Oh honey,
you've fallen so hard
in the heather

and you've skinned
your peach-
**** knees

and you've closed
your eyes
to the sun that
shines

and the labyrinth
pattern of
the bees

You've fallen
into fits
of promise

fits of
frozen
winter snow

in the corner
of your
high-walled
maze

where the wind
can't even blow.

I don't know why I came here
again

the light is like a river
through the panels
on the ceiling
and the white bricks
on the wall

a wild call
of salmon swimming
through a stream
and
memories plastered
on the high beams

and it all feels like
a different life
one where I knew you
where I loved you
where you were not
a stranger
a lamp post
anyone or anything
I walk by on the street

the crooked bus seat

I don't know why I came here again
when I have a new life now
where my dreams are inches
from my hands

but still in a river, just the same

where my finger is a fish hook
and I can reel you in again
and lie on my back,
feet in Deer Creek

I don't know why I came here
when Oregon's all that's left of you and me.

There are dreams
within me
softly humming
never silencing
their songs
that feel like
the space between
the stars
effervescently
burning

I remember when you told me
that
the universe is me.
That I am every
hopeful thought
and your dream's
melody

and I replied that you were
all the wild
flowers
in every
meadow
and every bright side of the moon
and the darker cast in shadow

There are dreams within me
softly humming
and their whisper never fades
out of all the things
you've roused in me
this song takes
the cake

The roses are
in flower
and they're
climbing towards
the sea foam sky
where Aphrodite's
singing and she may have
played my song

the song where you are
dancing and your shoes
are made of something
that is causing my knees,
weakening,
melting in place
and bloom

how is it that love grows?
that roses grow?
that deep in the
drought of summer,
our cornhusk
baker-miller
summer

how is it my heart
expands
and grows
so feverishly
for you?

They call her
Candelabra Queen
with wax in her hair
a crow,
sleeping in her mane
to light each
fire that goes
out

fingers more
delicate than lace
a needle to
go through
and mend
the puddle
of a heart

Candelabra Queen
who sits for
centuries, with
cat skulls on her
throne of
years forgotten
years where
statues had viridian
eyes and zircon
was taken
from the grave

Where sorrow and
desire meet
to find the
common ground
on which
we forget
we're walking

I'm walking in the same world as you
Where is your understanding
and your shame?

Beep
Beep
Beep

And it's thanksgiving

Beep
Beep
Beep

The parade is geared to go
And you,
In your dress of white
More beautiful
Than every day
Of spring
Combined

Your hands like ice.

Beep
Beep
Beep

fluorescent lights
And glossy eyes,

My love,
I wish we had more time.

It's raining in
a mist tonight
just like you
said it would

and I am chilled
to my bones

and in every swirling
blend of deep violet
the deepest shade
of a night
violet
I fall into
abyss.

It's Autumn and I remember
your hands
the way they held, and hold,
always will hold me.
The way they ran against
my spine.
bump bump bump.
It's Autumn and it feels like
forever
[your eyes]
and their icy darkness
that saw me.

Everything says yes
when I'm with you.
and there isn't a sunset that
tells me to
slow down.
Or a sunrise that knows
more than I
about you.

It's Autumn and
Every bird could sing for me
and it's only yes,
it's only yes
with you.

The moon spins and nods to me.
It pushes the waves
pushes you onwards towards me.

It's Autumn and
everything says yes
with
you.

When we get to
  talking
and you ask me how
I think I died
in my past life:

I tell you,
  I've never died and I'm
going
  to live


                forever.

Watching you fall
so hard
  when you leapt so high
    you were so
  inspired by the
hope for wings-

they say that you can build your
wings on the
way down,
but that's not always true
you gave it everything you had-
sacrificed, and gave it all
and because you believed
the dream
of building wings,
my heart had to break
      your
  fall.

This is about me

These words.

How I've given
myself
  away time
   and time
       a
        g
            a
              i
               n


the secrets I've
kept
to
protect
  myself.

It is you - it's
not me.
It's not my
vulnerability.

It's not my passion.

It's not for my willingness not to fight
- or because my faith is
dwindling

This poem is about me.
And it's about everything you've

taken
from
me.

I'm preparing for the
fall-out, it's lover's
Armageddon
Where you're in
San Francisco and you're
going to a wedding

And I'm in Arizona with my
goddess-empire dream
work it work it, hustle baby
I'm Palo Verde Queen

We're preparing for the
fall-out - our supreme
divination
and you're waiting for your next train
home
- Californian Exaltation

from one dry heat to another
two lovers, hope-possessed
work it work it,back to me
and to our honeyed love nest.

So today's the
day where I've
decided to love
you
where I've bought
a moleskin
book, in pink
subdued
peony
hues
and

Today's the day
where I'm writing
to you;
and,
you
don't
even
know

And a year from now,
when you're all
alone
and maybe,

I'm alone too,

you can rest
at peace

& my love letters
will find their way
to you.

