Everything
is Champagne
glitter
sparkled stars
weightless in their
rapture,
floating ,
(London to Beijing)

on hand
the world is
red-hot
white-hot
fire that is
burning hot
My love,

you're
all
of
everything.

I want to tell
the world you're mine
and swoon to every
color in the
Louvre
to every track of
Chopin playing
painting love
inside my mind

I want to dissolve into
conquest
into pomegranate
crimson desire
and melt like
candle
wax deep
into
the
night

I want to feel your
arms in
mine
your touch
in mine
the slowly lingering
vibrato of your
high note against
mine

high key
and saturate
and every ounce
of vermillion from the
tube to where it falls it falls it falls
and you are mine.

You have returned here again
for the second time
I love you and I'm speechless.

Fire
and I'm standing at the
barre
my feet pressed in
to hard wood
floors sprung up
beneath the dance

Fire and you're
here inside
my mind; I
count the time
and plie,
grand plie
my arm, a wing, it
takes me down

Fire and
I love you.
Fire and I
desperately
hopelessly love
you

and down,
and down I go.

This chair's a
   rocking horse and
I'm an equestrian
dreamer
days in Spain
when you were
there
I know that you
were there and
I was too
I'm riding on a
rocking horse
a stomach wrenching
rocking horse
a back and forth
and up and down
and sideways
world
a rocking horse
and I can't
come down.

Sweet November in
London
and the Christmas
lights are up

and the street
singers are singing
The Little Drummer Boy

I'm looking at the
give, the
take,
the harmony of
here and now
in the underground
and

I want to feel
how London makes me
feel
when Christmas time is
coming
and when joy is
on my mind.

If inside my
soul
existed fields
of endless
snow

every crop
would hold
snow angels
that you
made

Photographs
in black and white
of you
adorn my walls

where your lips are dark
your hair is curled
a baby's
on your hip
and your eyes
are black and
plum

as dark as every
cup of coffee
and chocolate covered
orange

It's my first
Mother's day
without you
sans you
missing you
profoundly

You just
exist in
photographs
and endless
memories.

There are so many
lovers walking
the streets

arms over waists and
legs all in sync

where she's holding her books
and he's touching her hair
and the way that their eyes
glow;
they're so unaware

there are so many love-
songs
that live with the sea

they're pushing
they're pulling
they're singing to me

and so many lovers
here,
defying the blues

I'd have a lover
if I only loved
you.

I can't believe the
sun is still shining
after a winter of grey

and that love still
exists in a world like this
that I lost it all this way


I can't believe that you
fell so ill; that you died
and I left France

I can't believe I'm still
writing on this and
how long that sorrow lasts.

There are days when
my mind is clear
and I can see the
edge of love

I see the cliff
I'm holding to
and I knowingly
watch my step

the sun seems higher
and the clouds seem
full
and every quiet moment
doesn't hurt so bad

and then there are the
days ahead
where love does not
exist anywhere
near where I was or
am

There's no step to
watch
no intention
no facade
or "one, two, three."

and the sunset's
brighter here.

The crickets sing
louder here.  

the birds have a
song that I don't
recognize here
and it seduces me,
all the same

Here there's so much pain
and depth
to feeling everything
and all

Deep in
the walls
of a
church in
Strasbourg
hides the
stones who
saw me fall

if I could be
a queen
a saint
I'd choose
the fly
on the wall

to see you with
a glass in
hand
swirling
crimson
wine

and watch you
walk the snow-
capped
streets
&
imagine you
were mine.

Where there is a
ghost
she walks with
thunder

moving through the
tombstones
where
her skirt
is floating
in a twirling ribbon
defying
grief.

It's wonderful

to see her dance so
much and
walk like bones have not
fallen down before
her and that nights have
not been black
and that the inky
stain of death
has not soiled
her soul.

