It's been a long time since I told
You just how beautiful you are,

Not because you ceased to be,
But because nothing equates to you
Anymore --

The seas of metaphor ran dry and
The mines of simile caved in,

And only you remained, my
Warm quilt, my gorgeous
Wonder, my one and only, my
Siren angel, my
Dearest sweetest love --

So forgive this lazy *******,
For forgetting you needed
Reminding.

I've got bloodshot vision obstructed
By ash and smoke,
Grit and smog and ember.
The heat is always there, in the flame,
In the smoke, in the air --
In your hands,
Tickling the edges of my face and
Licking at my hair.
And even as the water level
Passes over my eyes, wetting my
Cheeks and jeans, I can
Still see you as
Clearly as the future we've etched
In the streets we've walked,
Down to the black robins that
Will settle on your face in the
Light of the campfire.

They wake up
To each other. Warm
Beside, arm in arm.

I wake up to my
Pool of blood, surgical gauze
Drenched, pills in hand.

The Hiker reaches the foot of the mountain
And pulls out his map,
Laden with a golden path in lemniscates  
Knowing where he is to go
For he had known this since he set foot out
His door.

Day by day he scales a piece of the mountain
Face, lacking not skill, but
Having patience, knowing the safe and
Prosperous journey is the
Patient one, the one whose tree of meaning
Is rooted in passion, the passion
To wait.

The Hiker fears not the delay of the summit
For the summit is already his,
Her hand his bride, for it is known in the
Hikers name who he is meant for:
The Summit, forever and for always.

As the rate of change of life seems
To increase ever more as
Days pass, I would hope to approach
You asymptoticly-

Forever approaching you

Closer and closer


Until finally



We cross

I am of no use, is what it tells me.
That I have nothing special, and that
I am nothing compared to those around
me is the truest lie I was ever told.
It allows me to be soluble
in the lives and achievements of  others.
The individual pieces of me dissolve
into insignificant, infinitesimal specks
that serve no purpose, and amount to nothing.
Anything I do - any talents I have - will be surmounted by those
who are more than I could ever wish to be.
Alone I am whole, where the love I keep under my
sheets and between my arms tells me
she values me.
But out there - out there in the world
I am of no importance and
infinite expendability.

I've never been able to write
Well about you
Because before any words even begin to form,
I've already drifted,
Beginning to dream about you.
Your smell;
Eyes;
Nose;
Laugh;
Smile - your downright perfect smile,
And as my mind wanders and
My heart goes outright supernova,
I haven't even the time to pick up a pen.

My girl is a superhero:
With one foot she snuffs the smoldering
Cigarette **** her depression lies in, and
With the other she staves  the weight of a
Terrible job;
With her left hand she creates and makes
Beautiful things from a beautiful mind,
And with her right she craddles me,
All the while flying on the small vibrant
Wings of a robyn.

Brown streams of cocoa pour down to the quicksand
Of deep brown, that pull in and don't let go.
The perfect curve of soft cliffs leads down
To the deep red tulip fields speckled with white rabbits.
Below the tulip fields are a constellation painted
So effortlessly into the ground,
And down below the lowest star, are red capped snowy hills
Like vanilla ice cream perfectly scooped,
Cherries, perfectly placed.
The tides of milk below the hills, so softly rise and fall
Frothless and smooth, delicious and free,
Waves so slow and rhythmic.

The white cliffs, so pleasing to roll down,
Scottish tulip fields, delicious to the lips,
Quicksand speckled with cocoa, a
Sight, I never grow tired of.

A beautiful place.
Persephone's lust and jealousy.

Three years ago
I kisses the first lips I
Ever fell in love with,
And the last lips
I would kiss forever.

In these short dark days
Where the fireplace is ablaze,
I lay with you under the blanket frays
And into your eyes I often gaze
As we break our fast on a donuts glaze,

And in the kitchen we lightly graze,
As I play a little of Martin Gaye's
Songs to which my body sways
With yours on our linoleum.

I am a fire.
A son of Prometheus, perhaps.
I burn and eat and distill and
Warm and give life.

But there has been a wrong.

My smoke is black.
I suffocate and choke and blind and
hurt. Because what I am burning,
Is alive.

It's supple with the liquid of life.

The clear gold filled in leaves.
It's in her too, and my chemistry
Is off. This chemo, the kerosene.
In me, doused on her.

It burns her and hurts and I am no longer a fire.

I am afraid.

You are sunbeams cast long on a couch through
A window, whose mesh drags like fingers
On a fence through the sighs of the warm Spring
Air; Beautiful,
Comfortable, familiar,
Lovley.

To be a man, is to be made not of
Glass or plastic, fragile or manufacturered
Like these young boys plucking
Away at keyboards day to day, acquiring
Vanishing trophies; a man is made of
Steel and stained wood, screws and twine
Make up his joints and bark is his skin.

