Walking through the fabled night
of ancient skies and gray sidewalks
Stepping into the world
of hot humid June

When metals towered over the sky,
Like match sticks lined up above stones
the luminescent streets blazed
into the night

Those glasses that shimmered
bright lights and yellow fireworks,
Falling with gravity,
relishing in sweet air and downfall

The wind from a distant land
that caressed the trees,
their shadows dancing
on the streets

I saw you there in broad shadows
when I marched amidst silence
I have lost my path
to the night that has fallen

But in your eternal flames, I stood
knowing that I’m still here

I saw a lizard, and it saw wild fear
I took two steps back, lizard took too many
I wanted him out, but he could only go within
Going across, around, felt somehow bound
I wanted to ease the unease I saw
But the steps forward to help, made him more restless
He was trapped, he knew and I did too
I kept a newspaper angled to his escape but no exit happened while I stared
So the only way to help, I shut the lights off and went in my room
Came ten minutes later, lizard nowhere to be seen
Nobody knows where he currently is,
I just don't want to be the fear someone feels.

the night whispers the black water fall of ashes
that bloom into the sparrows of sorrow...


the sorrow sparrows are back again
sitting in the tangled woods of twisted trees.

their voices bouncing off love's walls.

the sorrow sparrows are leaning into me.
my sad eyes, dream of you brother.

I lean into the soft lit room
searching for love's quiet hours,
and sunlight flickering through willow trees.

"don't cry, darlin," my wife whispers.

Take me back to a time
when a vow
was the color of
everyone's tomorrow

Take me back to a place
where a promise
never led to
man's great sorrow

Where the breeze
would linger in the grass

No one ever questioning
how long it would last

Ridgehead
Barreleye
Bristlemouth
Loosejaw
Daggertooth

The names he was called
The identities he became

Things of that nature run deep
And crush like the depths of the sea

scavenger bride,
she counted periods
before the children came along,
but never suspected
eyes like bottles
beginning to blue,
a tangle of scars
hermetically sealed,
the new order of
a broken romance,
dead love cassettes
in the glove compartment,

her cold and empty
constellations,
like cold breath
passing through a beam of sunlight,
grid of points, pendulums,
the ratio of freckles to stars,
no subtle countenance,
martinis and bikinis,
soft ******* and ice cream,
slight, elusive things, on a beach
with no more meaning,

the repeating pattern of
her mistakes and reliefs,
a preservation of decay,
sustained by the tiny
human fault line
in that oneiric hinterland,
between dreaming and waking,

she draws around the noise
and the clearings,
she creates within that sightline
the way her sadness can feel
comfortable,
an extension of loss that turns
her ruins into a home.