Something flew away from the window.
The window is closed, and
Something flew when the sun rose
Behind a flappingwing;

A flappingthought flew from me:
Pitiful rising thought behind a shadow thrown
When Something flew away from the window -
But the window is closed and the sun rose
And Something flew away.

"My Pen is a Keyboard"
Was a ditty I did
When I was a kid
Feeling out the corners of my mind,
But there is a boy -
His Keyboard is a Pen -
And now I prefer to feel out the corners
Of his.

Sometimes he is Neruda:
He writes the saddest lines;
And sometimes Frost:
Penning a the sun on the back of the deer
As it splashes through grass dew;
Sometimes Eliot trudging through
The damp streets and
Sloughing off the day onto paper...

Sometimes Millay -
I think sometimes Millay -
I hope -
Forswearing death
And clinging to love, though
It rests on the point of
The second hand of God's clock -

But I am there.

And so long as I am there he is there
Writing his poetry without words
To be read without sight.
So long as he is there I am there
To be a reader with closed eyes,
And feel the corners of his tired mind;

And to say:
Love, it won't always be night.
We are here and I will sing you hope
As long as I can. It will be alright.
Love, it won't always be night.

the pianerpaintist
artist with a soft smile for sunwinged birds
even if he says they're duller than crows
ravens clamor in his desk drawers,
(but finches at the windows)
he knows

cliche or not there's beauty in a rose
or a skyscraperline on the horizon
something shiny and alive
and easy to keep eyes on
when you're sitting on a bathroom floor
with yourself
trying to be born with Eels in your ears
and all the world asleep or dying
or shuddering with you

i wish the world was girl+(boy+city)
no care of cliches or crows
but it can't be, he knows

i know

You know, it's not nice
Being a fairytale with
A ***** little twist,
I mean, that chick thinks
Diamonds hurt falling from
Your lips.

She has no idea.

The kitchen is drowning.
Cereal reefs are jagged and submerged,
Perched on them is a hermit crab in a Campbell’s can.
Little bacon eels swim crackling by.
Toast flounders on the tile,
Half-buried in sandy crumbs.
And the mermaid swims through,
Her little stomach growling
For a peanut-butter-and-jellyfish sandwich.

And now the light of the little globed sun
Guides my waking fingers over stiff keys,
(Stiff fingers over waking keys)
Now I begin the hellos and the wonderings
Each day brings - the bottom of my head
Reminding me "Ask him about his aunt,
His toothache, her boyfriend, her
Overdue college application."

Infinitesimal checklist of maintenance.
Though I don't know what the hell I'm maintaining,
I tiredlove it and work at it and maybe
I can get my 10000 hours from a screen -
Maybe I can be perfect from a screen,
And one day I'll open the door
For a stranger and see a keyboard...

Ridiculous. Room's a mess.
Room's dark except for the sunglobe,
My sun, my determiner of days
And with a click the ordainer of nights.
Ah, it's a tiny world, I can fit it all
In the bottom of my mind when  I sleep,
But I'd never tiredleave it,

I waking/sleepinglove it,
And if you'll just shut the door again
I can be tinyperfect.

What are we, my dear?
Two songbirds tightperched
On a branch, livening the day?
I could say yes to that.

But you want to live by the sea,
So seagulls we'll be:
Wheeling and honking and diving
And coming home to shore.

But then, I never learned to swim.
So maybe two little scuttlecrabs
In broken bottle shells,
Holding claws and bubbling nonsense.

Still I have grander thoughts than these,
You and I as brightshining dreamthings
Houring our whiles away with magic
That is coldest when warmed
And floats farthest when the tide is out.

(Perhaps it is risky to indulge in dreams,
The fickleness of seconds ticking makes them
Sand under one's feet; but I have walked on sand,
And I have dreamed you,

And here you are.)