Hush up your mind there lazy wanderer.
Can’t you feel the spirit in the breeze?
The streets are quiet and the stars are loud
And ain’t nothin' still burnin' but the red bud trees.
The mayflies are crawlin’ and the sugar baby bees
Are swarmin’ round the amber candied suns.
Peel back your ears to the summertime thunder.
Pillow clouds in the South have all the fun.
Sidewalk says if you ain’t lost you’ve won.
So you can hold that dusty chin up high.
Let the hills hold your breath ’til you you need to sing.
They’re good at keepin’ secrets and they never ask why.
Hush up your mind there lazy wanderer.
Can’t you feel the spirit in the breeze?
The streets are quiet and the stars are loud
And ain't nothin' still burnin' but the red bud trees.

There are moments
when the night is dressing
that you feel you have seen
more than you should
and if you have seen it truly
the night herself will tell you
it was meant for you to see

There are secrets we keep
in midnight gardens
in the bulbs of alien lilies
waiting for the moon to signal
the coming of our age

Will you see this with me
pull back the drapery
of grand expectation
and gaze upon the wonders
of the naked form of night

Be careful little tongue
how you dance
I know the music moves you
it moves us all the same
the tide waltzes in and out
to the song of a specter orb
but you must be both moon and ocean
for the heart is far too often eclipsed
and is given to mixed meter
fiddles are superfluous these days
and find themselves in the hands
of any drunken stranger
there are melodies for every key
of sorrow and vulgarity
any bar hand will serenade
fix your ear to the tune that rises
like an eastern sun
above the muddled herds
you will hear it first
and then you will sing
then realize you were singing it all along
dance to the rhythms
of the right path resounding
ever in your hands
and in the souls of your feet

be careful little tongue
how you dance
you cannot retract a child
ideas are born with every dip and twist
every curtsy gives them name
each one will grow
each one will know its mother
do not let your words be *******
the product of fiddlers and moonshine
be sober and sure footed
kiss each of your children goodbye
their fruit will come to be your fate
you will shape their taste for dancers
I have seen armies of children
lead open faced rebellion
and sever the ties
between their mother and her friends
listen for that beating
in your palms and tired feet
dance with care little tongue
there is no ballet so dangerous
or beautiful
as speech

Send a prayer out on the wind
Whenever you think of me
We are and then we’re not
Such a brittle time to share

Whenever you think of me
I hope your heart starts singing
Such a brittle time to share
We should fill the world with song

I hope your heart starts singing
We are and then we’re not
We should fill the world with song
Send a prayer out on the wind

Is there a news more blessed
Than sweet salvation’s song
For mortal man so wretched

The ledger centuries long
With sacrifice erased
Forgetting prideful wrongs

Oh come and share the taste
Confection from above
The never ending grace

Of Christ’s redeeming love

Have you ever fallen in love
And noticed some time after
Your heart was left cool and empty?
Did they take another’s side
With more vigor than you had seen?
Have you loved your children still?

Have you ever told a heart to still,
Broken your own to let it drink of love?
Has your compassion been seen
In comfort only or even after?
Have you sat at pain’s relentless side
And given until you are empty?

Have you seen a world so empty,
So violent and so still,
As when you leave your mother’s side?
Her embrace more natural a home for love,
In childhood and after,
Than any I’ve ever seen.

Have you ever not been seen?
Has the sky ever looked empty
As a hurricane’s before and after?
Have you kept on shouting still
When there is no answer from love
Because you know it belongs at your side?

Have you ever looked inside
And not understood what you’ve seen?
Is there a more confusing language than love
When you’re told to give and you’re empty?
Is your mantra “peace, be still”
When you’re uncertain about the after?

This is the ever after.
There is no more outside.
I have died to love them still.
There is no one who has seen
That can say my heart isn’t empty.
The name of my reign is love.

Will you cling to the side of love
After the body is empty?
There is still a world to be seen.

