t have to be so quiet
out here, under God’s ever changing canvas
where only his less ******, less upright creations
can hear your desperate pleas for my flesh
to discover more depth.
I, the mighty pump-jack, drawing in the
natural resources of your womanhood–
You, the delicate Mother Earth begging
for asphyxiation.
“Scream for it,” I demand in a voice that both
startles and excites you.
“scream for it as the babe does the ****,
as the waves do for big moons, as the soul does
for purpose”
You obey, so I oblige; your warmth, with its grip
implores I do the same.
Eons pass in this embrace

In a moment of distraction I tear my eyes from you
and survey our surroundings:
to my left (your right, if you care for reference)
the trees, dancing to the wind’s choreography,
the cardinal, teaching its young their most valuable talent,
the squirrels depositing their winter’s insurance
in places they’re sure to forget.
To your other right, the lake:
fish making grand leaps above the surface
hoping to catch unsuspecting mosquitos,
***** gulls observing from high, diving below,
glad to see their meal present itself.
Beneath me: you.

Your hair, wild with sweat and agitation;
my fingers, discovering secrets in you
to which neither of us were previously privy;
those two supple mounds positioned
perfectly below your vertebrae–

I whisper “you are perfect”
you: “you don’t have to be so quiet”

I’m not sure which I prefer:
falling asleep next to
you,
or waking to the smell of coconut and vanilla,
your ear still pressed to my breast,
stray hairs and a fingertip tickling my
solar plexus as you stir,
convincing me, as you always must,
that last night’s visions were dreams
and not nightmares.

It’s always the same:
like careless parents, we lie atop those two twins
pushed together in the corner of your highrise
searching for things in each others faces
we may have missed. Or perhaps
comforting ourselves in finding what we knew we would.
You tell me my eyes are beautiful–
“that’s because they are mirrors, love”
I tell you your lips have control over my entire being–
“that’s because they have tasted you;
and things that have tasted power do not easily give it up”
We laugh at how old we sound, and I
pull you closer to kiss you above your brow.
You ask for another there, but instead I plant one
where your influence lies

And I wake…
to the smell of coconut and vanilla;
soft pressure on my chest–
a dream.

The morning the aroma of that tropical fruit refuses to greet me
it will have been a nightmare

“Go not cautiously into love”

That’s what the songs say.
But those broken poets,
******* rhythm and rhyme for their written word
know nothing of the mechanisms of the heart.
In the same way that a man who breaks
a thousand watches only to immediately replace them
knows nothing of gears of springs

She was a vision
fresh air blown south with
a cautious smile and a broken heart
long fingers–soft to the touch
longing to touch something she could believe
was real.

She was a mist
drifting through interactions
the way a mime may be made jealous–
silent motion on light feet. Was she
here? or just her contortions?
but those eyes!
emeralds poorly hidden behind tears
not yet fully dried,
anticipating tears
not yet fully cried
(for tears start first in the heart before finding their wings)

She was mine–
for a time.
those lips forming positive parabolas
without reserve or hesitation.
it was a drug incapable of inhalation
or ingestion, but I
felt it in  my chest and center.
I, addicted to see her work her ****** mathematics,
would do all to coax it out of hiding.

However.
behind it hid another.
the reason those fingers that had interlocked mine so perfectly
searched blind for something real.
the reason she blew like the southerlies–
refreshing for a time, and then ghost;
the reason those jewels glistened as if
held beneath water
like hidden treasure.

She was never mine. But
nevermind

I love the idea of identities,
but hate the nomenclature of names.

Names, stubborn in their own finitude
never seem to satisfy as description.
They are pricetags handled roughly by
the obese woman behind the
counter.
Rung up, given a value, bagged
without ceremony.
And when the job is done, she offers a verse.

Identity–much sooner forgotten,
transcends description.
At times, as static as a name,
but with potential for progress
be it in the mundanity of the positive
or the exhileration of negativity.
Identity is definition beyond words–
not so constrained by action or thoughts as
personality, or
as dreadfully uncontrollable as genetics.
Blessed with relativity
it is the “who” behind the why and how
where “when” and “what”
matter less than from which horizon the sun desires
to peek when it wakes.
It is perspective filtered through perspective;
a treasure undeserving of a
bill of sale.

Yet so easily sold

Got a main *****.
And a mistress.
A couple girlfriends.
Child support and back taxes.

Cloudy skies with watery eyes leave me wondering
What all the fuss is about.
What could possibly
go wrong?
Floating up there without a care;
aloft and aloof.
When.
Very Suddenly.
tornado.

Why is it that I'm
Always stuck behind big trucks
when I'm in a rush

You.
with blushing cheeks of the most
captivating red,
skin of the softest of
yellow,
personality...
with a certain
spark.
I choose you.
Pikachu.

Only twice in my life have I truly fallen in love.
Both truly objects of perfection;
Both truly taken before their time;
both truly magnificent pies

Sometimes I feel like roadkiill.
seen by all,
Acknowledged by some,
loved by none
Save the unseen and forgotten

The achievements of those underneath the ground
Far exceed those of ones above it

The day my father dies
will be a day like any other.
Only,
he will (finally) have an excuse to not call me