I told you
to put the masts up
to set sail
to the seas
of all you ever
hoped for

I told you to go into the
deep
into the rocky blue of
infinity
that is
nature's lullaby

And then I shouted to you to
let go
of all the anchors
the weights
the sandbags holding
you down so that
you could
float into
the night
without the burden
of your
pasts

and as I sank into the
hazy blue
the foggy murk of
uncertainty-
the final,
seventh sea
I realized
you had dropped me

a dash in a bucket,
a bead in an ocean,
a tiny piece who loves you and
is heart break in
fluid motion

it's then I learned I was the weight
and that your ship had been set free.

There's a rose growing
on Lydick Way
behind an
old Mustang

against a
wooden fence
and a stump
where the
cherry tree fell
when the winter
hit us hard

it couldn't hold the weight, my love

there's a rose growing
without tending to
without a nurturing hand
without someone there to
dead head it

there's a shadow there
from the yellow
house across the street

and when the moon
is full
your silhouette is blue

Moon or sun and
rose or ****
I'd carry all of your burden,
all of your weight,
nurture you, Rose,
if I could.

You're a
dark
cavern,
where I have
to
breathe a
little deeper
or risk not
breathing at all

as I am trying
to make my way
through the
black, an endless
cave of what-comes-next
(I have no idea
     of what comes next),
I know
that
If you gave me more
time,
you could (maybe)
love
me
too

it's here against
the grotto
that is
nudging me
and slowly
pushing into
me, my eyes
adjust to the
darkness that is
you

I want to stand
on the edge of
a tall
building-pressed against
the steely bars, the wrought-iron
coils of metal,
icy on my
legs

I want to stand
on the edge of
love, with
you

hold my arms above
my head
let you absorb
all that I
am

drunken and
stupid-
hesitant and
wanting

the creamsicle
orange of a sunset-
the brilliant pink
smear of a
sailor's-trouble-sunrise
with you.
Everything with you.
Standing on the
edge of
everything,
you.

Tell me
you want to
stand with me
too.

On Saturday mornings
I sit in my robe
and I listen to the
crackle,
pop,
the steamy *** of
coffee brew
it brews, it brews, it brews
while something brews
in me

I turn the TV on
and I keep checking
my phone
and I sit inside
this stagnant room
and sort of feel
alone

On Saturday mornings,
I crave your love
and I know that it's not
within reach.

You would give the
world for me
satin sheets
coffee,
forest black
like a 3 am
night

You would give the
world for me
you'd hold me
in your arms
and sway
to
the summer's wind

the world for me,
I know it
diamonds on my
wrist and
my stomach's
always full

but if you
gave the world
for me
I'd be trapped inside
a globe.

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.

When I finally said goodbye to you
without turning
to say it again
I kissed your cheek
and tried to
engrain the moment
in my head

And I walked across the
hospital room
to pluck a
mini
carnation from your
sack
Where I closed my eyes,
absorbed your sighs,

and then never looked back.

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.

A cold hand that pulls
back fast and lifts
high
or grabs your little
porcelain-doll wrist
   maybe to
break it
   a hand with snakey fingers
who
will crawl under sheets
of little flowers
  and hide in fields
    it should not
   It's always quiet like
serpents
and it's always what
love is not.

I don't want you [to leave]
You're so beautiful in this
light
between branches of
fallen trees.
[I saw lightning 3 times
last night
I couldn't help but
wonder,
if your
eyes
saw it too]
Please,

I don't want you [to leave]

to start this other life
away from
me.

[the thunder came out of
nowhere.
And the rain flooded
the streets]

I'll never say a word to you.
I don't want you

to leave.

Take my hand &
I'll show you the
sky.
I'll show you how to
coax the
sunset's green.
I'll open you to
every touch of
fire,
every gentle hand against
your heart,
against
your traveller's soul.

Take my hand &
follow me.

Follow me up to the charcoal sky where
I'll
show you every
star
that I'm
destined to follow-

I won't leave you behind.

Take my hand, you
witching musician
& follow my
dancer's
plight, my swallow's
flight,
up to the deepest, starstruck
heaven to where
we'll watermark
the sky
in ornamental
fashion.

In sheets and in
quiet,
5 a.m.
bird song and
linen-
standing in
front of a pan
on the stove-
you love me

in opening car doors
and peeking in
and filling up
thermoses with
steaming coffee-
chilly April
mornings,
you love me

In the touch of a hand,
cold, red fingers
itching from
the morning freeze
and turning up
the heater, touching
your hair and
hearing you
breathing-
you love me

you love me and I love you.

Today's the day
I fall apart
below the
lies I told
to find a
better way

where bands
of blue
are blazing
and I am
unafraid

& love exists
beneath
you
and in every inch
of soul
you give to me

I had a dream in France
that you were dying.

and so I came home
after two restless
days of flying

And now you lie,
your health in slow decline

dressed in white sheets,
alabaster cheeks
your IVs all entwined

I can't say I love you
quite enough

And
in front of you
I know
I must be tough

but I never knew that
loss would come before

the angels come
to lead you through
their door

You always believed
that
dreams held something true

I wish that
when I dreamed of death
I hadn't dreamt of you.

