How beautiful the borrower
How happy is her lot
Chains that bind to property
Are left behind to rot
How beautiful the borrower
Whose house is not her own
Who cares not for the daily bread
Except that from the throne
How beautiful the borrower
Who has nothing to give
But shares what she’s been given
By the Lord of all that is
How beautiful the borrower
What peace is in her mind
Without the need for worry
She is ever only kind

When gunmetal streets begin to fade into jazz
My soul walks cool, unafraid into jazz

There are dissonant holes in the sky tonight
The world seems at once to cascade into jazz

The old district buzzing with ambition’s jam
Each dancer's alchemy turns suede into jazz

And the city lights stiff with rigor mortis
Revived into blues, then swayed into jazz

Windows begin flooding unassuming streets
First timid, the passersby wade into jazz

Some to their ankles, unconvinced of the rhyme
Others shun inhibition and parade into jazz

Their excitement displaced by a mellow groove
Miles Davis lilts above, casting shade into jazz

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’m holding far too much
In these anxious hands of mine
Compass and a tiger’s tail
The mask that I’m not wearing
And when I come to worship
The King of all that’s living
I leave too much the same
For this to be the true design
Blessed are the meek
Their hands are raised and empty
Open to receive the gift
Of Love’s eternal hope
I’m holding far too much
My hands are tired and heavy
My prayer is not for strength
Or a way that I can cope
But for hands that give you praise
In their receiving

There is a doorway through which
life and death both passed,
shoulder to shoulder,
exchanging nothing
but a moment's glance
in silent accusation.

Death defeated,
Life restored;

Behold the thorn-crowned,
bleeding door
rising from futile tomb.

In the park there is a bench
Polished coffee metal planks
The inscription reads:
“In loving memory of Alan Seltman.”
And speaks its invitation
With arms wider than I can be
The tree buds are waking
And the breeze finds equilibrium
With the dimming sun’s kiss
I sit
If not for the grumbling of my feet
Or the fleeting picturesque
Then because Alan should be remembered
As one who always offered rest

Suffer the stories to come unto me
and I will rewrite their endings,
heal them from their self-reliance,
and teach them new words to sing.
the melody will find itself
wherever their tongues may take them.
tell me a story, child,
of the roads your feet have seen,
and the tears your pillow collected,
because I'll bet they match my own.
I have built a you a home,
with stairwells that turn
and chandeliers and wind chimes,
where your smile paints the walls
a different color each day.
come and I will live in you,
and you will live in me.

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

Cool grass between my toes
Smiling at the sun
My shirt hose-drenched
And my mouth sticky melon
My hands hang open
Reading stories of the wind
I cannot see my eyes
But through them
I know they contain the world
Joystruck and wonderfilled
Careless with good reason
There is safety in their porch talk
And danger to be found
I am reaching for the spirit
With faith untethered
Breathing and I love it
Grabbing hold of the tactile earth

The elephants are dancing on the ballroom floors
prim as pachyderms can possibly be.
They are flaunting their tusks jovially about
and stepping on no one's feet.

The charlatans trace enigmatic scores
with their heel-toe trot around the beasts.
Each dip, each spin, a calculated route,
graceful and ever discrete.

Their skin, I've heard, is full of sores;
chafed by every whisper and nod.
The music is fading and shoulders are tense
listening to the hardwood creak.

There in the hole of a witness tree
He sits with teeth jackhammering
Chewing his regurgitated worries
Back down to swallowable size
His mind juggling coordinates
Of hickory, walnut, and acorn
Wearing one too many hats
To blend in with the autumn circus
Bushy tail pendulum
Synchronizing his thoughts:
Twenty paces south of the mailbox
Winter
All along the curb on elm street
Winter
Catty-corner to the sandbox
I didn’t bury enough
My mother was right about me
Will there be nuts in heaven?
Am I fit to enter
Winter?
No one understands the freeze
Or the way it syphons your dreams
No one really knows for certain
If they can trust the promise of Spring
These jitters become seizures
Of collateral faith
He is pressing his bones
To hold back the winter
Shaking like a reed in October’s gust
Fretting in the hollow of a tree

