I know that shape
It is you, no other

I like that hat
If your eyes are under

I see that light
Now all is right

I hear that voice
Please be my chorus

With your step
There goes my breath

I feel that touch
Ne’er be enough

When you smile
I’m in your jail

I know what’s bliss
In but one kiss.

Not so much
A pull on the
cigarette as
letting a drift
Of smoke be
A quiet companion.
Not so much
an indulgence
held as it is
lightly
felt in the hand.
My only baccarat
Around a few sips
Of lagavulin
Not so much
a vice as a
way to pass
some days
of sun on
the deck
alone with
pretty lucie.

the turn of the rail
round the land.
the curve of the
soundbox against
the hand.
the engine rumbles
somewhere, undefined,
as love disappears
tonight.
the wall lines the sea
in holland.  The velvet
folds close the stage
at the opera.
Tile on the roof
silently shedding
the rain as love
disappeared today.
Relentlessly cold is
the hearthstone.
The march of the
nightshift to
the factory
from home.
Barge tied to barge
sounding the horn,
a freight of black
coal, buries the heart
as love disappears tonight.
Dark are the waters
plied by the fishing
boats and trawlers.
The paths are
map-less
ruthlessly speaking
a language that's foreign.
At the edge of the
canyon without
finality, love
disappears, over and
over again.

I think you told me
you are like
the solar system
cold on the outside,
a blazing interior.
You don’t say there is
no love for the restless
and unsettled.
You can give up
and within the cold
cup of tea, that’s left,
carry every twirl
from that
defeat with
never a sigh of
debt.
And I may break
a glass but instead
of being mad,
you bend
to drink from a
shallow creek,
more exotic than ever.
It is the surprise each
day
that makes me say
I want love
more than
wanting tomorrow.

Someday you may
paint me.  Not
in a scramble
to remember.
because not everyone must
feel they will miss
another point or
appointment.  Maybe
not a portrait, sitting
slickly attired.  Not
everyone must
think that what they
wanted, they misconstrued.
Just a picture of a wrist
with a monogram on an
eighteen carat chain.
Since you would
rather transform
than trade away.
You’ll buff up this
image with a palette
that does not give
away any secrets.

Though I don’t myself
it is good to me to know
somewhere in a smoky
basement
poker is played
on the hex
oak surface
of the suburb.
Though I don’t like
them myself
next to cornfield stubble
german cars
are shown
off the highway
by a young man
gambling on the
wheels and that
a car’ll earn
more than roulette
took
from the neighbor
kids.
Though there is
no difference
between them anymore,
being driven,
on an exhilarated
saturday,
hanging out
with an older girl
on a cold mid
morning.

Many of the days
are unerringly hot
beneath the gingham sky
of blue and white.
With cars  that know
their way so well
that they are tranquil
for their
repetitive spell.
Under this dry
sun, with orange groves
around and now
with your fingertips
that rest on my arm.
If there had been
this undying sun
and endless wanderings,
that we were at
once, young.
In this foothill basin
uncreased by breeze.
These would be
sweet lives to lead.

I’d like to give you
a souvenir.  That shines
like island sun
speckling on the
open collar of your
blouse as the light
comes through the
shading tree.
I’d like to exchange
a kiss, every time I
hear you say you
miss me.  Id like to have
a note sent by you
unregretful of any
love, though it
might be lost
in transit,
caught like the
eye in an agate.
I’d like to give
you roses, the
white, the red,
the black. They
are souvenirs
of every morning
and of every
noon and night.

I seem to want
what’s impossible
Not wishing to
go to the sand
but have the beach
come to me.
I don’t seem to
want what is possible.
That you’ll be
happy In the life
of another.
I seem to see what
is not visible.
Reading your lips
despite hearing
and being less
than for-ever-ness.
Time, the sense
most personal,
it started in
your arms
and ended with
leaving them.

I love your smile.
It says bless me honey.
We live in abandon
For just one moment’s summer.
Like a bloom that knows
the end is coming.
We read plays and
act the parts.
God the nights are
wet and hot.
With segovia on the
phonograph while
the crows and grackles
take their rest
in osage trees
or what the years
have left of them.
From lightning in the
night.
It is like you said
of love, that’s the
way it is, you’re
learning. Only
as we are upon
them, our bridges
may be burning.

