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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.