Across the Delta
Ponds
the frogs are
chirping

and the winged
geese have
flown the
day away

and every
Tuesday
wind is
here,
engulfing

as I watch the
day's
glow fade
from gold
to grey.


the strip across
the sky is
like a puzzle

without borders,
just an orange
or
reddish hue

and the moon
above the
field is
slowly
rising

In all the
ecstasy of
Oregon,
I want you.

You haven't called since you were 21

since the world had
laid its
hand on you
and you had fallen
down to
love's abyss

you haven't shown your face since
you were 21

since he took you to
a fathomless deep
where you held your
breath to swim
against the
darkest current
the deepest cavern
of anguish
and of regret, too

I have a picture of you.

an old photograph that's
sort of hazy
where your arm
is wrapped around me
and the August sun is
high

I'm waiting, love

I'm waiting for you
to surface from the
dungeon that is
jealousy and from
the sorrow that is
fear
and emerge out
of lover's angst
until you're in the river
and the water becomes
clear.

What's so
**** about a
cigarette hanging
out of your mouth
and
an old Russian
book,
a line of
tiny sculptures
Greek and Roman
myths portrayed
in stone?

What's so
thrilling about your
old raincoat
your umbrella stand
the plaid,
    the plaid
the sheets
of all the papers
that you wrote
about Athena
and Mykonos

I can't take any more
stone and plaid

It's the funeral
and your old soul
has crept away
while mine still sleeps
in your hospital bed
in the darkest shades of
grey

of charcoal 3 a.m.'s where
the clock's green glow is
haunting
and the fading sound
of your failing voice
is teasing and it's
taunting

where the piano keys
are quiet
and I want it to be heard
that not a song is being sung
and silent,
are the birds

I had a dream
in French
and black and
white

a dream where you
were in America
en fin
and I was high on
Crater Lake

I had a dream
where your skin
survived
it did survive
the coldest blow
the ash
the snow
in the Caldera's dance

where sheets
of violet
embers and
clothes
hanging on the line
blew in rhythm
to my French
two-step
and my ombre
shades of time

I had a dream that you
were here
and that you
never died.

It's not fair
that
I love you now

in this moment
as I'm typing
and now as
you're reading

It's not fair that
I love you
so hopelessly
and faithfully
so candidly and
longingly
so full and open
heartedly

It's not fair that I
love you in the
present
where you do not exist
where I am here
and you are nowhere
ashes in the wind.

How can I live
in the now,
live right now
love right now
where you're only a thought
right now

a memory unbound by death.

My phone is always
in my hand
except for when
the microwave
runs

except for when the
lights clicks
on
and spins, and spins
away

only when I'm heating
up my cracked
white
coffee cup

I am alone inside my head

and for this minute,
where I'm alone
with myself
I ache with need
for you
and I remember your hands
the day that you died
how soft and blue
and beautiful they looked
and that is why

I never put my phone down.

You have Pneumonia.

You're up at night
your chest is heaving
and the bed shakes from
your chills

and now I can't stop thinking
again
of her,
again,
and how she lived in that
bed while
my life went on
without her.

Life is good
when the sun is
high
and the cities are
old friends

when the night is
cool and the
crickets
sing
and I'm at peace
again

Life is good
when there's no fear
no pain or hole of
loss

and life is good
when it's sanded down
to the raw self behind
the gloss

You're in the other room
making deals
with the
devil

and I'm in bed
in my wilting
sheets
watching the candle's
flame
dance about

& the Christmas lights
are still up in
the window
and I ruined my slippers
when I ran into the street
because I thought you
were gone

making deals with the devil
deals with the devil
and I'm still staring
at the flame.

I hope the
smell of coffee
makes you think
of me

in ten years to
come

and that the scent
of my perfume
stays with you
too

and I hope that
when you fall in love
it's sweet
it's honeyed
it's silvery and
sincere
and that it's
everything you ever needed

and everything I ever
wanted
for you, too.

You left me a necklace
before you died.

and it sat in a dark
blue box

My name was
written in your
meandering script
that snaking
serpentine,
dreamy shade of charcoal
against parchment

and inside the box
so softly lie a silver
chain,
& on the
end a butterfly
as stiff as skeleton,
bones

You left me your last gift,
a butterfly

and you became a poem.