Someday. Not that it would
be hung, no one else could
illustrate my life.
With no care for it at all.
To pull the struggling,
you give and give
what you have, to
free someone from their
mud.  Without repayment
only your attachments
are worth a fight.
There is an argument
you could write about
my life, as though anything
might change or matter. Like
terracotta, it starts from
dust and so it is done.
Your life much more
to say, without the
tarnish, will slip as
too many do, unappropriated.
Though with only
two sides and given
away, your gifts were,
to others, seeming to have
been too precious, while
of no meaning, or these
coins were probably
much less to you.

Id like to ask your
brother for your hand
I’d like to have
A three act play
The first is life,
And in the third,
is resurrection,
that takes the second  
act away.
I’d like to have
you look at me
held within your
hands.  Feeling
like the spinning
ride with the floor
that falls away.
I’d like to hear
your call across
the field,
To bring inside
what’s grown today.

It may be that
the moon is pure gold
A gold piece thrown,
engulfed, in an ocean
of endless ink,
to lighten the
pirate ship chased by
gunfire.  I cannot say
for sure that the moon’s
reflection, stretched and
shimmering on top
of a dead calm sea
may not be melted silver
that was heated
‘til it rolled and
skimmed and rode the
surface unable to
gather itself, slipping
like mercury
through our fingers,
out of the grasp of
anyone or anything.
Leaving only a cold
cloud in the night sky
that may be the artist’s
smoke rising when the
last ash dropped away.
It may be that
or not anything,
It is only with certainty,
there is no mistake,
that we know when we
are lost from all,
feeling it is as true
as it may be.

through a rectangular window
the coldest light of winter.
the whiteness imprisoned
any other color in
the spectrum.
the crusted snow caves way
to jail your steps
unnecessarily.

through the leaded glass window
bare shouldered in the vineyard.
the mulberry light of august.
as though the future
was before us.
A dervishly swirling summer
decants your love
unquestioningly.

through the smoky amber glazing
a storm outside is building.
useless wind lacks clemency.
no wonder love's half-life is blazing.
the broken leaves
sought refuge.
their ashes flutter
helplessly.

through the scope's clear lens
the iridescent ice is breaking.
the world is undiscovered
once again.
osage green iris leaves
or arms that wave off gravity.
someone's love returned,
unexpectedly.

each generation should
have a monarch.
I would press my
white shirt with
sharp creases and on
one dark navy knee,
ask for purpose
through forgiveness.
each generation must
have one life
given wisdom unadorned
by desire, uninterested in
dialogue.  I would lift
my light gray felt hat,
and hold it to the side.
I would take
that blessing or
listen without recourse
to the sentence.
there must be prophet
somewhere, not in
hear-say, divine or not.
I would prepare
for days or weeks
or more, the sinews
of a chest less flesh
than bone.
in knowing in that
audience was the
offer to atone.

You can see him now.
Or anytime for a while.
I may not care about
anyone including myself.
But, I remember him earning
two bits an hour
and before christmas
some more.
Sweeping the shop
once the barber
was paid and the
customer trudged
through the
falling snow.
I can see him now
you said.
I wonder if the thin
pull over, once white,
its weave, full, but wrung
on the
porch wash tub between
wood rollers until loose
at the collar and grey
in its color.
I can see his face
without knowing how
it feels in the locked
glass case at the
postal office, staring
out, no reward offered.
I can see you too.
It is beyond even a
single tear, so many
already dried like his
shirt that hung, until
he woke, a white flag,
Oh I mean gray
giving up in one
way but, in another,
running from
the misdemeanors or
whatever they rate them.
On some numbered
road until he is
ripped away like the
piece of clothing
dry on the line.
And on the straw
bed, until released
from laboring,
supervised only in
his body but not
his mind.

You will fall
in love again.
A quiet poet
who sees you
through the curtain,
dressed in plum
and rose.
You will fall
in love again.
A man like audubon.
An artist who can
quiet the fluttering
bird but not
take its life away.
You will fall
in love and be
much wiser now
and know that
creation is the
only ambition.
A younger man
than you but
an older one
than me.
Fall in love again.
So the music that
you've missed
he'll play,
awakening you
at dawn
happy and glorious
again.

