I always brush my teeth
before I kiss your picture

There's a skylit drawl tumbling down the pavement
And a cardboard box waiting on your screened-in porch
And if we don't slow down, I think that we could make it
Back where we were before

And the sunsets fall when memories fade away
It's times like these that make me want to say

You are the light that brightens my eyes, you
Are the time I want to know, you are
The comfort of the ocean when I'm all alone
You are the fire burning slow from
All the corners of the globe

Now I'm here but
when I'm there I'm home

As the night comes all the lovers start their walking
Traced by footprints next to railroad tracks

There's nothing to say what goes away is
never coming back, try and relax

but if you ever come on back

You are the light that brightens my
eyes, you are the time (I
want) to know, you are (the comfort of)
the ocean when I'm all alone
You are (the fire) burning slow from
All the corners of the globe

Now I'm here but
when I'm there I'm home

A tinge of lavender, high D plunging
rubber into musical veins

All the world's a stained glass window through which
we can view ourselves

This is the good time, the awareness

If it's not the waiting (bronze
string melodies take care of that) or
the dreamy silence of sushi beside
papers and pens,

                      why do I feel this way?

what is the empty?

There is so much to tell you
before I wake and with the ongoing
countdown of patient fingers, one
by thirteen days left in our time apart

the heart allows a small smile

for how time has sped along and led us to
where we need to dream, where we
need to be

and you stitch up my world
like a soft winter scarf, warm
and woolen, beautiful and
all your own

Hello
       what is your sign?
  
oh, you're neutral.

        then what
               may I ask
          do you bring to this equation?

I'm beginning to get shabby,
       delving into so many disciplines
  
    unkempt, really
              but composure is  
         unnecessary at best when
       you're like I am and know
    why you get up each morning

It's no surprise you
can read my eyes

                         perhaps it's like a mirror
                         seeing so much of yourself

Echoes of dreams of the thinking that
lifted soft fingers from opening scenes

Laughter is the sound of a flame
deep crimson take-out in
neat little white boxes

And fire is the flash of teeth at
the end of a sentence, speaking
with certainty as all language
fails again

I saw you in the clouds today
A wispy summer hide-away
Tonight I've nothing else to say
I saw you in the clouds today

This afternoon I felt your hand
It made me tremble where I stand
Dreaming daylight, waking man
This afternoon I felt your hand

(In early hours I miss you most)
Out from the distance, growing close
I miss your heat, I miss your nose
(In early hours I miss you most)

One day soon we will be there
Together in the crackling air
And maybe all we'll do is stare, but
One day soon we will be there

laughter all laughter cascading past mountain
caves, pushed aside for so long in lieu of the ocean
and now looked upon with fresh eyes and new time

you are not ready for this life

you are not ready but you step ahead, you
fall on the steps and catch your breath and
rise like an angel

stay where you should be, even
though we are technically free

I don't want to be.

Sick sick sick
eating poison pills that might
taste good if they were tangible

sometimes it's hopeless and
I can't help you until I
help myself.

It's darkest just before the dawn
but darling, you've been far too long from
these arms now that, left to one, grow
tired and fall limp like rags to sleep

come home and we'll make known
all the ways we both have grown
or just ring my phone, and
let me know you're there

Our world cannot stand still
when early morning silence only invites
remnants of thrashing nights to play
across lashes like dewdrops, a face like rain

I have witnesses similar shadows on the
moon, just as distant and untouchable, just
as hard to swallow in the fresh air, the
blank stare of post-understanding where we
don't try anymore

Our world cannot stand still.
     It's running itself raw.

Do you eat words like I do?
(Swallow them whole and kicking)

The clock says smile and
  rush along the clock
     says we should eat heavily and
        drink until the oceans shrivel into
           our cups like death as a
               fire tide

The clock says hurry now before I
   get away from you, turn off the road and

****
             no more time.

Is there anything
                           after
the fire simmers down, bed of red
      coals on the cold
                 dark ground all
              around when there's
        no sound and no space and
            no crystal tinkling laughter
   to climb your spine

                 or walk along a river spread
            beside a tired and tortured head
                        is there anything
                                             after?

Moments like kindling led to these
shimmering sparks, weightless like
breath set deep into hands

And ease pouring through two
bodies, the sense of which
cannot be silenced so
long as the other exists in
the world.

