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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.