Let's walk to
the movies
and leave
in the middle.
Let's run to
the park,
completely unlocked.
Without past,
without future.
You are dressed
in a gown.
The music's
like silver.
We know how
it ends.
We're in love
when it's over.

Since it is true
I’d not written.
though may be
you know
how reminders
telling paper and
ink of the letter,
go missing.
I won’t say
There’s no other
Word for love
Cause it must not
be part of the
air
between you and
someone who
might
also be there.
There was
Never a scribble
whatever my will
hoping you’d
see me,
as though we
were,
lovers still.
True to a
holiday dream
where
we are forever
at
our table to stay.
Still
with no other
word for love
there is nothing
left for my letter
to say.

You should have said you
loved me, in a militant
way.  Like hanging up the
sheets on lines in the sun
for the wind to
shake and
****** the neighbors.  You
should have loved me
wildly, home at five in
denim shorts, with art
and adventure, instead
of food.  You should have
loved me forcefully, an
echo in a seashell, intensely
poor, passionately rich,
you should have loved
me always.

No matter how difficult
it should be to lose you in
the muddle of thoughts
and images, tourmaline,
so very blue, in
a diamond and
gold band, guides
you back to me.
Though the swiftness of
a kiss you gave may be
out of reach,
being chased
as though it was
dust racing away
in a windblast.
In the puzzle that years
produces, I want you
again poised
before the keys
wishing the oracle
followed
the lines in my palm
and promised you’d play
A song of love
but only you and I
would hear.

there are small houses
shoulder to shoulder
there are mingling tents
giving poor refuge.
there are tenements
eyeing the traffic.
and suburban havens
with garages and
televisions.
there are
adobe abodes
in barrios and
indian settlements.
there are high risers
unshaded,  barnacled
by balconies.
there are boundless
estates with
vineyards and stables.
there are balinese huts
on stilts with their
villagers.
there's life on
the road with
changing addresses.

It seems like a
never ending summer
daddy in his short sleeve shirt,
walking as he gestures
with a bare arm,
Without echo
the car door shuts.
We've got things to get,
let’s go.
And the neighbor
through the wood screen
door
Shuffles, quite
aimless, again today.
In a close knit
navy shirt, only ten and
in suspenders, he carries
too much weight.
With the dusty smell of
unused cellars, webbed
and cool and put away.
She remains a lovely lady
carrying produce
from the yard.
With her grandchild
at the table,
can't quite finish
this banana,
so he leaves it on the tray.
Somewhere across the
ragweed fields, the dusk
bird stalls the ending day.
And in the street,
the night
with glow bugs,
it is for
lonely children
that they play

The children are
like flowers in a rockery
climbing between the
crevices, unbleached
And wildly colorful,
made a-livened by the sun.
They wear out
toward dusk when
the sea has been
painted flat.
Then, hard wooden bowls
and their light soup.
Breaking the baked bread
with stories of their day.
They will become craftsmen
the way they weave
their tales.
They don’t worry.
Jumping from
a springboard with
eyes closed, to
spin in the air,
and enter sleep.

Of all my hopes
the end to poverty
is one that
I would wish for.
Then on a sun-drunk
day in may
I'd buy your kiss
at a fair they
held outside
that saturday.
And then of hopes
I would wish for,
an endless oil
lamp
as you'd know
the way to use it.
For the third
and last
I'd have a wish
for time so
when you are
done with others,
you'd wish that I'd
come
through it.

when I was in the room
with all the pictures
on the walls, in the half light
last night.  I wanted to
straighten them and
could not without
a reference point
from your life.  
when I was with you
walking
in the glare and crackling
of the late morning light
and sounds sprinting about,
I wanted to hold flowers
for you.
I could not without
having a small role
in an opening night
show of the rest
of your life.
when I was in
another city knowing
you'd been there too,
I wanted to refill
the glass from which
you drank.
I could not without
the clue your glance
provides saying
I am not lost
or alone
like a language without
its rosetta stone

Lets toss the ball
on the lawn
in the declining light.
And  
through the open
window,
the record plays
errol garner
on the turntable.
Lets slowly make
our way, to the
beach, after
drifting through an
uncharted night.
I don’t see any reason
to pretend, at all,
that somehow anything
should change
this rolling life, once
unshorn, once the
pain of wishing
for more and wanting
to be the same is
eventually gone.
Lets walk home
in the closing duskiness
and under the
china light, hold on
and like a listing tree
and the moon above
our roof,
all wait and
imagine the world
to begin
to right itself.