Oh, the
running

the running to and
from fear and fortune

Soak me up, ground,
pull me down into an
earthy sandpit
filled with serpentine
bliss, numbing
poison,
falling rain

I can't take it anymore
the way the pavement
feels
the bitter cold that stuns the
hands
the running of my
thoughts in
sunrise or in
dusk

Oh, the running,

the running from fear to
fortune

I'm looking through
a piece of
glass
that I
found on
the beach- and
through the warped
exterior- the rippling
surface of its sea-soaked skin
I see myself looking
back at me
against a
backdrop
called
the
sky

I'm a reflection
in a
shadow and
I don't know why
I love you,
like I do,
but I do,
and I'm looking
at a piece of
beach-glass,
hoping to find
you.

all I ever wanted
was to
know
the vast
unknown

isn't that
the human
drive,
to search
without
aversion
but to look
in requisite
despair

so we're born
out of a planet
called the womb
& ******
into
breath
without
explanation
or
even cost-less
perseverance,
but with
the
incessant
need to
find
the moon.
to meet
the end,
but also live
without
cessation.

and that is why I look up at the stars.

the winter's when
you took your
leave
and I felt
like I couldn't breathe

though you're the one
in oxygen,
fifteen liters of
oxygen
the tiny ball
dancing with
the stream

there's no cure
and you are dying,
and in the lobby,
so am I,

and all
the leaves have fallen
while I don't sleep at night

December fills my heart with joy,
but also makes me cry.

I want to take you
with me,
but I know
you don't
belong there

when your hands
are speaking out
their silent words
of dreaming a-
bout
stages where
the burning
lights are
melting
fear
away

it's
calling you

like no one else exists
because
your hands
nothing else exists
and
so
I can't
take you with me

while the music's
taking you

I'm washing my hands
beneath the normal-kitchen-
view,
and a bird is sitting on a
wire, I think watch-
ing me too

and I'm slowly scrubbing dishes,
china-chipped from
soft soirées
& eating with my
house coat on,
the winter chill ablaze

I'm thinking of an
empty pan,
to be used then begin again,
I'm lighting the stove and
filling my
*** with
Orange and Cinnamon

This is where I am right now.
Miles between who I was this morning
And who I’ll be tomorrow.
This is where I am with thoughts of you.
Holding the elbow of a memory,
Of a cup of coffee, of the way
Your bones move around me.
These memories won’t stop laughing.
Grinning, cackling, teasing me.
I feel a change in time.
All the clocks controlling us have broken.
Where did the bird go, the bird that
Chirps the hour?
The hours of who I have been with you…
Miles away from who I was
With you
And who you were
To me.
Everything has changed.

At civil dawn
I'm counting -
the seconds where it's
indisputable the sun
moves
where names get caught in
time that invariably
forges on
I'm getting caught up, spun around, lost in the cogs of a
stranger's swan
song.

10 years and
I love you

10 years and
I'm waiting for your
call

10 years and
I'm haunted by an
evening in the valley

where I'm running in a
field and the dark begins to fall

10 years and
it's you, I can't
deny it

10 years
& your kiss still
tastes the same

10 years comes and goes so fast

10 years yours
I will remain

The glow of you.

Sunset on your face.

There is no erasing that moment from my mind.

Feet walking,
Old soles, new soles,
In the gravel and up wooden stairs.
Brown knuckles gripping rails.
The dust is kicking up again.
and there is August  sweating down your face,
Gold sun on your forehead and shadows of the willow tree painting pictures on your skin.

There is no wind here.
But [chaos] skirts are moving, hair is swinging, arms are wielding against
a clear blue sky.

A circus of American Flags, men
parading.
I can hear 102 degrees
sweating on the floor.
I hear nothing else at all.

There is silence in this chaos,
all in the glow
[a sunset]
of you.

For every
  winter
and every joy
every summer's
  hideaway
beneath a canopy
of palm

I'll lean my head
back,
against a tree,
my swan neck branched out in
   poetry

for the every fire
the every love
and the every misery,
there's a canopy of
  hope to hold
and the rest to set you
free

How can I walk in
to other cities like they're
my
castle too
like they welcome
with their arms outstretched at the end
of a race
a finish line from start to
finish
go to start

I thought I couldn't
love someone
new
and
at the ribbon,
I'm finding I'm wrong

Well my love,
we had it all

hot nights
where the screens
held back the mosquitos
and the tv glowed
where the curtains were held
to the wall with
thumbtacks
and your puzzle sat on the table
and you sat on the couch

we had it all
stepping around the tubes
from your oxygen tanks
and refilling your
weak cup of coffee

we had it all
when it was hot
and I was sweating
and your body was aching
and the roses continued to bloom.