Twelve shirts and six
strings to feel like home

responsibility slipped over
my head like a cashmere sweater, warm
and welcome

and I drift off to where you
are still sleeping, reach out
to brush the hair from your eyes
and wake up, refreshed and
yearning

you are my sunshine, my only
sunshine

and I am the graphite, I am the
ink beneath your fingers, happily
joining words of life on the horizon
to the fresh, green-growing present

the cozy, the comfort, if not soon then
later but ever closer in my eyes, ever
brighter in yours

remember,
         you are
         my sunshine with
laughter like rays and
   thoughts like hugs,
                             our
                           love like rippling
                           glass, ever beautiful and
                           all our own, a wonder set
                           firmly as a fiery and true
                           gemstone in your golden heart

off to the space where how
small we are becomes apparent, you
won't hear from me for a while but
I am alive and well, more-so than
previously, I assure you

off to the space where strings protest
the fallen angels we have allowed into
our homes, weathered giants aware of
each slice all the while supporting
greedy feet

we are the devil.
we are god.

anything but the in-between, that's
where things get lost

painted a guitar today
and somehow the glossy
made it to whispered coat racks in
my head, "protecting against
rain, sun, and humidity" and

preventing me from running these
tired fingers down your cold, glassy face
as the road rises up to meet me
and my words

Letters in the mail
pieces of me freed by words
keep them with your heart

maybe I'm filled to the
brim like cupped hands under
the bathroom faucet

maybe the words that scorch this
tenderness in my mind with lonely
potency are yellow children of
a summer sun and its flower bride

maybe laughter is a dance

maybe when we get down to it, we
never really go anywhere, remain
hand-in-hand across state lines

and this heart snuggles up with
that one and the two grow stronger
out of their freedom heat

maybe I'm thinking too often, but
these thoughts orbit you like stars,
keeping me company until morning

bring me your silence
bring
     me, full of wonder at the waterside
bring me
         a lifetime of long walks
bring me real
               freedom for two, for here
               far from worshipped lights
bring me you
                      and
please take all that I have,
all I will be in your hands

You're right, let's
see where this will lead
and in an hour I'll concede to
spending all my afternoons the
sun rising and setting with you
reliably

like after-hours swimming pools, we
lead the way and make our own rules
******* to the ordinary, bring on
hula hoops and sherry

I'll send my heart wrapped in a letter,
hope that it will get there over shimm'ring
sails and stormy weather, hope that it
will find its way to you

call me kindling
but I want to light a fire
in your eyes, a deep cleansing
burn to douse right-side up,
brightly

symphonic voice

held fast, dripping senses
(scoured streams if only)
lifting
off the sky and placing this
beneath rocks in cool blue
water, tentative red card-stock
hearts warmed up like heated
mattress covers in a soon-to-be
natural and slow-melting cottage

tethered happily to your
waving dock of
chamomile acclaim

I almost forgot
after the storm, chasing
rainbows in the sky

and shown a double by
my very own prism

hey, sorry
I think I ended on the wrong
note- (supposed to be a C but anyways)

I didn't mean to cry, honest
sat there in the car after you had left just
replaying all the time we've spent out here
and how we probably won't be back
ever (what a powerful word that is) or
at least for a considerable while

it overwhelmed me a bit, that and
our candle selves burning to ashes while
they set your pants on fire (I will find you
some new ones tomorrow, I promise)

only I can never free the words from my heart
(they want) so (badly to be heard by you)

please hold me and tell me you'll miss me, even
if that's (stretching the truth a little)

because I'm fizzling like a
flame under tears
and smiling at the same time, so
happy to know you for
who you are

there's a quiet sense of knowing
in this fire, slow-burning as we
reach a state indistinguishable from
its freedom

my open heart, sure-footed as a rabbit on
pine needles in the summer, dreams
you here with me, two melting as
candle smiles climb our faces and
birds shriek their approval like
so many arbiters of the forest

seeing the same colors, not
all about interpretation but perspective

overanalyzed ice cream breaks down into glucose

overanalyzed puppies break down into proteins

only overanalyzed love continues
to defy all constraints, eluding
mental grasp as easily as an eel
in a bathtub, sought by a spoon

exposed and melodic
what comes from half smiles

polite wishing

you're on your way and
I'm getting to mine

I don't know what day it is
where a mind finds these
long numb torrents

you can hold my heart and feel its rain

first silhouettes fade
into softer remembrance
then light up the sky

the first step (to
   one two three life)
        is this place
     looking back at the red cliffs
and remembering our jump
             so many months ago (it
                feels like a second and
                         then twenty years)

       in its footsteps (dreams win
            all the races), we find I'll
          carry you will carry
                   me and leave now
               from the rearview, roaming
                       to wonder when
                    nothing can
                            find the way
                  your laughter conjures
                       my smile
                       
                                (rally around
                                       shared heart)

glitter in the light we'll
            give birth to pouring
       warm wax
                      
                        fire inside
                  eyes ringing like
             xylophone bars while
                              we remember where
                     these times find us (and  
                          why the only nightmare is
                                   waking up)

Let's go somewhere, let's
   do something, let's
       be the people we are
    meant to be

today with eyes gently closed, sketching
   my wish,
          a lifetime atop liquid satin

   sail me away in the dark, sweet you until
          stars wrap your face in
              a hug, pull away out of
                    jealousy

one of these hours I might pop with the
      taste of sincerity,
                        of laughter you
    bring to me quietly
                              
                                  were it not
             for the disulfide knowledge
                        the unmistakable now
      where everything is right
                and you are everything.