You are a dream I’ll never chase from my eyes
A respite amid patchwork realities
Closer than heaven yet bathed in its splendor
Breaking my shackles of sanity
There you are
Surely desire’s sleight of hand
Holographic dessert water
Sipped cool and slow as a southern morning
You are my breath incarnate

Engage
Ignite
the blood needs stirring
the legs have fallen dumb
stupor of monotony
has nestled into hips
wake these automatons
shake the dust from their harps
break beds and shred pillows
it’s possible that the very sight of feathers
might spark a memory of flight
these lifeless were not stillborn
these were once vivid
there is an epic in each of their wrinkles
each one of their tongues
once rang like bell towers
from hilltop carnal cathedrals
there are mountains they have stood on
that you have yet to reach
be careful not to judge a valley
without first considering
why it’s not called a plateau
these are atoms waiting to be split
waiting to rupture
to quake
to rip through the popular tapestry
waiting for their chance to be contagious
be contagious
these are already on death row
unaware of their slumber
ritual has rocked them gentle and slow
and habit is a cozy cradle
Engage
Ignite
spark passion in dried up timbers
gathered like kindling in foxholes
these have been lovers
for a forgotten number of years
these once meant ‘I do’
there is a sedative nostalgia
glazing their smiles
these are not now, but then
break hourglasses
and storm the new beach
raise flags in the motherland
bearing family crests
speak warpaint
sing fire
compose your battle cry
from their fragmented vitality
arouse in these
a memory of their first love
awaken the giants
that have fallen asleep
pull the plug
let them die or breathe
but let us see
who is and who isn’t
a sepulcher

Tell me how your fingertips sing, Stevie
Tell me how you taught them to dance
Your world so dark behind the curtain
Tell me about the rhythm of chance

Tell me where you found your smile, Stevie
Tell me how many people you’ve blessed
Our world so dark with life uncertain
Tell me about music’s caress

Tell me why it is you’re singing, Stevie
Tell me why you are and I’m not
My world so dark with vision’s burden
Tell me what your world’s got

Tell me how to see what my eyes don’t, Stevie
Tell me how to sing in the dark
Your world so bright shines through your person
Tell me how to open my heart

I’m all for equal rights.
I mean, I voted for Obama.
But could you please turn down
your race conversation?
It’s making me uncomfortable.
You don’t know what it feels like
to be the only one in the room
whose skin is the color of guilt.

A heart can die infinitely
It is the slowest death I know
A reluctancy to accept
The cold blooded ending
That it is indeed alone
A heart will not go quietly
Never has and never will
It knows that somewhere
In the midst of forgery
Someone will hear it screaming
That another heart
With scars that reflect its own
Will lean in to whisper
Those vivifying words
I need you to go on

Remember that jacket you bought me?
The one with the pointless straps on the shoulders
That I’ve learned looks good with brown shoes?
I don’t think of you at all when I wear it.
And even less often
When I don’t.
There are concrete jackets and ties in my mind
And there are those who will always lose them.
The two never meet for me.
And even less often
When the concrete is keeping me warm.

Des Moines
Monks
Filthy knees from fresh plowed earth
When Jesus spoke of the least of these
This is where he meant
Windmill shadows unassuming
Tickled by forgotten trains
This quiet soul is full of gardens
Growing everything but up
Content to work for working’s sake
Habits sweaty and faded blue
Here is a life lived by the sun
For prepossessing daughters
Here is a life in solitude
Outside the reach of urban wake
Where God has called apostle farmers
Their harvest is a silent one
Overalls and liturgy
Parables they will reap
Sowing seeds in humble penance
The earth their common creed

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.