In the end of the world
you are un-flattered. In
the end, the world’s
trapeze is like a
chain from which you are
unfettered.  In the end
of the world, our houses
are spun from the legs
like the webs of spiders,
as they become some other’s
cages. In the end of the
world the sky is cleared
of clouds, the mountain’s
peaks are pulled, with summits
that fall then
rise like tides
pulled by mercury.
In the end of the world,
we fly like birds
behind the waterfall.
With no front or back,
are like lovers only
once in life, and lose
all perspective that’s been
tried so hard to keep.
The words are lost,
spoken with doubt, unsure.
They are stretched and slurred
and like the collision
of heat and light,
this is love,
in the end of the world.

Lets start over.
Blasting into the air.
Singeing the sky, together
as we are blown away.
Lets start over.
Driving fast,
living in a house melting
from a cliff edge.
Lets start over,
Memories shattered,
what does it matter as
we start over again.
Everything you know
about me, everything
you wondered, bursts
apart
sky high, winding
its way in figure eights,
in jackpots and bare escapes.
Cheering crowds, love
comes back
as history
unravels in the morning,
Lets start over.
You don’t say why,
while
constellations change
names, bright
in the
water black air,
Lets start over.
It isn’t love.
It is everything
you know about me
cracked open,
behind the jet stream,
behind the sun,
behind infinite time,
until the truth, the untruth,
the levers that upset
the universe are
like just another
sun that
breaks the dawn.
Lets start over
in endless cartwheels
provoking hurricanes,
ending civilization
until all
comes together
in the moment that
the sun was ignited.
I am not you,
you are not me,
it doesn’t seem to
matter once
you and I and
everything that we
were, start over.

Doubt I’m the one to ask
For what to say to your kid.
Waiting to be a kid no more.
A hard spot, for both of us.  
Far from advice, not only wrong,  
but ignored before forgotten.
They’ll find their own truths
The heritage of
Years and tears.
Only friends only friends
Only they
Don’t mind what’s said.
With flesh and bone  
worth  
so ****** much more
Than gold.
To get by, you’ve got
To try  
things you’re told.
And hear  
how many times that
The ice you’re walking on
Is this ****** thin.
Should you decide sometime
To give in and look
back, maybe what I say  
will be mostly true.  There is
more luck needed than
ever ever you get.

I think all will  
again be well when
the garden begun
before unforcasted
change have you
Back again to then
connect
The dreams of your
Father and talents
of the family.
I think that the
direction can be changed
releasing in
centrifugal loss  
that not needed,
to become more  
like Saturn, in
a ring about the planet.
I think you will,
once the swirling air
settles, know  
why you were called
then, for no more
than one clear minute.
And that moment
Is maybe more but
no less than
nights, than mornings
and in between,
spent in the
eye of the hurricane,
grasping for an
answer to  
hold on to.

If she’d known
that what would
become was someone
not willing to be
alone, now wanting to
be left alone.
She never would have
married me.  
Had all been right
not that
anyone else’s happiness
is in my hands or
even understandable
to me.
She never should
have married me.
Not that somehow
claims aren’t made
That children show
how history
ran the right way.
And what were touched
would have
likely been
simply bartered, a
gain or loss
unpondered.

Imagine me,
my hair combed
back like a row
of raked hay.
Imagine me,
smiling like
I knew some
secret seen only
by the trees.
Imagine me,
feeling so limber
I could reach the sky
from here.
Imagine me,
heel against the
wall, foot lifted
like a stork
so satisfied and
hard to
wait for what will
happen next
in the day.
Imagine me,
heart so big
when walking by,
the road would
turn to gold.
Imagine me, soul solid,
swinging to a tune
gliding
on the dance
floor.

the trees were
growing many years ago.
tall protection of
this life we know.
All the elegance
tailored in our drinks,
cool secure habits
we never really know
the possibilities
for sadness.
The lawns are
trimmed precisely
Wall vines
nearly braided.
We talk in
clear mechanics
and if this
were in oil
deep in green and beiges.
Hanging on a
white wall
horizontal, pristine,
never cheerful
never sublime.
The waiter sets
the food down.
Thinks insanity
runs in his line.
No one asks me
for a **** thing
though I never
said so
For ripples aren't
acknowledged here
the glaze on sadness
wiped clear.