I mean
every word.

filibuster to the end, my
     friend of real significance, we've
come this far hand in
             hand so the taste
          is only sweeter

Only the best
       built up in an instant then
     sustained for a lifetime
              like a rainbow treehouse
           with a terrific view

I'll have a sturdy platform
       ready to hold you
   when you are

I feel like a bed of coals
glowing brighter with each
passing moment

who says love
has died?

he's alive and well, reading
a newspaper by the corner store

and shaking our world together (turn
to page 5)

We need to talk
over a campfire

need to love under
a moon

to warm beside the glow
of shared dreams

burn on,
unscathed

there is no breath when
you join my world, only
snug bundles of air ******
in
   between smiles

one of these days, I'm
living here
             listen (for me) like
people once read and
found reasons to grow
another few inches

(and to know) you
are the (fire's silver)
heartbeat!

/

nobody is masterful
to the undoubtable "I
have a word for this", no
suggestion 
          someone should try

/

there is no breath, (no
pause) when you join my
world
              only a warped sense
of direction, a shift in gravity
joining, warming faces

do you feel me?
filled with verses, lost in words?

/

will we go together?

dream how the
days flame when you
join my world (and
    when you
            remember it)

quite frankly I'm
startled to see you
right now

thinking you must live
beside my thoughts, all
the time you share
with them

but here you are
here and beautiful.

Have the time it takes to
love someone unconditionally



love the someone, the having time



laughter, once taken, gives the love
someone unconditionally wishes



murmur someone murmur love murmur
indistinct laughter



touch the indistinct time, the laughter, the
someone



have the someone to murmur touch, give
distinct love, unconditional time

the feeling when you
  s
    t
      u
        m
          ble
                 somewhere
                          you
     shouldn't, sweet-gum
                  letters
          gathered for a solitary
        rendezvous
                        then casual
              destruction
                             glimpsed from                                                                                                                    afar

everyone wants the shoes to
fit, but
    I've worn those and
                          many others in my time
and the heels always
blister

Among the fires, distance
once insurmountable wishing
memory into loving proximity

(1)

a soft fall, a cool glance and
stars from the sky taking
root in our hearts,
fanning out warmth

(+)

two hands of the clock
blinking past like sweet lash
and streaming like veins in
the arms of a forest

(1)

you say it feels off, floating
down from our heights and
it burns like a last but it can't
be, not yet, with years
more to find

(=)

I politely refuse to
give way, the
key to my heart resting
firmly in your pocket

(2)

and a smile from you
kindly seared into me

velvet stains, sawgrass breath of junebugs over again

in essence, the laughter
for no reason other than "we
lack energy for meaningful
conversation" before the sun
pulls heavy drawers on this
little room of ours, all
snuggled up and pretend while
life remains frozen and dead outside,
time curled with us by the fire

your words make me
ache as far as a torch
stretched between murky-
blank pages

do not wait to scrawl your
truths until heavy resignation
creeps over my head like
a dark shawl

do not wait -
                         - I miss
                         everything and nothing
                         and (god
                         **** it)

the philosopher was right in
assuming a search for completion
leads only to a sort of frustrated
compassionate silence,
                                           so
                                      tired of being tired of growing
                                      weary with assumptions,
                                      mad libs of the spirit, only
                                      fill in the line with whatever
                                      you dream might be,  


              no


let me know you, the real
uncensored and true
(I can love) you

I feel like a child being spelled at
to keep the F-I-L-I-B-U-S-T-E-R for
adult ears only but even though
I admit the fact
                           - I know next to nothing
my heart desperately
wishes to know
you, everything.

Dear heart

stop taking things so
seriously,

I have three fourths a
mind that likes how you're around and
a stuck twenty five bent on
shutting you down before
inside (and I'm trying) out loud with
count to two, one is familiar but
(water thinks) so are you after the
rain comes and white-washes us
clean

but white isn't neat, who says red isn't
true and the two next-best colors aren't
yellow and blue? It appears as though
wisdom (seen through a blank lens) is
only now starting to shift shades and
blend in the hues of the thoughts of the
heart's hidden song

to think some folks can't find
a place to belong!