If I could convince you of one thing,
I would convince you that you are worth it.
These arms are much to short and far too weak
to rip through the curtain of time,
but if I could convince you,
I would brush hours with my fingertips
and leave palm prints engraved on the days you didn't feel loved.
Reaching back, up to my elbows in  pools of your story,
sifting through the silt built up at the bottom,
twisting knobs and turning dials
until every time you heard his voice or her voice say
'you will never amount to anything'
instead played back
'you will never stop amounting.'
Spry young saplings, planted at the river's edge,
you will never stop growing.
You will always find strength when you lift your branches to the sky,
be it deep in your roots,
you will stand taller than northern pines,
taller than sycamores that split clouds with their leaves.
Believe me now more than your memories,
you will do so much more than survive.
I would spill this pain I see melted in your eyes.
With all of the righteous fury a sinner can muster,
I would destroy those times you were told
that it's never ok to cry,
that you must live like prisoners inside your own bodies
with emotions covering up the windows more and more each day.
If I could convince you,
I would swallow every steel bar you've ever known,
Giving you back your mother,
Giving you back your father.
I would fill myself with cages
if you would know that you are free.
You are free to live life as you have seen it in the trees.
Stand tall, and drink from the rivers of love
so few are willing to share with you.
In turn, share your rivers with those who also believe.
I would not erase the pain you have suffered,
for I would not dare touch your strength.
I would ask, that when you feel the wind,
like the breath of God, stirring through the trees,
that you would stretch out your branches and weep.
Water the ground that has brought you so far,
embracing every waking moment
that you might never again live in dreams.
If I could convince you of one thing,
Change your mind about time,
showing you that you are both past and present
staring boldly into the future,
I would convince you that you are worth it.
Whatever "it" you could imagine "it" to be,
Know that it will never measure up to your leaves.

You have grown heavier and heavier with each hour of talk.
When I met you I could just make out your silhouette on the horizon.
Thin as bird legs, you danced with each gust,
Teasing my eyes like candle flame shadows.
With each word I caught falling from raspberry lips,
Words I wiped on my chest to keep them close,
You grew wide and tall as a redwood forest,
Shielding my whitewashed bones from the sun.
It used to be, that when you moved, my heart kept walking.
My blood runs stronger than canyon-cutting rivers.
With each conversation you are deeper and thick,
Behind you the sun whimpers over the horizon.
I can see sides of you your silence once held,
Fooling my ears and turning my head.
But you have grown heavier with each hour of talk,
When you shift, my heart strings pull me to your side.
Your every step directs my inward thought.
Should you chase the setting sun to far stretching oceans,
You would tilt my world and my love would roll,
Head over heels until you saw fit to stop
And I could bask in your shade once more.
You are a giant in the eyes of my heart,
Heavier still with each recitation.
I imagine that years of words will swell,
Until I can just make out my own silhouette on your horizon.

Dance!
She told him.
So he drug his feet across the newspaper
turning headlines into layers of ice,
gliding just over the surface of a world
to him forgotten.
Boom!
The bass dropped and his heart nearly popped out of his chest.
His ribs too visible beneath his South Pole
bowed, creaked and shuttered
but muttered something about,
something about feeling alive.
Clap!
A series of muscle convulsions.
Shutter glimpses of the unseen acts of lightning
looking for a cloud to call home.
This one bolts into the highest thunderhead
and waits to be told to go. Go.
Sshhhh!
The sound of rain blinks from his eyes.
He squeezes the fruits of life
and serves the sour mixture to those who look on
with amazement and terror,
soaked in his story of craze and misfortune.
Clap!
This corner raises walls to his perception.
This is the metaphysical explanation,
God can be found in his dance.
This is where his last meal came from
and he won't leave the next one to chance.
Boom!
B-boy breaks down the laws Newton discovered.
Spinning until the world learns to turn
so that the seasons bring rain
on the just and on the unjust,
not just those who can afford to ignore each other.
Clap!
The applause brings tears to his mother's swollen eyes.
Swollen with pride and shame
of the things she's been pushed to, and pulled from.
She's reaching above the waves,
he's dancing his way from hell.
Sshhhh!
The ghosts now dispersed at the first sound of silence.
Their consciences are begging
more than the boy's pride will let him.
But their shoulders were born cold,
and the boy skates for nickels.
Clap!
As if God Himself were impressed
by the display of acrobatics set in rhythm,
the storm system raged and umbrellas dotted the streets.
Camouflage for his tears, he thought,
he always has what he needs in its season.
Boom!
The soul-box pumps out the old clocks.
Time has folded itself, molded itself, so it's no shock.
Rhythm and blue depression mixed up with B Boy steppin',
It's harder to find a meal on cold pavement than you'd think.
Dance!
She told him.
And he sinks.

