I don't care
if you
remember
years from now

how the lacy
kitchen
curtains beat
against the
slivered
sills

or how the oven
spilled its
heavy air
into the house
each
August night

          It's only here
        
                only now

only in this moment
where I'm washing
my dry hands
of cooking
picnic and
rose park
things to
  chew
   with
    our
     w
      o
       r
        d
          s

I'm so effected by
the way the oven
heats me
the way this summer
heats me
the way I can't explain my love, you
heat me

and the thought of
a rose park
engulfs me
in flames.

I'm a swirl
of crimson
paint
a lipstick
smear
a curling,
twisting,
writhing
sedated print
in hues
of violet-red

I'm in love,
my darling
and I want to
write
X's,
O's,
on every
empty surface
who will give me
just a moment to tell
them of my
love...

weave a stamp
of my kiss,
my crooked
thumbprint
on every lonely
facade
where you have
felt alone
and scared
and like love was
not designed for you.

I don't know what to do
when nights are
never-ending
like tonight

there's something about
a black sky
that makes me restless
makes me think of you

a black sky
that's weighing heavily
on me
and pressing me down
into fits of rage

a hole,
so deep
that I can hardly see that funnel of light,
dripping down
to touch my
outreaching
hand

that's your love
that's your love
that I don't have
and want and need
and ache for
like a bee must search for flowers

honeycomb and fits of midnight rage

I miss that muddy creek
where we snuck under
the bridge, cut a
trail in the blackberries
(they always caught
my ankle, tore the
bottoms of my jeans)
where a rusty car
sat by the water
and I watched you catch
water skippers and
we talked about "the plan"
if a cougar came
from the hills for a
drink.
Where we abandoned
bull frogs and threw
rocks into the water.
Where Augusts last forever
and where we never parted
ways.
I miss you more than Deer Creek
and those rainless, summer days.

You drove me all the
way to town
(5 miles)
in your rusty pinto
because you saw
an ad for actors.
And I was only 10 back then,
but I knew
that it was meant for me.
And you drove me
there and I saw
her teeth in the
photo
(pearls)
and I saw my teeth in the rear view mirror
(a broken fence)
and I started to cry.

So I threw the
paper on the ground
at your feet

and you never looked
for me again.

I love you.
  Not because the valley floor is growing greener by the hour
  and not because flowers bloom after April showers,
  I live you.
  Not knowing that every breath I breathe could be my last
  and embracing the future like I have had no past. . .
  I long for every song that is sang in your heart
  and every melody from the highest mountain of your soul.
  The wind can't sweep you away from my mind
  and even the wisest can't compete with everything I know.

  I'm forgetting the sun can never touch the moon
  and that the sky keeps them apart.
  I forget Earth can't be friends with Neptune
  and India will never visit Madagascar.
  And every place I am I cannot be somewhere else.

  I forget that time keeps us apart.
  I can't be close to you
  For it's written in the stars for you to be distant from my heart.

  A bird will never be a tree
  and a tree never a cloud
  and silence will always be quiet, for quiet can never be loud.

  I forget that a Mormon will not love a Buddhist
  the tough must be tough, for the soft is called softer.
  and even fairy tales aren't always Happily Ever After.

  I love you.
  Not because I am trying to put one with one to equal two.
  Not because I am trying to trick fate into putting me closer to you.
  I live you.
  Not because I am trying to take a skip over time,
  but because you are forever in my body, soul, and mind.
  And I love you.
  Not because I want to point destiny as a fool,
  But because the one thing I won't forget, will always be you.

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.

I saw a kettle of
hawks winging circles
in the sky

my eyes squinting
because the sun
is so intense
[after an overcast rain]

I haven't seen the sun since God knows when.
and
I haven't seen a hawk since I was home, again.

I saw three brown hawks
flying circles
in the sky

over hazy mountains,
blue, cold, hazy mountains
on the corridor of
I-5

and I took a breath with the
windows down
and shout out
my loudest sound,
face in the wind,
hair flying back
like a wing on the wind

and I remembered
Summer in the valley
with you and a
dandelion, barely brushed
by the breeze
and you

and the sound of a cow
no different than
the sound of your breath
no different than
the sound of your heart as
I leaned against you.

I never knew I loved
a kettle of hawks,
so,
in the sky.