To be a man is not smell of lysol or
Carpets, but if sawdust and oil, leather and
Soil, for a man is shelter.
When boys pitch canvas tents
In sand, a man plants logs on sturdy
Ground in which his family can reside, his back
The roof under which it is dry and safe.

To be a man is not to bake your mind with flashes
Of light and thunderous noise, but
To create, to be dynamic and soulful, imbuing
Himself into his creation;
To be man is to help and be helpful, to share and
Collect wisdom from others, to better
Everyone.

One day a Man will be honoured to take you
Home, to care for you until the
End of his days.
One day, that man will be me.

Even as the ******* fish
Dressed in shining scales and
A big white eye swims across
The sky, I can only see her:
The Curls of her ebony hair
Twirl in ebbs and eddies,
Up up and up to drift
Down in bouncy springs;
Each strand lazily lofts around
Like deep Autumn leaves
Fluttering around, springing
Up and unwinding down to lick
And kiss at her neck like I do.

After all my years of study, and
Learning the things I love,

All I know here is entropy and
The Third Law;

That first we will force each
Other away, then fizzle and
Expel what heat I cherished most.

Standing up on stage,
While I'm sitting in the back on a
Rack of Bibles, you'll never
See the watery eyes accompanying
My smile plastered face
From being so ridiculously proud
Of who you've become,
And what you can accomplish
With your magical voice
And marvelous talent,
All from a girl, who I get the
Privilege to love.

I touched the stone
On the statue
And it melted into
Drops of milk and vanilla
A year gone by
And a new river flows
With bone and sugar and ash
The dewlets accumulated
From what once was
Stone.

On a bench at the park, in
The last light of day,
I wring and fling my tongue
Like a brush full of paint --
I beat it and the dusty words
Fly from the old red rug.
The splatters and droplets
She uses to paint a smile, gorgeous
And colourful, and she wraps the
Rug in her own, wringing
The dust out of both.

Long after time began to stand still,
It was her and I, alone together,
Laughing our ***** off in an
Eternal bought of loving
Laughter.

The only thing I want any more,
Isn't for me, or for anyone else,
But for you to be happy

Because when that happens,
Nothing else matters, even if it means
Being a little more alone, on a weekend
Meant to be so together.

I kissed the moon
In purple glow

Her fingers, white beams
Licked my face

Not even Garuda
Could shroud Twi in

I was a tide
She pulled to her chest

We encompass
Then we wane

As the church bells
Ring out

She sings her songs
To slip herself down below the horizon

Behind the Gothics and willows
That point to her window

Where I find her
Tomorrow

Like the carpet and our bed,
After so many years we've
Memorized each other --
Becoming permamently imprinted.

When I sleep in my room alone in my bed,
I lay with my back to the wall,
because an inch out is the edge, and be it hardwood
floors or knotted cedar trees the dark
permeates the room.  
There's nothing there, but I can never bring myself to
put my back to the unknown blindness beyond
my bed.
But when you sleep next to me in our twin bed, your feet warm next
to mine and more than half the blanket bunched under-
neath your chest;
when your drooling wets the pillow we share and
your warm breath tickles my nose,
I face the wall. I face you.

The Sun holds her chisel ever steady
In her warm tan hands;
She presses the warm steel
To my face.
She is obsessed with time --
Knowing she's getting
Ever older.
With every circle I dance around her,
She etches another tally
On my face,
To remind herself how old she is
In me.

Being as self conscious and
Insecure as I
Means fixing your hair before
Climbing into an empty
Bed
And sleeping alone,
Discontent with myself
In the dark.

The feelings you convey with the
Sharpness of your gaze

Are as startling as glass shattering on pavement;
As soft as trees shedding on the sidewalk.

A kiss of the eyes,
A stab of the lips.

When the Seattle rain falls and
Pings on the mailbox --
The chill outside jostling the
Doorknob to find it locked --
Our rooms will be grey with overcast.

The TV will hum and thrum, and
Fuzz around our heads
While the ***** socks lay off
The foot of the bed
With us buried deep inside.

Her glistening eyes will sit inches
From mine, gingerbread
And coffee dripping in thick caramel
From which the gloom fled
Like tsunamis back out the windows,
      and

Like braille under my fingertips I'll feel
The goosebumps of her skin,
And we'll lay here like it's the place
We've always been, with Yossarian's
Tail thumping the floor.

I wish I could be a sticky note
On your mirror
Or an alarm on your phone

To remind you every day of how much
I appreciate you, of how much I
Love you, because

I notice all the things you do for me, like buying me coffee in the morning or
Kissing me to cheer me up; better yet

Always being there; The magically disappearing
Dishes from the table and the texts
Of concern; the countless reminders

Of how important I am.
But oh dearest, how important you are,
Moreso than the tides and the stars,

Because every day you choose love.