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.

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.

The hours are seldom heard passing
But pass they do
In sleek fitting jackets and earth-toned shoes
Down the streets we never imagined
Each step shaking the air between itself and our ears
As if trying to wake the earth from its dream
Screams we will never hear above the raucous laughter
We haven fallen too far, too quickly to sleep
Each sunrise breaking dawn for empty seats
Swelling with glory of which we have forgotten the taste
There are goosebumps on my tongue well worth remembering
There are apple pies and turkey dumplings
The sound of leaves breaking beneath my feet
There is a chill in the air only the hours know
It is the air I have learned to breathe

I falsely remember gondola rides between the faces of your words
The sea that held them together harmonized with the serenade
You are Venetian by association.
You are an artist because of the tune you left humming in my ears

Strange enough to say that I am with you
Stranger still to hold you in my arms
The planets don’t align this way on purpose
I wonder if the moon surprises Mars
With serenades and unexpected flowers
With notes to say I’ll miss you while you’re gone
I hope you’re startled right into my orbit
Delight me every eve and every dawn

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

Mother Nature,
green-thumbed,
with eyes of purpose,
with floor length gowns,
went about her morning gardening.

Singing to her crops of we,
the skin of her feet tracing mountains and reefs,
granting rain to the thirst farmer patch,
her scent driving men to humility.

Lungs filled sharp as she winced her eyes,
at the sight of blood she grit her teeth.
The urban thorns were growing now
and choking blossoms of unity.

Remnants of her song now ghost,
the sky grew dark as she approached.
She snipped, with hurricane-force sheers,
and trimmed Louisiana's coast.

She was every captain's secret,
Five hundred fathoms deep.
She haunted and charmed the waters so,
And chased the dreams from your sleep.
Her ghost was known to plague our nets,
To dance across the ocean waves.
The bloodied corpses of her children fled
To the beaches where they would be safe.

That night her body, titanium clad,
Punctured the wall between our worlds.
Her arms, a strange bewildered dance
As startled, she uncurled.
The gaul of those men who found her!
Breaking into her home!
She had run from every advance they sent
But legends never die alone.

So few of our men indulge in mystery.
So few embrace the unknown.
Most seek to banish the fear and wonder
And so legends never die alone.
They are prisoners chained to mortal bodies
And drawn from the depths of the sea.
Her eyes, I swear, had pearls of tears
As I watched the Giant Squid flee.

Wherever we are
On this wildflower road
Leading where it will
Take notice
We will never return
We will always look back
Let this be a memory
We carry in our pockets
Now that we are
And what we are is wonderful
Naming the flowers at our feet

Did you know, Alexandros,
that when you chiseled her hips
you cast aside the confidence of her sisters?
That when you decided she would be
just that much thinner,
you held a century's breath
and cracked ribs with corsets?
Did the name of Venus
conjure lust in your soul?
Is that why you tore off her robe?
Did you know, Alexandros,
that with your steady hand
you changed the shape of beauty?
Did you wrestle it from the hearts of homely mothers
and press it down to fit your mold?
Or did you steal it from your youngest daughter's smile
and replace it with vain ambition?
Did you cry when she told you she was ugly,
that your sculpture had transformed her to swine?
Was it then that you fell into your lover's arms until they broke?
Did you know, Alexandros,
that stone is a poor canvas for beauty?

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.

There is a forgotten woodland
or a bluff overlooking the lake
I was meant to meet this evening,
but I didn't.
And I can feel the ropes of fate,
elastic as they have proven to be,
pulling on my heart's disguise
in angst.

The best poems
are never shared.
They are written
on the insides of our eyelids
and each one reads
'You are beautiful.'
I cannot speak your poem.
I am still learning to pronounce my own.
The language of the God
who penned the phrase
is foreign to my wandering tongue.
But I read it.
Over and over again while I sleep,
stumbling over the words,
making mince of all His poetry.

