I don’t know how
many years it would
have been.  For you
to put me In my place.
You know, from a
corner around which
you just don’t see.
I don’t know how anyone
might be so complacent.
You know to take for
granted that what was
said was lost or you know
overlooked by
someone like me who
cannot hear.
I don’t know how many
re-runs it would be
to eventually find  
someone
better, much more
creative than grasping.
You know, less shallow,
less noise to announce
the pleasantly perfect day.

There is no hope.
Summer was skipped.
It is like monet
without a coat
of lavender.  
There is no flight.
Delivered, the post’s
torn pages
were of a silent heart.
There is no slight,
these are lines
not lies, blindly parallel
in the still
september sky.
Above the dry milk
n’tick weeds.
There is no word, a
vast and vacant sense.
This is the gift
of absence
without a footprint
of regret.

I never should have moved
away.  Instead, I might
have kept the
quail safe on the ranch
knowing there’s only
one path.  And once
its gone, any
scheming just brings more
bad dreams.  
Should have sat
every night, hand on the
brandy alexander,
absorbed by the dark
until we cannot tell
each from the other.
And then, when
it’s time to go,
it is really a relief
like they say, a
blessing instead
of regret
that there will never
be anything new again.  
I should
have listened to
the rumbling, like
rockets, shuddering
the deck,
from engines
testing the future.
Given my self up
like a hostage
held by momentum,
looking at
the valley lights
while you put the dinner,
that I hardly ever ate,
on the plate.
It would have made you
love me, for
being there the
night before
your christmas,
letting the kids go away,
so they feel there’s more
than the static unexplained
translucence of living
like we do,
without change,
without complaint.
I don’t know what would
happen once you
were gone
as now I know
that would have been.
Living in
an inherited house, never
making all the mistakes that
were made.
Though without
any idea what would stop
them, without the kind of
whistling threats
like the
cougar and bobcats
warned away by
rifle shots above
their heads.

You are blue and
I am gray
In the smoke that
curls from the fire.
I don’t know how
To move again after a
Lie.  
You are the green
And I am the red
In the tree that
Rises to heaven
Celebrating peaceful
Souls saved without
Knowing their redemption.
You are the white
And I am the black
In the words that
Become a way to
Give love away.
You are the beginning
And I am the end
You saw the invisible
And you knew
What could not
Could never
Could ever
End with a
a life
sealed by the
loss of a
stolen love letter.

When anniversaries
roll around,
will you be saying
with a knowing
smile, remember where we
were that time.
And I never stop dreaming.
The sky is turning blue gray
above the waving leaves again.
Summer has not visited
and maybe when it does
I will wake from dreaming.
Just another reason
in a time
of vague vague reasons.
The rocks and larger rocks
or boulders by the sea, our
hearts become when they
no longer beat.
All the pain
given or received,
I’m not sure.  Each one now
anonymous and clean.
If you’re my child and
I am yours, let me wake
to your voice saying
no more bad dreams.

I want to think
about you, un-posed, beneath
the mimosa, on the warm
morning, with the sun urgent
to stretch high above the
protected terrace.  Rake on the
sand, careful about the plants,
reckless about the night, a thick
band of silver, about your
wrist, each stone, agave and
orange.  I want to watch you pick
the cards up, safely,
corner to corner, unhurried,
like softball, near the end
of  the game.  
I want to know the
thoughts, delicate, triumphant,
beaded with drops, not tears.
Threads that shine with the
last light.
Deft finger tips
careful to unwind, and
not to unlock.

Let's ride on
sepulveda avenue
from sawtelle to encino.
Lets believe
we are alone in life
and there’s nothing else to do.
Lets make all the links
we failed to make
living with no threat
from tomorrow.
Lets not think at all.
Just believe
there’s no one
we should follow.
Lets pretend you
have that dream.
Even though I know
it’s not so.
Lets just paint
this sunset
as if we’ve
felt no sorrow.

The bible tattered by a bullet
killing the preacher on the
pulpit.  May we get someone
to open at fifty?
The eye glasses
That slid to the bump on
his nose before ghandi’s
breath was ended
by violence.  Thus it is
pushed up by bid.  
The skull shard
from the young
lord lost in dallas.
In a cuvette,
a reliquary to
fight demons by ritual
in africa.
So they must pass.
The black tie knotted in
an X as in the name
belonging to followers
Of muhummad in chicago.
Thus, as
the hammer has dropped.
Pass along my hope.
Given without reserve.
That the price reached
was what it was worth.

I want to laugh
on thin ice and
hold you tight
on the terrace,
party crashing
the penthouse.
I want to fly
far-flung,
a swallow diving
heedless and headlong
Living on air,
and not sleeping
at all.
I want to
hang on to you,
riding the loop
de loop,,
tonight at
the carnival

Your foot is
up on the kitchen
chair, noticing
a little dust
on the canvas
on the ked’s
toe edge.
If we had just kept
running, for no reason,
stayed in
dusty playgrounds
so to speak,
living un-seriously
in the l.A sunlight.
Your hand is
on my shoulder
without pretext
or apprehension.
Noticing your dress
is faded from
the washes,
the puffed sleeves
repeatedly unstylish.  
If we had just
been arm in arm
without a plan,
just reading to
the lonely,
making bread
for anyone,
as easily as smiling.
Your eyes never
got old, to me,
if we had
just kept
lives uncluttered,
like a rented room,
left with just the crease
on the spread, where
some one else will
sleep next.