It was the Watermelon in your hair --
You know,
The way the red juice dripped
Off your draping curls, and spilled
On your shirt.

It was the way you sat with me while
We watched fireworks --
A love I couldn't yet feel while I was
Still so Alone
-- and before that when we
Sat at the park, listening
To ****.

It was the way it was you and me,
Laughing over a small screen
Away from the others; the way
You made me feel so wanted.

It was the way you snorted when
You laughed, and lifted your
Nose to give me piggy
Kisses after each and every one.

But the it was never stopped.
It never will.

I shed my shell
Too cramped and ***** --
Just to find my new one
Is just as suffocating,
And maybe more
Disgusting.

Awake again, another day
Coffee as brown as her eyes meet me from
The mug she made me.
The heater keeps the cold away
But not as well as her breath
Or her skin against mine,
The shower head begins to spray
Steaming water that I ever wish were
Her fingers, streaming down my back.
Our frustrated feelings start to fray
As we play witness to others begin life together
As we've worked so hard to achieve.
But I will be the ceramic and not the clay,
Steadfast and unyielding until mine is mine
And hers is hers because by god --

Awake I will be in the suns first rays,
Wrapped in arms and light and soft brown hair
And eyes like coffee that will beg me back to bed.

At this point it may not even
Be a poem,
Just too many intends in a too
Wordy sentence,
But it doesnt matter what it
Is, because all I
Want to get across is that

I love you.

In her I've found the one whom
My soul will dance with forever

The one who sings and creates
And listens with me; my entire band

The one who never lets me stop
Laughing, and pushes me to tears
      any way she can

The one with whom I'm never alone,
My best of friends, more than a part
      of me

The one who lights and escaltes my
Life to brights and heights I never
      could have ever in forever
             possibly imagined.

When doubts and fears are like an ocean,
I clamor to the sand -
A billion tiny grains of  deafaning voices.
I use them as soap and bleach
Against my skin to wash away the waves
Which crash against my soul.
I dig the sand with dirtied palms as far as I can go,
Deeper into the liars pit
Until I reach what lies underneath, of
Which I find regret.
So I lock my fingers into a cage and press
Into the regret, and choke it
At the bottom of the pit I dug myself,
But like spit through teeth
It shoots on through my grasp defiant and proud,
Where it buries me in its place.

It cradles between your cupped
Palms, a big red strawberry
That pours its thick syrupy juice
Over knots in tongues
After whispering tales of birds;
It strains between every pause
Before it gets to scream and
Stutter your syllables to whatever
Fleeting, uncaring wind drifts past
It's red pulsing lips that stretch
Its fingers out to ***** at the feeling
That recedes to memory when you
Have to go.

"Magic is closer to science than religion;
science aims to conform nature to man, religion
aims to conform man to nature."*

Though I am no longer as mystified, this makes
Me no less a mystic. For I too pray,
Not through tears or knees
But numbers and telescopes.

You of much feeling need all your evidence --
Archaeology and historical account --
When I of such mind and curiosity
Need nothing more than the slightest feeling;

That feeling I crave beyond all else.

Swords and secrets slice the
Air like dragons wings, and
Meat and mead are split
Through thick beards and
Fair maiden faces, and
The songs and words pour
Out fantastically as my eyes
Soak up each page. But nothing
Will ever be as wonderful, or
Fantastic, or so awe inspiring, or
Purely powerful or magical
As those Oaken eyes that keep
Sentinel on my face, that perch
In a cream face of radiating
Beauty, a captivating to
Rival any story.

Let's take our pants off and eat
Dripping pancakes in underwear and
Flannel --
Let's have bookshelves full of
Heller and Hemingway next to
Seuss and Silverstein --
Let's criticize cartoons like their
Animated contents of all the
Louvre --
Let's get bent out of ******* shape
Over light pollution and not
Seeing the stars --
Let's lay on the couch head to foot in
Checkered socks and Five Iron tour
Shirts and play ska all day --
Let's let the living room be the
Ballroom full of nothing but you and
Me and the radio --
Let's drive my PT Cruiser like it's
A classic car that all the kids
Envy --
Let's play swing music like we're
The Squirrel Nut Zippers re
Incarnate--


Let's be friends, oh you,
My favourite person.

We saw ourselves ten years from now,
In the people that you sat for;
Their house was full of things we like
And lots of punk and rock lore.
They both had tats and funny hair, and
Loved all the stupid movies,
At three and one he was young,
And she was still a beauty.

The best part though wasn't that
We saw what we'll most be into,
But that you assumed that ten
Years from now, I'll still be allowed
      to love you.