Some people are
the poets
who fall in love
with every shadow
on the wall
and every flicker
of a tiny
burning
flare

Some people are
the poets
who drink coffee
dark as pitch
and they press
their candied lips
against the
armor of a pen
who translates
tales

And some people are
the sparks
the light against
the ocean
the little bit of air
that blows the flame
into existence
when I blow it
out again
because I always
blow it out again
and need
the gesture
of
your soul
to light the
fire that
raves in
me.

There's nothing
in this moment
but the memory of
you
swinging your legs over the bed.

A dream
of linens
with roses
& checkered
cloth on the
kitchen windows.
and your bent knees
swinging over the mattress
dangling over dancing shadows
on
the floors [are
so **** cold in the morning]

But in that moment
[the one before
your toes touch the floor]
[before the frozen death of morning
slaps you
wide awake]
I will watch your
legs swing over the bed

they swing
and swing
they swing and swing
away from me.

It's 11:37
and that's
pancake
heaven
when I want
to rise
and follow my eyes
my de-
sire to eat
and eat
and eat
and eat
and eat some
*******
more

It's 11:38,
pancake masticate
where I feel like
I'm starving
carving fake
hunger
pangs
into my
mind and I
eat and I
eat and I
eat and I
eat
and I

It's 11:39
that's pancake time,
that's a near rhyme
I'm writing as to
stop myself
from wanting to
eat and
eat and
eat and
eat
and eat and
eat and

and I

In tall pines and
night storms
when we were
close
to over

& hiking with
my long hair
down
in frantic search
of clovers

in our dancing,
& tambourines,
your whiskey drinking
sober -

You live as a
memory
     in
perpetual
October.

I love you.

I love every piece of confetti in you
a swirling cauldron of
passion,
coral
passion

falling from the stars
like shattered mirrors

I love you like I love purple
black
swirling dust that settles
in a tide pool

like sunlight through trees
the warmth of a fire
the birth of Aphrodite in
a dancing sea of foam.

You are every bit of the universe
every breath
every movement
every bird who ***** his wings.

You are everything beautiful and wonderful and confetti.

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.

Famous love stories from
Paris
& poetry you
don't understand -

pages of maps from wars of the
past and
blueprints, models,
    attack plans

paintings in places
we might have been once -
and ghost towns that
I'd like to go
  the history of places buried so
deep in bomb shelters and
  trenches of
snow

From front to back
from your to my
hand,
chapters and chapters of
copy

The way that we speak is as silent
as wings:
we communicate in books
  and
  coffee

There's a cup of
coffee in the cup I got
when I lived in
France, turning cold,
sitting
on a book I'm using
as a coaster, called
"Goblin Market"

and the vinyl that
I found for 50 cents
is turning slowly in
my Craigslist turntable,
76 trombones
76 trombones

and I'm trying to make
my way through
"Tuesdays with Morrie,"
because Mitch Albom
makes me cry
and now
I'm thinking only
of heartbreak,
rejection,
un-
requited
love and of
the day, the weeks, the months
my grandma
died.

There's so much to be
happy for
sad for
teeter totter for

I love this life and
I feel so much pain.

Oh my God
It's happening.
Just like they said it would.
I have passion and
I swear
I could grow
a peach
with only my hands
and toss it into
the purple sky
and watch the
stars fall
and the
trees
blossom
into color and
pictures to paint

a deer that lingers by the water

and runs
in a moment
with a peach in the air.

My God.
How leaves
can fall
and never
make a
sound,
a peach can
fall and
only give me
something to
smile about,
(all while a deer runs)
a purple bruise to kiss.
Oh God,
I hope this lasts.

I don't know how
but I need to say
I am jealous of
every gust of wind
who spends a
moment in time
wrapped around
you

every day on the
calendar who
demands your attention-
a wristwatch that
always finds your
gaze,
you
need it

I have to say
I'm jealous of each
waking moment
that begs your presence
and that I do not
consume your thoughts
like you do
mine

I know you're not happy
and baby,
I'm unhappy too

but the difference is
you can go on without
having me,
but I'm too jealous to
go on without
you.