I feel love.

I can speak French
and I feel like
I'm Parisian
with my perfume and
my crooked
bowl of pears

I feel love.

I feel the pull,
the push,
the quiet dance
of romance
in the deepest
sinews of
my being

It's France and
it's Asia
and it's anywhere I see
myself
I know that I'm in love.

And there beyond
what I've done right
or wrong
a field escapes
monotony and
turns into a pond
where crickets chirp
and grasses grow
and water carries
swans
and when I see the
bayou's glow
I know that I belong.

The sky is every
shade of grey since
I've been loving you

it's gorgeous and it's
moody
and it's every
way I see
you too

the wind blows in
sheets of frost
where the world is
dressed in snow

& you're behind
a winter's birch
a silver bark
a peak of sunset glow

how long I've loved the
thought of you,
the cello's neck
and song

a hymn as soft
as nightfall comes
and gently turns to
dawn.

I'm trying to be
a better person
but it's hard when
you're so
beautiful

and
it's hard when the night is cold
and I am wasteful

and when I thirst for
everything
how others thirst for
sedentariness

I'm not sure if
it's natural to
be good
but I want it oh
so bad.

People are always saying
"expand your horizons"
and I'm trying to do that

I'm trying to meet
other painters
and I am talking to
strangers in stores

and I am imagining
flying to Spain
and making meetings
in the market place
where the misters
soothe my skin
when sunny streets
are scalding

These stories are
seldom told
where I'm trying to come
out of my little ol' shell
and expand, stretch
my wings and take
up the space I was made
for.

It's another day
where the sky is
clear and blue
and I want to push my hopes
up, up,
up and cover the sky with
cloudy dreams

It's another day
whose bound to turn
to night
and I want to lift my arms
up, they're up,
and hold my hopes as
the sun comes crashing
down.

I keep feeling like
I'll find a book
with prompts
and pages that will
change my life
but every time it's blank
I see myself inside

This year I asked
the heavens or
whatever you believe
for a year to
answer questions
a year to give me
insight and make me
a "deeper" me

This year I was ill
and then she died
and then I had to leave
the countryside
I had planned to live in
for so long

And when I came back
to my little town
an old friend came to me:

"You have changed. You seem so wise."

The universe answered my hope
with demise.

I go back and
forth from
knowing
love is real
and does not
exist at all

but for a moment
usually right before
the sun sets at dusk
and there's a veil of
light flooding
the sky, a blushing
pall of pink

I feel the pull of
ecstasy;
the magnetizing force
of longing in
sleepy hues
of orange and ginger
where the thought of you
shields my skin.

so what is gravity,
if not love
and a sunset,
if not love,
and this life,
if there is not love
to watch the sunset and
know that I exist.

I want love;

I want the
gingered fire of
romance, and
all the ways it
pulls your hand
and whispers
"come with me."

There's so much
sadness in
my hands
the way they
hang so lazily

the way they do not
have fine
control or careful
touch

There's sadness in my hands
the hands that held
you
that rubbed your drying
skin and warmed your
biting bones

There's sadness in my hands
where I hope the memory
remains
of you in robes of blue
and the last words that
I said to you.

If you went into
the forest
I would follow
you

I'd break the chain
and hop the fence
and walk not
far from you

I'd trip over rocks
be afraid of the
night
and wonder
what lingers in
the brush
the starry forest
floor

But I'd follow you
with empty hands
with open eyes
with every sense
of loving you
and then I'd follow
more.

It's been a year
and I could still
bathe in champagne

lie in the dark
cavern of your heart

and let the bubbles
run over me

the moon,
the sun,
they sit alone
and float
and how am I
so different
than a planet
or a star?

I read somewhere
that there's
no fear in love

then I have never
been in love
and know
nothing at all.

because
I'm afraid
of the day you died
the nightmares at night
and being forever
haunted by your ghost.

There's no fear in love?
But I'm afraid to let you go.