When you approach a green tree
you must cut it down at an angle.
If you swing your blade horizontally
the rubber trunk will bounce it back
and there’s no telling where it might end up.
I learned to wield a machete at ten;
sharpen the steel til it would split a hair when dropped.
I watched my father tame entire jungles,
transforming briar patches to gazebo valleys,
trimming limbs, splitting branches,
fashioning his throne where I hailed him as king.
I would stand poised with blade over head
imagining I was simultaneously samurai and ninja,
gripping tight the sword only I could pull from the stone.
I studied his kung fu from a place by his side.
Forward enough in his peripheral that he always had the chance
to see he had strength in numbers;
however small that number might be.
His bootprints were always much bigger than mine,
but it didn’t matter to me.
I learned to walk with lengthy stride.
I learned to spit and work
until the jungle had drank its fill of your sweat
or the sun caused you to yield.
I learned that with the strength of my arm and well crafted steel
I could trim life from the living;
tell nature how I felt it should be.

My grandfather had a relationship for some time
with a terrifying elixir.
As soon as the bottle left his lips
knives came tumbling out after.
Words, each unique, like snowflake razors,
slashing green confidence from the legs of my father
at an angle only someone close to you can achieve.
Trimming away hints of sentimentality.
Cutting off entire limbs of pride.
Chipping at his shoulders until he learned to bow
to an old disillusioned king.
You can run all you want to
but sooner or later
he would tell you how your nature should be.
These blades buried deep in my father’s bones,
hiding behind his teeth,
growing roots of their own.
Building fences where they should not be.
Guarding ****** valleys my grandfather laid bare
in the forrest of worth and loving.

My father ran before his legs could carry him.
Trying to outrun his familial ties.
Trying to find the edge of his father’s shadow,
all the while running with knives.
He ran into my mother at least two times
and soon learned he too had a shadow.
My father never fell in love with the elixir.
She still smelled like his father’s cologne.
But as I grew older,
as my soul sprouted trees,
he loosened the blades from behind his teeth.
And so with ****** tongue and visibly chipped shoulders
he taught me how to swing.
Stand closer than any stranger could ever come to be.
Stand tall so you might be mistaken for a king.
Stand strong so your knees don’t betray your shortcomings
and when you see them in your son,
glaring back with green eyes,
you lift your blade at an angle and swing.
Conjure your father’s shadow
still looming in your dreams
and extend it yet another generation.

When you approach a green tree
you must cut it down at an angle.
At a young tree’s side
is the most lethal place to be.

You will not fit in my inbox,
If you love me, you’ll never try.
Never let a font decide the sincerity
of any good morning or goodnight.
Speak earthquakes to me slowly,
close as you can to my side.
Let me feel your lips
gently graze my earlobe
without an electrical circuit in sight.
Our love will not fit into 1s and 0s.
If you know me, I’ll never try.
Never let a hashtag envelop my sentiment
or pull the digital wool over my eyes.
I’ll lay grooves in your wax
you can play back later.
Our proximity too analog
for the technicolor sky.

Come close and I’ll whisper
the ingredients of Spring

one part droopy-eyed daffodils
one part laughter outdoors
two parts sunshine
one part rain that smells like still-buried clover
one part luck
one part superstition
one hour looking at the tops of trees
four corners of wind that will send you spinning
three days of interspersed winter
two parts looking forward
one part looking back
countless incredible reasons to sing
two heartfuls of love
five drops of green
one part painting yourself a different color
one part relearning to wink
one part smiles
one brand new horizon
one part poetry people might actually read

Come closer and I’ll whisper
the ingredients of Spring
They are nothing but you and I
and the world beneath

It is nearly spring
my laughter told me
time for those hidden
to rise

Time for the heavens
to cry without reason
the season of frivolity
and game

Time for those silent
to sing with new passion
for the earth to fashion dresses
of green

Time for the giving
of names and embraces
for the faceless to turn
and be seen

Time for the secrets
read only in sunshine
to unwind the concept
of fame

It is nearly spring
my itchy soul told me
time for those hidden
to rise

There is a quiet conversation
we hold between our ribs;
the dialogue of flesh and spirit.
Most have heard it once or twice.
Some don't know its timbre.
Others find themselves in the woods,
knee deep in a creek's cold waters,
and their bones begin to echo
the angels in the wind.