I've been running
in my thoughts
lately
wondering why I can't
conquer
you

after all the pats
on the back
and how
successful
I've been
means nothing

I've been thinking about you
lately
and why I'm not
smart
enough
beautiful
enough
her
enough
for you

and I'll lay these thoughts
down
on Cow Creek
where my legs
reflect the sun
and the skippers
hop the water
like they hope for something
new

you are the nest
and I'm the swallow
swooping incessantly
for you

I'm stuck sitting in
the mezzanine,
legs-crossed in
the dark
being pulled
so many ways,
and I'm praying
beam me up,
beam me up
for the love of symphonies and
melodies,
abstract orchestral harmonies,
beam me up.

and I'm crumpling plans
in my hands
that I've went over and over
diagrams
of how to
work-things-out
which way to lean in-
to the wind and when
to let it pull
me up

These wings aren't
made for
flying
or softening
my fall,
and my arms weren't made
to find somebody new.
My hands weren't made
to take the pain
of the push, the grab, the pull
of knowing
I'm not
going up,
beaming anywhere with you.

Thick, dense,
pine tree
forests, ash
grove trees
line the creek

where tree leaves
mask the summer
sky,
dance in their
canopy

the dirt is red
and green
and mud and
soft beneath our
shoes

I never meant to
push you, love,
or live trapped in there
with you.

I've never moved ink like this,
and like ink is
surprised by the
sudden shift,
           so am I
surprised by how
I've never been swayed like this
either

You'd think a poet-dancer-painter-joiedelavie-creator
would have felt the
  move of
everything and
  never missed a
cue or crossed-T
but

there are ways I'm finding
to push the pen that I
haven't tried
before
and
I am
being
moved as
well, in ways my
spindly bones did not know
that they could bend,
before

like growing the fruit at the
end of a
branch, I'm learning to
  balance
           the
          weight

it just seems like
you've been sweet to me
lately

like those little purple flowers
(weeds)
covered in dew

******* the nectar out
like a hummingbird
(how my heart flutters
when you call me sweetheart,
baby,
it's only words
but they're moving)

words
that are so sweet
to me.

I didn't remember the cement stairs
being so widely spaced
apart.
I guess it's been a
month since I've
been back.

The top step that
used to wobble
has been
nailed back
down and
the peeling paint
continues
peeling

My key still fits
in the heavy door
and the lock still takes
a wiggling

and everything looks
like it must have before...

Love never
existed in a room like
this, in this building where
the fresh white paint
smelled lonely

Your belt looks like it
did before
and you put your bag
in the same place
you had asked me to leave you
some of my work- my art-
but empty walls suggest
you threw it
away

everything has changed, and
I hand you my key
and my keychain still
looks the
same.

On the edge where
grey meets blue
and i can trace
the patterns in the sky
with my china fingers
my bony wrist-

on the edge of a cliff
where i can't catch
my balance [breath]
tempted to stand
en pointe
with my china feet
my brittle ankles.

on the edge where
the shore meets the
sand and i can
imagine plunging in
my broken body
right into frosty, metallic waves.

that's the edge of the terminal.
where grey meets blue.
and I can trace
the trail where you walked away
the ghost path [i start to cry]
with my china heart
with my fragile, china goodbye.

So softly
sings the upper
keys
the ivory is
falling

beneath the gentle
arch
the dip and bow
the passion in your
hands,
your
joints,
your
sinews

the tender sharp
the chord of
every night
where chalky dreams
of ecstasy
in denim plague
my thoughts

Where
I'm on the banks
of Newton Creek
and you're never
far
behind

10 years goes so fast,
my love,
since we were
intertwined

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?

I love
the thought of
being yours

of bare feet on white ships
and your arm around my shoulder

(oh how it dances
how the sun dances on the
milky shore)

your whisper in my ear
to a soul who has been
waiting all these years

(oh how it thunders
how the waves thunder on
the shore)

and how I want to be like
sunlight where
you're always reaching
and I'm
never far behind

I never noticed the
flowering tree on
Franklin Boulevard

I walked down
that footpath
a thousand times,
and saw right through
the bark.

But now it's full of
blossoms that
reflect the sunshine's rays

and I hold my
breath as I walk past
and shower in
the shade.

I never saw the tree
because some roses
line the street

So I ignored simplicity
(eyes and roses meet)

Now I can't ignore
the blossomed tree
growing on Franklin
Boulevard

It's profound how a
flower blooms and
makes you notice bark.

