I won't settle for any
mild "hello"s

bring me a
spicy salutation

the idea that roads are
necessary paths for
discovery is absurd.

exploration within
boundaries is a pre-
meditated dream,
worthless

let them fall into
disrepair, testaments
to our falsely-perceived
control

will you never
learn? fill me with
insignificance, set
me on fire and I'll
burn off like a tick

:

with social graces carried
over in naive rubato, it
always goes too far before
I notice the source of all
this flying dirt

:

I don't share well, never
intend to pursue that
strange notion, always
feeling that I am not
alone should be warm but
buries me alive in
soggy thinking
tonight

:

mind over (it
shouldn't) matter

:

oh if time were a
bomb I'd blow us all
up and forget to look
under my ribcage

:

p(our) (my)self out

the memories I want to make in this place
are no longer on hiatus, they
peer between laced fingers and
whisper your name

nothing, it seems
always returns

the sound of the life
surrounding fragile
breath, do you know
what you have
                          
                            no?

­then watch it peel
off like a cancer and
sink out of your
murky sight

to bloom and
writhe and if these
thoughts have any
weight to gift three
blazing candles in
a night or two

rest assured they
will

so many laughs and
loves and glasses of watered-
down whiskey to share with
all of you

out of concern for your
general well-being, let's
boil all of the sludge and drivel
down to choice words (it'll
slide down your
arms more smoothly)

not what is wanted or
wanting, never allowed
whistles to get into the
dreams that keep you
up at night, down when-
ever they appear in your
periphery

only words, syllables (only
an overpass at night, halogen
halos on a concrete angel) can
carry the undeniable weight
of my thoughts

living and dying every day
in silence

You lost my
mind while it
lay in a pocket of
spring

           sprung up like it's
           rancid, quick thinking
           held on to

a half frozen pinkie,
three-fourths of a
day

It's a shame being
sensitive.
               wouldn't it be easier to
                 just be like everyone you
                 consider trapped between
                  their teenage years?

                no no NO
                no NO
                NO no !

                no thank
                you, where
                I think is
                far from
                perfect but
                it's mine.

swept up in the most
beautiful night

there are no
words right now

"say what you
mean to say"

isn't as easy as french bread when
all the words build up inside your
skull like ideas born to a warm
dim place with inadequate
space to learn, convinced
to fight rather than
reason amongst themselves for
rationed pleasures like inspiration,
expansion, acknowledgement from the
conflicted world they call home, someone
that allows for only one or two
survivors every so
often, two bold witnesses
battle-scarred and cynical

limping to your ears

walk a few steps
past where the other
footprints end and
sometimes you'll find a
wonderful secret place

cleared and pristine, white
sand against green forest against
cool river water

all that's missing is reading
these words as I sleep

Put trees in the back-
ground, shade built from
green and mahogany, lovely
little flowers with yellow heads
marching to the beat of your
eyelashes, skipping like stones
across memories

and in the foreground let there
be only you, only you
as you are

A challenge for
most people, looking
into the eyes of another
for ten whole minutes

but there is so much
I can see within your
colors, your soft
airy connection as if an
examination of my
soul deemed it a perfect
fit for your own
and our trial
run of five counts to
sixty was through
in a blink

Thunder hearts, rainstorm
breath, lightning smiles

freedom

~
inhibitions lost
within a din of
heart

~ ~
hearts lost without a
din of inhibitions

~ ~ ~
delicate, you
need not remind what
is found

Comfortable breach
together while the
trees listen

These days
        our days are not
               numbered
   not at all subject to the
     order we love to defy

I refuse to believe anything to
the contrary,
                      there is no judgment day
                          


impossible.

sometimes happiness and
I are right
there beside you
and when you turn to
look,
            we get bored and
                              leave

late-night thinking doesn't
     end
until five
(when the sun decides to
            go to bed and pins
  up a
    paper cut-out and a "will
                   return soon"
  in its place, billowing warm
     fingers over the world)

Safety in lowered
    lashes, (elephant)
gaze
              across first fields, perked
                                           senses
      on their feet perched

perfectly             water
                under             an infusion

     of color woven with a hint of
                      nostalgia

Picture yourself in twenty years
no
I can't either. But
we'll both get there, I'm
certain of the fact

and I'll be kinder and you'll be
wiser and I just
hope I still know
you then

Is there any reason why it
should feel so wholesome like
a warm kitchen smell ten
minutes before dinner
when your fingers seal off the
gaps between mine?

or why silence carries as much
meaning as the words
blinked from your mouth
while eyes seek eyes?

I've got a head full of
laughter and an aching heart
and moonlit walks and waffle
talks

come sit with me and the
setting sun (promise I'll lean
into you, all angles and whispers
this time) but our closeness always
seems to fan out past the initial
firing of chemicals, and your
hand fills my heart, leaving little room
for much else

Hills giving their way to
water-made soft room for
sails all caught up in fierce
wind from an old house where
we found one still-sleeping
wish walking quietly
blown down the rivers that
pumped through our
bodies now set free to
wander afloat upon
miles of
converging
unsuppressed
joy

Eaten alive by

this is only the beginning of
a wonderful time

                            Brought to the knees of

                            what will tomorrow, next year
                            deliver?