A clumsy goodnight
left me chasing the words
that fell from my lips
to the pavement.
What I meant to say
was I hate it when you leave me
before I've found a way to make you smile,
before I've found the angle to hold you from
so you won't see the knives they are throwing.
I'm not saying they won't be there,
because there will be knives as long as we're breathing.
I just can't rest knowing that you can't either.
I want peace for your mind
and a better goodbye
to form itself quickly
on my tongue.

I went looking...
looking through legs
so shiny and bare;
looking through the eyes of a stranger;
looking through arms
tangled in dances,
through fingers gripping
the satin sheets;
looking into eyes painted with fire,
across the lips of one saying
"more is never enough,"
across the lying lips
and wayward hips
of countless washed up sirens;
looking through the dessert
and courting each mirage,
each cracked and broken sea floor,
each petrified promise;
looking through the heat
from a thousand neon suns
shining down on the hopeless,
the secret;
looking through the savagery,
through rite and omen,
through the increasingly hypnotic gaze
of priestesses and virgins;
looking through open mouths
into the lonesome hollows
where souls bring pennies on the pound;
looking through piles of amputated dignity,
through prosthetic dreams
that have played themselves out;
looking through fiddle shaped shadows
and straining to hear their mozart memories,
watching them sway,
watching them play,
never hearing a whisper of music;
looking through daughters
and sisters long estranged,
through cousins and neighbors,
through the cause of someone's tears,
through the pain so blatantly fueling desires;
haven't you heard that heartache is kindling?
haven't you ever thrown yourself into a sea?
didn't its hands feel just like comfort
all the while building your cage?
haven't you heard the song of the ******
in many a mirror's conversation?

I went looking for satisfaction
in the soot covered ruins
of *****
and fell into the lake of fools;
where the ego swims freely
and should anyone condemn
you are never found without an excuse.
I went looking for you in Gomorrah.
You were no where to be found,
and the gods I once believed in
could not even speak your name.
You, whose tongue is made of lightning,
who spoke across my sky,
you saw me naked,
and looking,
and never blinked an eye.
Your love is a force unfailing,
undeserved,
never blind,
calling me back to the world of the living,
unlearning my ears
of the mirror's lie.

there is a cool fire in the heart of you
under the sands of grace
where the cacti dance with elephants
to songs of threes and two’s

I am candlesticks and moons
you are more than boys and cattle
I watched your smile paint stars
with envy
the greenest of any jungle I’ve seen

hues of you paint vivid the walls of my forest
tree by bony tree you tint me
ever to be called by the color of your name

For each word that never made it past my teeth
-harsh critics-
I am sorry
I told you I loved you last night in bed
and all you heard was my breathing
-waves on your shore-
I am sorry

For each step I should have taken that was frozen in my legs
-stone pillars-
I am sorry
I ran to the edge of the earth for you
where I heard the lilies were blooming
-empty vase-
I am sorry

For each song that suffocated in my hollows
-white noise-
I am sorry
I scored you a serenade for clarinet and bassoon
and your shutters heard nothing
-white noise-
I am sorry

For each quiver of my hands that has held me
chained to the anvils of fear
For the confidence I lack and the love I have not given
-myself-
I am sorry
For times I held truth by the throat underwater
and prayed you wouldn't notice the splashing
For those days I went sleep walking
-through prayers-
I am sorry
For the stability I cradle while sitting on dreams
singing songs we all know the words to
the song we've each written verses to
12 bars on each wall of this blue cage that we sing through
For the times we don't fight
For the times that we mean to
For the injustices that steal the peace from our silent nights
For the riotless streets
For thriving inequalities
For microphones and stages still wet with my ego
For the silence I keep
-when the world is listening-
I am sorry

Shake me
from these paralytic dreams
from the cloud of ideas and fantasy
-what is art but a landing?-

Shake me
make me rise up and face the music
climb out of myself and breathe
-what is prayer but respiration?-

Shake me
until my apologies are gone
and your house is full of flowers
and your ears are full of songs
and your heart is filled with this love of mine
your quivering hands shook free

Shake me
until I see beauty in truth
and truth in what we are made to be

I haven't found words
que encajen a tu ser
I write poems
llenados de palabras de tu alrededor
where your flowers bloom constant
sin pensamiento de lluvia

You are becoming my stride;
my thought between footprints
left burning in the sand.
I have learned to hold you
much closer than my breath
when floodwater insecurities
grab hold and pull me down
                                         down.
You are more than I was seeking.
Your heart won't seem to sit inside you.
You are painting;
always;
rising in me like the morning sun.