I wish I didn't want you so

but every time I see a sculpture (I can't
help but think of you)
and your silver eyes
your glassy, silver eyes
that penetrate my soul and
make my knees go weak
and heavy like I'm
wading through weighted water
and trudging, moving forward, current pushing back
it's all the same.

It's all the same in how I am impaled through the chest
with your brilliance
and your soft demeanor
and there are so many hidden places of you
behind so many walls
of which I know nothing.
I know nothing of you at all.

And I am sure I love you.
I am sure I love everything about you that
you have ever done and found
and all of those mysteries veiled
behind the mask you wear for me.
In this dimly lit room I know I
love you so

I'm back in the valley
where the screens have fallen out the windows
now and
the cicadas
sing like a choir
and you're their God

I've resigned to loving
you,
             endlessly

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.

I'm aware of the things that come from the woods.

The brooding water paths pushing to the west.
A quiet sprinkling of pine
  needles and
flooding near the
Ash Groves when the winters come

the winter's spent.

Cities are strangers and pavement is trapped soil
waiting for my hands to dig them up and build a
refuge out of dying-to-get-out-of-here-dirt

I'm dying to get out of here dirt.

I left myself in the absent way
a butterfly leaves the cocoon but do not know of what

I'm seek
  ing .

you
fluttered around
the tinsel
your silver wings
like stars

beating with
the tambourine
and your
confetti raining down

to give it all
to you
would
mend my heart
(like melted gold)

a potion
where I'm
bathing in
your
rose water
and you're
blooming
up the moon

a blow
of which
I'll never
convalesce

You're full of moon dust

Some things
are
better left
unsaid.

It be so lightly,
as we close our lips to passion
  and open our lips to lust.
  Advantage be taken of me
  as this reminds me of the memories
  And though love has left this action,
  his touch is still worth anything.
  Even without feeling [behind it]
  I confide in it.
  I'm alive with him.
  His kiss to me is for his own,
  Not for a feeling of which should be known.
  There is nothing now, but cold lips and
  empty words.
  No feeling or vision of love can be heard.
  And all he feels is sensuality,
  This is my sad reality,
  For every touch or stare received,
  He will never again feel love me,
  For his love for me
  Took its leave
  He breathes with sexuality.

I have followed, wondering behind you.

  Always curious, always a dancer.

  Always flowing, twisting.

  The snake wants to know more.

                                                  

  We were ephemeral.

  We were nothing but a season.

  The ethereal love of an era.

  I wish  had meant more [to you].



  I am the porcelain dancer.

  And I am tripping, I'm stumbling, I'm falling apart.

  I can hear our rhapsody destroying me

  transforming me,

  making a cobra out of me.



  Oh, to be the dancer.

Knee deep in
Toulousain
brick
where sidewalks
dent and
water collects

and up 6 levels
in Jolimont,
not far from where
everything exists,

Here I am,
knee deep in
thought, and out
towards
the starry night,
the dark is
ever changing

and I can feel the moonlight
flowing,
of course, I feel it stretching
out its
arm to me
to stroke my cheek
in silence
when my thoughts become
too loud

I'm knee deep in the world, baby,
knee deep in the luke warm
end of daylight
where the water
keeps on moving
and trying to
pull me down
to where
everything is gold.

Camden Lock
and the sky is
piercing me
grey again
And that Otis song is
playing in my head again

and there's a woman
on the street,
she's singing,
that change is gonna come
that a change is gonna come
again

And I can't speak English.
I can't speak French.
I can't sing or move my
feet
because she's afraid to die
and the night is getting
darker
and I am getting colder
and so am I,
so am I

and the underground
has stopped its roar
and the orange lights
are holding on
and the rain is trickling in the gutters
and so am I,
my darling,
so am I.

The landscape that I see is so
revealing

And it tells the tale
of you and I

the hills, the slopes, the mountain tops,
where passion meets the sky

I've never known the sun could set like yours.

Don't worry,

I've been here before,

lying in canopies
of 'where'd you go' and
'what have I done?"

I'm not immune to love-fall
or love-hope
   or even the fall-out -

and there's no
modesty to my
afflictions

don't worry,
I've been here before
and I'm not willing
   to
     wait
       in
          hesitation.