I want to give you
something to think about
that’s good when
the light has
disappeared.
So that it seems
like the altitude has
left only a
sliver of air
there to breathe.
And in the wave
of a cape,
in the flash
of a moment
at least, cleaved
away all that
had ever been wrong.
Feeling everything
cartwheeled together,
like confetti in color,
within you,
tumbling over and over.
I want to give you
something no one
would change.  Something
ready to find
whenever you want
and are crushed
at the moment,
at the verge of
a dream in
which
love is beginning,
not ending.

I’m not going to think of
you the same way.
Looking at the glassy
sea, a dark cup
on the lips for the
early morning.
I’m not going to feel
you’re gone, the same way.
As a chance that passed to
hold your waist
in the high school
hallway.
I’m not going to
talk about you
the same way.
As though we’d gone
forever in a world,
our lives combined together.
I’m not going to lose
you in the same way.
As though an atmosphere
was still there, once there
was no air.

The weedy field is cracked and
dried out. The water flows a
little slow. The screen door hardly
keeps the flies out though
they’re dying and I think they know.
She’ll grow up to take dictation
her sister’ll marry
and have a child to show.
Mom is dead since last mid-winter
They dug a hole down through the snow
Lets take off and feel the twilight,
school begins in a week or so.
Then return to deal the cards out
and later pack the cars to go.
I don’t know a single secret.
Are you shepherding me to sleep again.
Every word another brick.
Every thought completes the wall.
I know you’ll tell me of a new love
before tomorrow afternoon.
Cook some soup this Sunday for us.
The rain and dark will keep us home.
I’ll imagine that I gave you bouquets.
Not the trivial life I’ve known.

If you had tried to
save me.  Not like a
rusted ship resisting,
balking on the way
to salvage.  If all you’d
chosen to fix
was a collar
turned down and
said I’ve picked you
from all the others.
If you’d smoothed
out all the bad days
not like
frictionless ice ready
to slide away but
a stroll through
mown fields, into
the dwindling summer
day, saying everything
should wait.
If you had shown me
that nothing mattered
not in the way that
all is lost.  But because
lost in time with
you,
matter melted away.

You won’t go
running round
with me.
You are barefoot
on the cobblestone
like a rickshaw
runner in saigon.
You won’t float
with me in a
silken haze, living in
***** dreams for
nights and days.
You won’t know me now
to the end of time,
in an orientalist house
with mats and gowns.
You won’t dress in
black and poppy,
dark haired lady,
and languored fan
in a singer sargent  
portrait painting.
You tap the
oxen tied to the wheel,
you want some
rice for the
next meal.  You
won’t hold me  
in a whirling storm,
ending when
the pipe’s
white smoke
is completely gone.

It’ll be midnight
in an hour.
Meet me by the bookshelves.
We can slip
between the people
and their thoughts
un-muddled
by desire.
It’ll soon be past
the hour.
Meet me near the
fountain.
Never mind the lovers.
They don’t let go.
As how the air holds
jasmine.
It will be eternity when
another hour passes.
Meet me by the lantern.
As I wonder
if that light
leads you  
toward another,
love there.
The chime, the bell, the chord
The time has passed without
an answer.
Meet me by the track
as the shade
is let down
by the station master.

I don’t know
what makes time so
incorrigible.  Seeing that
we’ve come and gone
with each day, spending
it without sizzling joy
time and again the same
way.  
I don’t know what makes
things right.  Admitting what
you need, letting the parched
flower, crumble and fly,
with the wind,
wherever it wants to be.
I don’t know what makes
me love you.  Wishing that
life lasted less than a
minute in an ecstatic
meteor shower, the light in
a night sky.  
I don’t know
whether there is a chance
that you’d ever stand
when its your
turn, seeing the world
at that dewpoint between
life and the end, seeing
the world becoming a
good place, becoming
someone’s paradise.

From an open window,
I wanted
Warm air
to cling as
another skin
carried by sun
awakening me
each morning
Ready to swim.
in your same suit
The same old thing.
You making art
And me hoping for
a word
with a ring.
Time won’t be
banked, moving
on un-reined
to become
the same
old thing.
Not remembering
whether you don’t want
this or
don’t know
that you do.
Moving ahead,
a mind grinding its
way through
as it must to
find water below
thick ice without
an augur for spring.
It is for some, a beginning
and others ending
what was and would be
the same
old thing.

Just in case, you know
what I mean, before
I die, I want
to live in a beautiful
place. Just in case.

Before I can do
no more, you know
what I mean.  I want
to explain myself
through my acts.  Just
in case.  

Just in case,
I want to zero out
the mistakes.  If they
will be re-lived,
you know what I mean,

Just in case, I want
to have a wish, like
finishing what won’t
be otherwise done.

I don’t know what
it is and shouldn’t.
Still, just in case,
you know what I mean,
I want
to take communion,
before I die.

Before I die
I want to unclear
my thoughts.
You know what
I mean, with a
fine cocktail,
a breeze on
the terrace,
A sun that
rises and sets
without telling
what comes next.

I ask myself
though there is no answer,
I know.
Of what will bring
me solace.
Not the camellia that
comes with snow
I could not suffer
winter too.
The peony though
brave to risk the spring
misplaced here
with its good fortune.
The rose, no, no,
You, un-temperamental,
know no pretense of
a diva.
I need to spare the scotch
Or else be sentimental.
Surely the yellow, then
brown,
I wish for their plain
happiness.
And the good they
left in place.
It must be
the sunflower,
their stems in
van gogh’s vase.