Don't call it silver
It is so utterly grey
Your banner waving
To humdrum anthems
Of countries upset
By the way you say
Patriotism
Loyalty
Words that are never
To be written in grey
Whose fibers cannot
Be found in your atrophy
You will die quietly
Not as a martyr dies
Never as red as the
Blood-stained uniforms
That blanket so many hills
There are none that you would die on
It is a shame you share
The color of stone
One might mistakenly
Paint you trustworthy

We the people,
floodwaters rising over Kansas City banks
and marketplace levies,
are channeled into rooms
the size and shape of shadows
to be given direction,
to give direction;
waiting our turn to be
churned through turbines.
Our mass is growing stagnant
by this massive
****; This feels like surrogate thinking.
Our water is wasted on greco-roman men
chopping up districts into blues and reds
dividing and conquering the ocean.

There are times

when the moon is busy elsewhere
and the candles are growing old
that your eyes catch mine
in the simplest of ways

and send me.

When our gravity overflows
and we are drawn together
for reasons only the planets know,
I cannot place my finger on it;

I would likely lose my hand.

Those times I know
that a door handle decision
will be the difference
between goodnight and good morning.

I find no romance in the air tonight.
It would seem we have breathed it all in.

I can see the numbers rolling back behind your eyes.
Never know what the slots will bring.
When I told you I liked surprises
I didn't mean I'd like to find you spilling your mathematics
all over the bedroom sheets
counting how many times you could divide yourself
from yourself
and the languages spoken by mumbling mathematicians
always failing to find the difference
between their science and the love you needed.

I was 7 digits from talking you down.
You felt you were born 6 feet too high.
There are 5 times I can remember you laughing
the last of those was on the 4th of July.
     How can anyone believe they are free
     when we are bought at this calendar price?
You were laughing at the irony of the time it took you to say it.
Silly woman,
time is not made of numbers,
but of songs.

I replay that memory at least 3 times a night.
Your 2 shoes are the only music I'd still like to hear playing
I am currently discovering that 1 is not a lonely number.
I have spent cozy evenings
cuddled up with the burden you left behind.
It is colder than I remember you
and always seems to squeeze my neck
just a little too tight.
You wanted to become 0,
ignoring my side of this equation,
but before you left you swallowed my equilibrium whole.
I fell down bell curve cliffs
until my words themselves became improbabilities.
My love was more than average,
I mean...
I miss you.
I mean...
You're so **** stupid.
I mean...
I loved you.
I mean...
I love you.

If you and I are numbers
we are easily replaceable,
replicable as science has always wanted us to be.
I am telling you now
that no one else fits.
I should have told you that a few days ago
when I had more of you to stand by
than fragments of memories
each one passing, blaspheming your sum.

Sink into me.
Breathe slowly.
We'll burn the clocks
and drink our music.
Rest your wandering feet.
I've built you this home
of bone and song
and wrapped it in my skin.
Tell me your heart can beat for me.
Sink into me
until we forget all our fences.

i am tracing prophecies
on the scroll of your skin
forming my own words
over your tattoos
proclaiming you
invincible
fearless
free

You invite my melancholy out for a stroll.
It declines, as you knew it would.
Your wink: the absence of sun.

Somewhere between us is a Rhodes piano.
Roll with my eyes into the beyond.
Your speech: a muted drum.

Reflect her,
if you dare,
over the translucent image
of summer rain.