                                                           Sent on a daydream

                                                           making friends with the heart
                                                           of all that knows heart

Be ever present

in the lives of those who carve
their own spaces in mine

Shadow's fingers
making the contours of your
face breathe fire

Dying is a ways off
but life slips away into the
afternoon, minute by unforgiving
minute, relentless in its
passing

keep track of time before the
change as madness, an endless round
of applause cutting corners in a
racetrack mind

Who are you waiting for
out on that branch of yours?
                waiting to take the first step on the
                        whispered way home
please be patient, you've
   painted your soul into my heart and
                     I'm letting you deeper
         chiseling candlelight, feeling time
             swirl around me, getting
     so beautifully lost in one day, one
                             day after another

no jaywalkers here
                                on the edge
                      of the sky

just air
      and

              space

and
     new atmosphere

                               jump to the
                    beat beat beat of their
pounding fists,
                   shadow cry,
                                    wings
                      ­    falling apart and flailing

           pour me another shot of
           kerosene and gasoline, I'm
           feeling mean and all I've seen
           is a world without a care

Come to terms with
no man is a god and
those who believe in themselves
end up furthest from their goal

the thought that I'm a lucky
person and luck
has nothing to
do with it

It's right you know, really
spot on when someone throws that
phrase out, there being "no words for this
moment, no suitable avenue for a memory"

see
all they forget is the part with "no
dreams like these living in that beautiful head of
yours, no mixed laughter quite as musical"

but each is
always to finish with a soft fizzle, a hot shower
of sparks and touches,

it's no
fireworks show these minutes in the dark, even as
my heart "oohs" and "aahs" all the
same in the kaleidoscope that
surrounds you

just breathe
      and don't look away for a second

I am self-sufficient

an island with drawbridges leading
every which way, blue
water instead of fences, green stickers
in place of war, red statements turned bold
statements proclaiming one thing or
another lit perspective on the
streets

and the funny thing is
with no sky, no atmosphere
to brand by our savage mark, corrupt and burn
full of the gray the undecided man drags with
himself

it's so hard to breathe
and each day is a marathon
in the blazing sun

where such a chilled glass of
water speaks volumes and
dives leagues beneath the
icy surface of the human
condition

throb through my veins
free between atmospheres
music burrowed in much
too deep to ever
bleed out

It's never too early to realize
what you have and treasure it

And never too late to marvel
at your surroundings or
company

told me there was a rainbow
never believed it for a second
until I broke away from action
and made a space for love

Upfront and personal
disclosure through windows, fingers,
twos and threes jumped outside, robbed
of their ingenuity, beaten for the sheer wonder of
sound, popular opinion tattooing
rhythm into their skulls

delight transforming destiny into
ranks of the destitute

Good morning
splashing a sunrise across my
pillow to remember only
fifteen days before the
sky dreams of dirt, rich
ripe and golden

all the clouds can do
is watch

never lose your sparkle

promise me.

Conformity will never birth
understanding

be true to your
self and it will
thank you

Inside the water
crystallized memories like glass
fall head over heels

speechless more
often than not

since when is it unfashionable to
be a gentleman?
that a bold romantic, stifled by nothing
and free in spirit should struggle at matters
the ignorant find laughable is
tiresome to say the least

it's a worthwhile youth, really
wired together by realism and surreal
inquiries preceding the longest jumps
and happiest falls

delirium comes naturally, set into the
whispering trees soon to be enhanced with
visual technologies from your sunken
hungry couch, laden with hopes and aspirations
killed as often as lifted boulders

free the tiger, free the only place
for monstrosity, electric lights, emotion
squeezed like toothpaste from heavy
lips


is there no answer
                                         for

tonight as a night of submerged intellect
tonight as a night of dimly persistent dreams
as a night of dry baths, of words gone stale in the
face of the listener

you who are vibrant, come
shine a little closer

a friend
      (to walk beside and ramble with
whose thumbs need warming while
      deciding upon the right path
comfortable to the point of a sweater
      in faintly recalled initial fluster
just in case you don't notice the cliff)
      everyone needs such
a friend

a feast for your taste,
question for your heart,
ringing telephone

4:40 PM

learning all about the little
nuances that try to define what it is
exactly that lies at your core, the
buzzing generator of unmistakable  
charm, patterns of thoughts like ever-shifting
wallpaper in your head, forever reluctant to
meet my eyes for fear of our mirrored
colors merging into one, pools of green and
earth

5:06 PM

no surprise to figure life is about moving when
raised on the road and pit-stop friends but
I'm at a loss when it comes to leaving you with a good
impression, powerless to live these last few days to the
fullest, stuck on that expression, those colors

5:32 PM

meaning thrives in the silences between our speech, only
beginning to gather itself up before we carry on, fascinated
by the effect our own vibrations can have on another, sure
the aftershock will hit any day now, the yesterday

6:24 PM

next time I hope to embrace the silence as I do whenever
you head off into the sunset, ridiculous quiet building a time
and space for us to enjoy the company that comes with
forgetting I am there and never being able
to forget you

these words are
meaningless, paling in
comparison to my vivid thoughts

I can't wait for
tomorrow

there's no sense in wondering
at what might have been three
weeks ago when
right now is a serene place and
two people walking in the dark
share such a
full-moon epiphany

Let's meander down this
road
         flustered so wonderfully flustered by
you, taking the
time to pause and appreciate each little
intricacy along the way

so that some day, when we're older
we can breathe in and pop
evaporate, travel
only as vapor can, spread out and cover
(a part of us in everything and everything
apart from this)

say it louder and louder still, echoing
off your ribcage and shaking my throat
I believe in your words and
nothing slips away without so
much as a nod
that's not the given (not
even close)