There are days
where I have
passion

where love I never
felt
or thought real
finally exists

and the sun can shine
or it can hide behind
a field of rolling
clouds

and the darkest of nights
can cover me,
even slowly,
if it must, and keep me longer
if it must
it can keep my eyes
closed against a cold
mask of stars,
if it must

I've learned that in a
globe, so small
my deepest soul
is free.

When no one was looking
I touched a Picasso.

I  let my hand run
like water
over the hills
and the caves
the smooth
metallic
surfaces
that
spoke to me
from
across the room

And I imagined at
night
when this sculpture sits
alone.
With no orange light
of a candle
or hum of a tv
a blue screen flickering,

laughter or cigarette smoke

It's locked up and I am free.

when you lie
in your death bed
and the dreamcatcher
danced its solo
song

I told you that I'd be ok
even when
you were gone

But I only said it
because I had to
give permission
for you to
go

There are too many birthday cards
Christmas cards
letters carried in the snow
to be ok
in any way
and you will
never know.

There's a lady
who smokes her
cigarette
every time that
I drive by

her hair is long
her glasses fogged
over
blank and lifeless
eyes

she's always sitting
on cement
her clothes are old
and sagged

in an apartment called
"The Aquarius"
where she
lives from drag
to drag

My eyes are always
trained on her
and her coffin stick
she's slain

She's alone
and so am I
it's
cigarettes and pain.

I think I'm
busting up this frozen
sea
because I
danced to the glow

Inside a wish
subsequent,
where the
sun melted
the snow

where snowflakes
fell
and angels cried
existing in a bird

and you put your
holy bible down
and threw away
the word

and you stepped into
a world of white
closed your eyes to
all you knew

then you took my hand
and waltzed with me
and found the Devil's Blues.

I wish you
hadn't been so
beautiful
and I hadn't
so
naive

I know
nothing with
certainty

where the stars
end
and
life begins

I know nothing,
absolutely

Where the dark
becomes the light
how that war's
rerun and run and run
the sun goes down
the moon goes up

Why I feel a chill
in my deepest
self
to Chopin,
turn me on

and the fear
of death
being where
I lose myself
and the Earth
loses my song.

I was told I
look like you,
and man,
I hope that's true

'Cause you were made
of morning skies
and
every shade of blue

and clothing lines
and working hands
and every field plowed

You were made
from lovers' hands
and dance in
every cloud.

I think I've
found your secret
that
nobody knows.

You're Pavlova.

you belong on a stage
ordained
in sequins,
wing-tipped eyes
and paper wings,
where the violin
becomes your muscle
and the bow becomes
your strings

and when you go,
when you die,
when you pass as
all swans do,
the spotlight
will caress
all of the stages
where you're not

and you'll come back as
you again
Pavlova again
a dancer who loves all the swans again
and I'll be back in this life
to love you too.

I drank weak
coffee out of
your reno cup
the casino cup
with the clown face
plastered on

At your funeral
I filled your reno
cup with coffee
spoons for
people to stir away
their thoughts
and bite their tongues
and find excuses to
look at something swirling
where there is no
end and no beginning
because the hand just
keeps on stirring.

There's a thought
I have
(quite often)
where I'm
standing on
Agate Beach
and your feet are in
the waves

and you're telling
tales of the under-toe
where the ripples
entice like
ribbons
and the steady beat
of here-and-back
tempts you with
its song

The one
where you've collected
seashells
crab shells
every shell
you've seen.

I usually think this
when I'm on the bus
and my throat is dry
and the cigarette smoke
stinks like the bitter days,

the post-shore days
the after the golden coast line days

where cigarettes were cheaper
than a divorce
or goodbye.

Perfume and bourbon
through the unknown
and we don't know
where we are

if bottles were
deeper, maybe
we could dig
(or drink)
to find out
what's the
bottom
where's the end
to the scent of a flower
to the harsh burn
of the bourbon furnace
raging on

Where's the end when
a beginning is so sweet?