Hold her
long after her coffee is gone
and the walls are reminiscing
about the days of her scent.

Hold her,
if you dare,
after the rain is gone
and someone else's face
is staring at your obsession.

I won't blame you.

I can't do drugs like these doctors,
these stone faced professionals,
who take walks in the forrest
like a notch on their belt.
I can't close my eyes like the civilized do
when someplace near them is crying.
Somewhere I heard an old voice say
that our eyes are made for drinking,
that our skin is made for fingernails,
and our tears are meant to sting.
I can't sing when my eyes are open
because of the whirlpool's game.
I can't speak when there's music playing,
but I can scream at the fiery bumblebees
who mistake my ribs for their cage.
Alive, to me, is a word in motion:
our world in motion.
My body emotion
ransacks my neurons
and their electric chair.
I am slain, wide-eyed, at the sight of you breathing;
each wave eroding my shore.

Let's play strip poetry
until we're no more
than two souls
on Bojangles' shoes
tapping morse code messages
to the listening stars,
and should heaven ever hear us
we'll craft music for clothing
and wrap ourselves in symphonies
of the modern night.

I want to lie in bed with you.
Scratch that.
I want the feeling I had lying in bed with her.
I doubt you'll ever give me that feeling.
I'd still like to lie in bed with you
just to evaluate the difference.

It's as if someone has stopped the music
and no one has noticed but me.
This quiet is ugly, inside and out,
and smells of rotting orchestras.

That is a theatrical lie,
and an attempt to make you miss me.

The truth is, everything looks the same.
I hear the familiar jaded hum of living
and it smells like coffee and cinnamon.
I am hating the thought
of fading into a life without you.
Break my heart quickly
or love me 'til death
brings that quiet I lied about hearing.

Silently the composer crept
Through wheat fields blanched in silver moons;
Running his fingers through stalks of hair,
Keeping quiet the secrets of the night.
He ran to the lightbulbs glowing in the dew
And held in his mouth the owl's conversation.
In his nostrils swirled the reminiscent songs
Of honeysuckle and melon.
Daylight broke with him rolling in the dust
On the old wooden library steps.
He wiped the stares from their faces with a folded cloth
And tucked it neatly in his pocket.
He ran, with the tail of the wind and his bounty in tow,
Back to his humble beginnings
And emptied his pockets, his nostrils, his soul,
Onto the keys of a poorly-tuned piano.

I got your number off the bathroom wall.
I was hoping you could help me forget.
I don't need a girlfriend, so much as a canvas.
Let me paint you with the taste of her lips.

I need a toothbrush or two forefingers
long enough to coax your love from my throat.

This one will not pass quietly.

I sing our song to the music of drums and chandelier splinters/
of thousand-year oaks yielding to the wind.

Have you ever heard your heart break clearly?
It is less like 808s and more like breathless tears.

Your lips were made for Hallelujahs.
Nothing less will do them justice,
and nothing more exists.

When granted the joy of life's creation,
their Maker sang into the heavens
and choreographed their dance.

The breath that passes between their mountains
carries with it the secret signature
of death-defeating hands.

Your lips were made to form sweet praises
with all the spirit and humbled passions
your heart and soul enlist.

We have crossed paths without speaking before,
but this is very different.
I travelled as far as Riverside
before my heart went chasing your gravity.
I know.
I just haven't stopped loving you yet.
Please return the package to sender.

I woke with your laughter pounding in my eyes.
It was as if I had swallowed a grapefruit whole
and my breaths were determined to defeat each other.
Your name never did sit right on my tongue.
Your tongue, however, is another story.
I miss you with five of these useless senses
and I find myself dancing around your shadow
in dust you kicked up when you spoke our confession:
This is not meant to be.
How many of those fifteen hundred moons
did you look up to with longing?
How many stars witnessed our passion,
and on which of them did you wish to be free?
I can't look at you without tasting envy
of whoever will one day be home for your skin.
It is coating my tongue,
filling the awkward places where your name used to be.