Declare pragmatism a vulgarity,
a taste fowl to the tongue.
Embrace the long way home as
an integral part of healing
and swear by the virtue of art.

Decide that you will not be swayed
by flashing lights, airbrushed make-up,
or impressive displays of feathers.
Seek only the flower unseen
in a globe armored to the teeth.

Flea the baroque temptation,
extravagance will not suit you.
Confess to the heavens
your deepest desires
and find them in your own backyard.

Accept helplessness as a gift.
Stop wringing your hands,
for they will not wind the clock
in either direction you mistakenly feel
would be to your benefit.

Savor the precious little
any one thing can give you.
Scrape from each moment
all that is beautiful and velvet
and forget there is anything else.

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.

Wife beater and faded jeans,
******* on the end of a straw.
Big tent circus, jumping through rings,
giving his excuse to the cops.

House full of magnets, face full of metal,
Pinball queen, she's the star of the ghetto.
But never can get that make up right
so the light tells tales of the yellow-bellied devil.

"Officer, please, I'm telling you the truth.
Swollen knuckles really ain't much proof.
We were drinking that 151
and I think she lost a memory along with the tooth."

Wife beater with faded genes
slurs words in the back of the car.
patriotic lights and he's off of the scene,

and she misses him already.
Stockholm girl took blows like confetti.
Every day's a party when you're married to the hulk.
She says he ain't so green in the morning.

Run River Run
for your life
for ours
for farmers' daughters
for future sailors
for explorers
for the dead
for valleys
for power
for stories and lies
for nakedness
Run River Run
for your life
for ours
for history
for health
for the money
for the living
for fish
for fires
for ears and eyes
for necessity
Run River Run
for your life
for ours
Run from your mother and never go home.
Run and keep the wind company.
Run River Run
with your pockets full of gold
for your life
for ours

Row, row, row
your heavy heart,
tired arms.

Row your doubts,
your fears,
your tongue,
should it ever pronounce
your failure.

Row strong,
row steady,
to the rhythm of the moon.

Stir the surface of the stream
and watch the ripples
dance and play.

Life is but a dream,
they say.

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.

Once there boled a harmistor
With yarler like a tom
He ***** and frissed, but after this
His murly belly pommed

Choe and choe, then choe some more
He criggled at the thought
That sumpty soon he’d choe the moon
And abend would be glot

What could bew the buggle?
He plawed his nomer friend
Harmistor, you silly mer,
The pomming ne’r will end.

And so the woddly harmistor,
Bezined and full of dee,
Proquined the shole, the land in foll,
And called it Hungary.

You are not beautiful, I say,
but beauty.

You are the standard by which I judge the skies
on crisp winter evenings that flow with milk and honey.

The lilies, as they peer from their silk pajamas,
aspire to one day be placed in your room.

Your eyes are the song the meadowlark sings
as he bathes in the mid-summer's heat.

The forests blush vibrant, then whither away
humbled to be called by your name.

You are not living, I say,
but life,

that I should have you all of my days.

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.

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.

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

En los vientres de naciones
todavía huele a tradición:
denso y dulce como un higo.
Hay ecos de bailes
y susurros de dioses
tejiendo pacientemente la cosecha.

Niebla, siempre una niebla,
que desliza por la espalda
de montaña plagada por leyenda,
llevando con sí siseo de culebra,
llanto de cuervo,
y una canción bien embolsada.

Cama fértil pa imaginar,
árboles místicos han criado,
guardando mitos primitivos en sus anillos varicosos.
Hay poco que decir
de la ciencia ni el razón
cuando un trompetista conjura visiones del aguacero.



In the bellies of nations
you can still smell the lore:
dense and sweet as a ripened fig.
There are echoes of dances
and whispers of gods
patiently weaving the harvest.

There is a fog, always a fog,
that slides down the back
of the legend-born mountain
carrying the hiss of a snake,
the wail of a crow,
and a song in its pocket for safe keeping.

Fertile bed for imagination,
mystic trees have sprouted,
holding primal myth in their varicose rings.
There is little to be said
of science or reason
when a trumpeter calls visions from the rain.