A beautiful calm
seated
on a board,
above the sun
glistened water,
That rarity for you,
a moment of peace
only rejected by the
twist of the wedding band.
With so many desiring,
or lost, the boy dies,
thorns
of a black rose
gripped in the palm.
So many
without fortune,
seeing only loss.
You in the door frame,
when you were
not nearly to the end
of the mirrored maze.
Not having or maybe
not knowing any plan.
Except for now,
the gift of
less, not more, saving
myself from myself.
Not in your leaving.
But in your return...
With *******
would be saint Christopher’s
forewarning
from the front garden.
please stay
far away from the
uncertain road.

If I were lucky
I’d have a creek
that’s full of fishes
and every kind of arrowhead
like a coming true
of all my birthday wishes.
If I were lucky
you bet I’d always be up late
at a good ol’ western movie
sharing really buttered popcorn
with my
favorite schoolmate.
If I were lucky
I’d give my brother all my work
and shoot the winning shot
Never mind
if I was tired,
I’d skateboard
on the curb ‘til night.
If I were lucky, so lucky
I could dream
the dreams I’ve had.
I’d know my neighbors
and they’d know me .
Thinking of all there is
to do is plenty
to keep me glad.

It kept burning.
one candle that
held the wish.
maybe to keep
the others from
the dark.
A shrug unapparent
to most,
for the gift
with your name
on it.
Maybe to build
humility.
A heart may
hold me along
with another.
One
anxious child
amongst the smiling waves
on the gangplank
shudders, color of
the white life saver.
Maybe it hangs like
decoration not
to bob in the cold
ocean.

We all have windows
in our houses
and behind them
pat around in almost
dazed purposelessness.
Some covered, some uncovered,
the windows may
only slide roughly
on aluminum tracks.
You feel like
you’re only on the very
surface of the earth
ready to be
pried away.
And everyone
is captured behind
their windows. Making
paths on the floor,
parallel and perpendicular.
So we struggle
against walking
against sleeping.
I guess if there is a crime
then it is being knitted
to the ground so late.
And someone has
to keep it neat
and curses in his house
at the blessed ground
in which to sleep

insurgency
sedition, sedition, sedition
music
rendition, rendition, rendition
homily
perdition, perdition, perdition
debate
erudition, erudition, erudition
mathematics
solution, solution, solution
contracts
condition, condition, condition
dead now
mortician, mortician, mortician
and then again
apparition, apparition, apparition

Maybe we belong together
looking at the transit
trains with sides
like scuffed chalkboards.
Maybe we belong, reclused.
A single museum gallery
postcard on the
bare wall. Maybe we
belong lost to our
children, inspired by
a new longing.
Maybe we belong
On the window’s edge,
feet on the iron
landing trying to
see with
just one eye, trying to
survive with
just one heart.

the earth is not round.
It is not as flat as it
could be. Love
is waiting for
magellan's next
trip around.
Life is not profound.
It is not as meaningless
as it could be.
Life is waiting for
dylan thomas's
next trip around.
You are not lost
You are not as
apparent as
you might be.
You are waiting
to be painted with
a pearl ear ring
next time around.
The universe is
not empty.
The stars are
like us all.
Waiting
to be known.

The blues have had me
Without doubt and
Yours are yours and
Nothing I know about
Nothing I know about

There’s been pain
In my heart, without doubt
yours is yours
and nothing I know about
nothing I know about

I’ve feared the wait
on the court steps
No doubt
Your fears are yours
and nothing I know about.
Nothing I know about

I’ll stand alone when judged
As in my dreaded dreams
No doubt.
Your nights
are yours
And nothing
I know about.
Nothing I know about

I’ve turned my
back without mercy
No doubt
Your loneliness
says that.
And what is yours
Is mine, so indelible
is the exile
And something I
know about.
Something I know about

Thieves and lovers
Lovers and thieves
Stealing silver and
Promises
What peril,
ignored.
They linger
Too long
coerced
by the need.
It’s a trap
Without fail.
Ticking through
time so
So true is
that jail.
Lovers and thieves
Thieves and lovers
not happy,
the loss of a
half crown.
Obsessed with
what’s left.
Thieves and lovers
Lovers and thieves
In jealousy
and envy
it’s what I have sown.
Not a treasure
filled chest.
Instead with the
whispers and tricks
I’m spending
the dark night in
sleep without rest.

