I hate these concrete nights
when a street light
is nothing but a street light
and void of sensuous trim

when the metaphors
have all closed their doors
and profundity sleeps
in the bow of the boat

how could muses breathe
in the stiffness that plagues
the air surrounding
a poet?

You move like bebop improvisations
tracing city silhouettes in the back of my mind.
You are the color of inspirations
blooming in the vacuum of space and time.

You are the beach to all my oceans
catching the driftwood and scattered shells.
You say that I’m in perpetual motion
But I’ll stop the world and we can watch it melt.

You speak like songs of liberation.
Can’t seem to find the ceiling when I’m feeling so free.
And there you go with that syncopation;
Smile and my heart jumps on the upbeat.

You are the door I’ve been looking to open,
I've been walking for Miles in this Kind of Blue.
You knew my next line before it was spoken,
But I’ll say it anyway, you know it’s all for you.

I wish you wisdom
and all the pain that comes with knowing
the chasm between want and need

I wish you peace
and all the storms that surround it
exposing the silence of fear

I wish you joy
and the pain in which you will find it
lifting your eyes ever to the hills

I wish you love
and the crumbling of castle walls
set up to protect what you hold dear

There are many things I wish for you
many dreams I pray you achieve
But I will not wish you happiness
I wish you growth, not mere relief

Stand close to me
I want to remember us
right here
right now
in that dress you’re wearing
in this light
or with a filter
ya, probably with a filter
we will immortalize this moment
in digital eternity
put ourselves in the back pockets
of all our friends
let them see us
we will become stars tonight
and though the skies are full these days
of lite-brite impersonations
I’m certain we will burn into forevers
I haven’t really noticed where we are
let the world fit itself into the top two corners
of our rectangular existence
like it matters anyway
I need to remember us
tomorrow you won’t be here
we won’t be here
wherever here happens to be
tomorrow I will hear myself again
with those lonely songs and cold hands
of an all-too-present reality
I need you to stand close to me
if I look back and see the world in between us
it will look too much like the truth I’m avoiding
tomorrow I will need to convince myself I’m living
and this will be my arm-length testament
there was a time and a place when we were smiling
pushed close together behind nostalgia inducing filters
if we can look convincing tonight
dress ourselves in starlight
block out the world behind us
maybe tomorrow I’ll believe it
shout your picture into my hollows
before the lonesome deepens
I need you in my back pocket
for those days my lonely soul gets wordy

If this poem had a life before I wrote it,
this poem was a penguin.
This poem waddled,
not just because it was a penguin,
also because this poem was fat.
This poem was a fat penguin.
And not just the black and white kind;
this poem was an electric blue fat penguin
who never really understood it was different
until its parents let it out to play with the other little penguins
and they started teasing it and calling it blue bird.
Until that moment,
this poem had no idea that it was a bird.
All this poem knew was that its heartbeat was like a simile
and it had metaphors for feet
and they did not dance.
This poem embraced its electric blue nature
and never saw itself as the underdog
because it was a penguin who lived in Antarctica
and it had no concept of what a dog was
or what it might be under.
Penguins just don’t think like that.
This poem smacked a seal with a couplet underwater.
None of the other penguins believed it,
but it did.
This poem waddled with a lazy swag
and leaned a little to the right
so sometimes it walked in circles.
This poem had 360 degrees of perspective
and -50 degree wind chills.
This poem had more than 50 words for snow
and no words for poetry.
It just lived
and didn't even listen to what other people wrote about it
because it's windy in Antarctica
and you can't really hear much.

silver tongue and
silver spoon
silver night and
silver moon
silver enough
to see your ****** expression
staring back in discontent
silver enough
to blind you with the sun
but never to rope it in
silver are your lover’s eyes
silver are your clothes
silver are your very thoughts
but at night your dreams are gold
always second fiddle
your bittersweet symphony
such a prayer you never whispered
you are a byproduct of greed
proof that not all that glitters is gold
you are proving it every meal
every woman you take
every miserable letter
you scratch into grecian history
what a pity to be born Midas’ brother
what a shame to live in second place
silver rope and
mortal man
swing slow from
silver tree
silver enough
to see his ****** expression
staring back in discontent

If,
at any time,
I should forget to speak
Your praises,

If,
at any time,
I should fail to sing
Your songs,

If,
under the light yolk
You have placed upon me,
I should somehow start to think
I’m doing this on my own,

Let the words you wrote on muscle and bone
break forth to parade hallelujahs.
Let the spirit You breathed into my lungs
stir up Your sacred amen.

If,
at any time,
I should act in spite
of mercy,

If,
at any time,
I should disregard
Your love,

If,
on one of the evenings
You paint Yourself in the sky,
I should find my ego drifting
there with the stars above,

Let the glory You stitched into fiber and tissue
echo Your name through corporeal halls.
Let the oceans of blood tsunami my heart
until it speaks with Your cadence and rhyme.