I remember when I saw you
Dancing with another guy
I didn't have the courage
To come up and say hi
I kept watching you discreetly
Hoping I would catch your eye
I remember what you smelled like
As you left and passed right by

We crossed paths  a few weeks later
I was at the movies all alone
And I saw you in the foyer
You were talking on your phone
I didn't have the courage
To offer a lift home
Another lost encounter
Another chance I'd blown

Like a comic who's not funny
And a cover song that's slow
It all comes down to timing
That's what all the good ones know
If you miss the chance before you
step left instead of right
It all falls back on the timing
And you've blown another night

I know that one day I'll meet you
And our lives will intertwine
And I know from that first meeting
That one day you'll be mine
But, right now I lack the courage
To even go and cross that line
I just wish that you could see me
Can you just give me a sign?

When I see you just in passing
And I squeak out a small "hi"
You, just nod your head and smile
I just stand there and I sigh
Every time you're with another
A part of me just dies
I wish I had the courage
I wish that I'd just try

Like a comic who's not funny
And a cover song that's slow
It all comes down to timing
That's what all the good ones know
If you miss the chance before you
step left instead of right
It all falls back on the timing
And you've blown another night

Liquid silence flows between the cracks,
The awkward pauses and terse remarks ,
Of our cordial conversation.

My lips fumble as words  scratch at their soft corridor,
The taste of discomfort and failure is salty,
Yet reassuringly human- alive.

You didn't do anything wrong,
Your perfectly placed hesitations and irony
Fell stagnant in the bitter pool of my expectations.

You couldn't help the way things went,
Self sabatoge danced sweetly on my lips,
Fates sticky web couldn't hold back deliberation.

Being with you, in this room,
Is the epitome of wide open loniness-
The kind talked about in books and eulogies.

It's elusive presence envelops me
As sentences fumble out of my mouth like gravel:
Unclear and unintentional, too genuine to matter.

I'm not sure how much more I can handle,
How many perfectly sane stories I can to listen to
Without spilling off the brink of sanity.

It's not as bad as it seems out here,
There's something charming about being utterly alone,
Something unexplained and unattainable
In this wide open loneliness-

Sailors we're not, but here our souls roam
Beneath the cold seas, and the waves and the foam
We inherit the depths of the oceans and sea
Never to know of just what we could be
We are the dead, lying down in the dark
Our stories forgotten, our history stark
We're not in one place, we live where we went down
Not a monument stands for most in our towns
We went down in rought seas, in a storm or a battle
We died taking a trip or transporting our cattle
There's as many of us as there are in the earth
We've been taken at sea, since man first did give birth
Our souls walk the floor of the deepest dark places
No one knows who we are, not our names or our faces
We ended our lives on ships , sloops and on ketches
We are the dead, some rich, some poor wretches
We never will age, never again will see light
We're still waiting for more to join us in the night
The seas give us life and they take just as fast
It's a tomb for us all, it's where our breaths were our last
Unsinkable ships...fifteen hundred or more
Lost their lives to the ice just like many before
The water cares not, your soul's there to take
Whether ocean or sea, or on river or lake
We walk in the depths, beneath the lighthouse and rocks
Our home is the cold, down below all the docks
We lie just off the shore, we died within reach
Some of us drowned just a bit from the beach
The sea's a cruel master, it owns all who sail
It cares not one bit, who you are or your tale
Stories mean nothing to those down below
For when it is time, to the locker you'll go
We died fighting pirates, we gave up our lives
We left our young children, our husbands and wives
From the Cape of Good Hope to the cold northern seas
Where we were still alive as our bodies did freeze
In the Indian Ocean and off the Newfoundland coast
Some nights you might see us, in the fog...just a ghost
We're the ones who inhabit the dark of the seas
When you hear the wind howling, you are hearing our pleas
Don't forget who we were, when we lived and we died
Please remember the families who broke down and did cry
There are fish in the ocean, but we live here too
We're the lost souls of people who died on the  blue
Sailors we're not, but the water's our home
Down in the dark waters beneath the waves and the foam.

River parts it through the middle
Valley-town,
no spark you kindle

Mirror-faces, motionless
spying minds under tolerance-dress

Of the bridges,
I count three
cross the bridge,
but they can't see

Category,discipline,
bend and break - to fit in,

this is Mirror-Tyranny.

Sing-song people flock like sheep,
conformity-vows you must keep,

You Valley-town, you Valley-people.

I put a mirror to your face,
perhaps you'll see this is the case;

Climb the hill and have a peek,
there's more of us,
who do not speak,
the Mirror-Tongue of 'I-means-we',
You Valley-people are not free.

Oh beer-brewing town,
grey and timely,
beer-foam people sting us kindly,

Unity-violence leaves no scar,
but we know what,
you really are.

Blessed oil-children
your wealth is new,
years of culture, you have but few.

Divided and numbered,
1-2-3,
disciplined apathy,
mimics Civility.

Watch us close, expect a hit,
but battle-sparks among you are lit
Bah-bah sheep, and cows that moo,
look around - the wolf's one of you.


He's the third, waiting are more,
writing manifests of calls to War.

Valley-people, asking how,
numbing rythm has to bow,
Hillside people are watching You now.

Hold your roses high for your Father,
but Valley-people,
perhaps now you see?
You are not so kind, so pure, so free.

these ruffled sheets don't feel like mine .
not quite the smell of my laundry scents either ,
but familiar , like the body pressed against me hours before .
and now again

I was afraid of opening my eyes until I heard his voice
The same soft whisper that came from behind ,
the whisper that drowned out all the other voices in that busy pool hall

I was down by two ***** ,
I was stripes he was solid
it was my game but that he didn't know .

I had been kicked out ,
they called me orphaned , homeless
but that he didn't know , or so I thought
until he whispered against my neck
"if you win I'll take you home"

so we played
I played the way my brother had taught me
learning him as I go , to have him against me
from behind , his rough hands over mine .
I could barely see my fingers , as he guided them
under and over the stick , until we sank a perfect shot .
And I did end up winning , but only because I played it well ,
a hustler they called me , but that he didn't know

He took me home and we laid together ,
the game was over when the eight ball fell in .
Now we both knew how this would go
and go it went until I came over and over again
and he touched upon me again and again
until he came as I did
and we fell to rest
our breathing still synced together
as the rise and fall

and I opened my eyes
this time to the whisper of
a sleepy "hey beautiful"
and those hands gently through my hair

this may not be my bed
but this is my place .
He knows me now

What a work is man,
Forever building, lamenting,
Ruined temples in sand,
Foot stepping on the moon,
Sunning in tropical Cancún,
What stolid, myriad ways?
So many hands, numbing days,
Living ever fast, never heeding past,
Dressed to **** with a thirty round clip,
Formal, endangered, Penguins in the desert.