Thanks don’t buy bread
Sorry ain’t going to
get me high.  Let my
friends alone you want
Me off your sidewalk.
My heart is black as
your espresso.
I want to rise above
the Metro’s airflow. You
can eat your
ticket to a business
class.
I need a soak
The river doesn’t
need oil from
your pleasure boat.
Hell might be
Colder than
my **** on the
ground this
winter.  Wrap
Yourself in velvet
inside the walnut
coffin.  It might
smooth
the  bumps along
the asphalt  heading
to the cemetery.

It isn’t anything more
than you know.

It is not
questions with
unwanted answers.

No, it is not wanting
to be in love,
not here in this place
and not in paris
either.

Unlike the past,
the future is clear.
Unlike
being in love, you are
someone
you once wanted to be.

Seeing you through
a sealed window,
holding a ticket
to a true one.  
I stay on the ground,
looking  
without
sorrow from rented
rooms
waiting for
the next waves
across
the boardwalk and
sand
and not wondering
how
a heart will break
tomorrow.

You can shake free
Get away from
Someone's wrong
reality
You can go your
Way
Don’t care about what
They say
You’re gonna get there
You’re gonna get better

Take that walk up
It’s not that much
but only yours.
It’s your chair and
Your air, give it
Your touch, why
Rush, you’re
Gonna get there
You’re gonna get better

Take that brush, take
That light, make the
Life you’ve thought
About. Crumple the
paper, pitch the verse
Try again, so its you,
And No-one else
You’re gonna get there
You’re gonna get better.

It’s a revelation or
Maybe simple
Information.  You
Work, you think,
You strum, the night
Comes quick and
Tomorrow you’ll
Learn another trick.
You’re gonna get there
You’re gonna get better.

With the blinds
half open, the office
is cool, in the after
noon.  
There is
little money now,
less than even last
year.  
At least the
fair is opening.
A day, a night
with twirled
candy.
I’ll drive,
no I will.
The conversation
has not changed
since last year.
I wonder why
the flag’s
half high
where
the school’ll
be empty
for a month
or more.  
I hope the
aproned gal
will serve
the lunch just
the same as
last year.

Wondering what comes
next, if I don’t kiss you
again.
Wear cufflinks made
Of pearl shell
An elbow on
the tavern bar
Until off the snowy
highway
you come back again.
If I belong to you
no longer
I won’t know what
to want at sunset
Except a scarf
across my heart
until from some
abandoned lover
you pull me in
and laugh
about its color.
When all that's left
are dreams and
night or day don’t matter
From the last lace shop
In the universe
You wind your way
around me
A ring around a planet

To have you waiting
In the getaway car
I’d break the bank.

To have the daughter
Of the air pose
On the boulder below
I’d dive from the cliff
just for you to see.

And with only one
president in my
pocket I take
a risky bet
to pay
your gin tab,
as it lays
upon the
wood bar counter.

You’d always ask to
show you something
When there’s nothing
else to see
except to
guide the bankers
to my grave, singing
a closer walk with
me.

Whatever I’ve
learned from you
has been like
a breeze in
the linen drape,
It starts, and when
It’s done,
I both
know and don’t
know what it
ends up meaning.

I don’t know how you
made him not stay,
simple as
handing a fare,
in the open window,
so the cab would go away.
I wonder how
with your smile
making its way like a
moving shadow from
the mix of cloudy wisps
and high summer sun,
as it so quickly forms
and disappears
across your lips.  If it
floats inside him,
as though
in a print,
started, when
you slipped too,
past the aperture,
riding the light.
If it had been me,
unable to let alone the
image, not trying to
grasp what it meant,
or remember where
I’d been,
beyond your thoughts,
beyond who
came next,
with useful
hope departed,
holding on anyway,
giving a relentless
purpose to my heart.