I’m sorry, stillborn encounter.
You existed and then were dead
(at least in my head).
Hesitation’s often deadly:
oh, how I wish we’d met.

But it was too late.
Call it whatever you want, I
don’t believe in fate.
All I got was this nickel for a keepsake
and now I must live with it,
all of the future me
who’ll never be.

See?
That’s what keeps me up at night
when I cannot sleep.
Wondering why we wouldn’t meet,
questioning the path I chose.
But hey, that’s Life.
Anything goes.

I remember that spring
That summer
I was asked for color
You have forgotten your gloves...

یادم می آمد
آن بهار را
آن تابستان را
از من می خواستند رنگ بزنم
...دستکش هایت یادت نبود

Tonight the fog settles
on the water reflecting

a dark mood, and the moon
is genuflecting to the blues

resting one knee on the cold
silent sea taking off his hat

as if to say *May I rise now
and take my leave and leave

you be, for tomorrow will
surely be a brighter day?

Looking back at the years
through the fog,
sorting the memories
that are real
from the phantoms
that long
for the castle and the throne
that have fallen.

I recall
her lost smile

like a sketch
I draw from my memory

and those days in the rain
laughing, drops

hitting the creek
slow as a dream

until a shadow
fell across the mirror

brushing her hair
in a dark room

like a honeycomb
of sad bees

and double entendres
two lifetimes ago.

deleted for contest submission

You know how you're down and out
on the river, three sheets to the wind,
doing some night casting, a little
moonlighting to pay off the bill,
and you decide, by god I'm tired
of drifting, I think I'll anchor here.

Me, I'm living on beer, boiled eggs,
and ruined mascara. Tonight,
I'll make enough to buy a roll of dimes
so she can play the box, so she can drop
them in the sawdust, on purpose
and lean over, oh me, oh my.