Take me away to San Francisco,
where everything and anything that happens in my dreams exist,
where my dreams can roam free like the tendril of the ocean,
and secret smiles are shared.
When only the mist from a warm cup of hot chocolate
will disturb my thoughts,
when I can be free again.

The bay and the mountains met and clasped hands,
stirring around the quaint houses
and trolley cars streaming up and down like kites in the sky.
Where cerulean met emerald,
they looked into each others eyes,
and promised life and love for each other.

Together they have survived the worst of it all,
standing strong even now,
their bodies humming and alive,
beating and there.
Where music moves like a silent poison everywhere,
people like pieces of art walking down the street,
and shops like little treasure chests.

Please carry me away,
back to San Francisco-
the place of my dreams.

Laundry spinning and the humming of
other tenants.
I am drinking wine again.
There is a pattern.
Don't let anyone tell you differently.
The world is made up of shape and sounds and colors and
clocks ticking towards the end of another day.
If this poem is depressing I am sorry.
My sincerest apology to the past and the future.
The present isn't looking for another sin.
Always genuflect before entering this house,
the owner watches.
Do what makes you happy and
watch the TV fade to another show.
Yesterday the curtains refused to open,
the weight of the world is on their shoulders.
Forget the candles burning,
hot with anxiety and
go to sleep.
Frame the world in dark wood and ask the God,
any God,
for strength.
Laundry spinning and I rock in the chair,
thinking of eternity and how mice fit through such small holes.
Flip the channel.
Pull back the sheets.
This could very well be the end.
No mints on the pillows,
no courtesy calls.
I'll let you be the judge today and remember the shapes of clouds.

I've been a construction worker
My entire adult
Life.

Still, I cannot
Seem to rebuild
Her confidence.

I've been a poet for
As long as I can
Remember,

But my encouraging
Hollow-point-words shatter
Against her insecure kevlar.

Suppose all I can be is
Sunlight, water and
Soil.

I'll try that; I've been a
Farmer's boy since
Birth.

My mind is its own body
of water, fluid emotion
at mercy to the moon
Sometimes rapid as
the churning ocean,
unharnessable, dams
each waterwheel I build
as if equilibrium was Hell,
& then
Sometimes vapid as
a stillwater lake, where
peace is dawn's ripple,
days' first surface breach
of a fish upon fly bait.

for Jan*

In the artist's nascent frame you're the perfect idea already imagined.


MChallis @ 2015