I promise to respect you
No matter what’s revealed
In assonance and in rhyme
In form and free verse
When you look to me for courage
I will lend a steady hand
I promise to persevere
No matter the position of the moon
In syllable counting and soul scraping
In haiku and villanelle
I will cherish the time you lend me
In frustration and in ease
I will wait for you
I promise to give you my all
No matter what I think I have left
Innovation and exercise
In reaching out and introspect
I will keep nothing for myself
But give to you freely
All that the spirit and bone of me
Will allow me to give

I have no inspiration,
five poems to write,
three cookies on a plate I bought to avoid washing
and seventeen hours until I redefine home.
All the anxiety of numbers decreasing
and years parading themselves like Thanksgiving day.
Larger than life,
not Really flying,
more easily enjoyable in front of a TV
than filling your lungs with the smog of 6th Ave.

What will the magician pull tonight?
What mystery will come from the hat?
Through the curtain of wonder and what might be
into the dessert of blood and bone reality.

Come Atlas,
Let me help you.
Your shoulders must be awfully weary.
I can see fury coursing through swollen veins,
Your own body now quivers at your strength.
We believe you.
How long did it take you to convince your flesh
That it was capable of lifting the stars?
That your bones would lock dense
And rise up as armies,
Warring against the moon.
Titan,
You are old.
The silver in your beard is pulling at your chin,
****** out in the wind,
Splitting seas of doubt.
Do you still gaze at Olympus with ire?
With the bulges of wrath now coating your limbs?
What was given to you as a burden
Has become your pride,
Your nobility in the shame of defeat.
How tightly your fingers are gripping the sky
As if to keep it from leaving you lonely.
Are you lonesome Atlas?
Do your brothers still come to see you?
Your skin is stretched taught
Over what I imagine are diamonds,
Compressed over the span of millennial pain.
They told you you would break.
They laughed when you trembled,
Both biceps and faith.
You are petrified from you ankles to your relentless brow,
Flexing even to the corners of your heart.
In what year did your knee give out,
Leaving you in the position of perpetual homage?
And did it hurt in your soul or your back?
You are defiant at your very core
And have born your battle scar alone for so long
You have become a most magnificent island.
But the water is rising Atlas.
Let me help you.
My legs are spry and my heart just as fierce,
But I am willing to suffer the curse with you.
My feet have been planted in this earth as yours
And I have often felt the weight of the sky.
Share with me your story as my sweat runs free,
One ear to your thoughts and one to heaven.
Let me see what you have seen from this valley,
And shoulder to shoulder
We will stand.

Resonate my veins
Setting my love in motion
Your satin voice
Finding frequencies of truth

He has torn down the temple.
Stones lie scattered across the sand.
In his anger he has cursed God
And stormed into His dwelling,
Making mockery of angels and eating sacred bread.
He has torn down the temple.
She is lying scattered on her bedroom floor,
Drenched in the paralyzing stench of incense,
Her ears bleed with sacrilege.
The curtain is torn, is torn.

Thomas Thornburg killed a man last week.
Shot him in the chest from his front porch.
Said he had it coming, but he didn't know why.
The white-haired prophet/executioner.
The confession was perhaps surpassed in the news
by the miracle of Tom finding the the trigger.
Thomas Thornburg brandished 104 years
of what he hesitantly called life.

When brought before the judge he denied representation.
"Never had nobody say nothing for me."
When the gavel struck, Tom raised his hand
and took with his age, his permission.
"Your honor," began the old man's graveled voice,
"This here is not a fair trial."
"You ma'am," he pointed to the woman in blue
who shifted her feet beneath her juror's chair,
"What did you make of Stalin?"
"And you," to the well-groomed 20-something with hair,
"Where were you when they bombed Hiroshima?"
The judge began a sentence he was forced to cut short.
"Ma'am, I imagine you might recollect Duke Ellington,
but I shook hands with Scott Joplin,
and had more than my share of drinks with Fats Waller."
"Mr. Thornburg," said the judge in a patient tone,
"is there a point to your interrogation of the jury?"

"Find me eyes, judge," said the stolid man in lowered tone
"that have seen what I've seen,
that knew life before world wars were named.
Eyes that have watched generations die
and everything change but politicians.
Find me a man who has had the displeasure
of waking up more mornings than there are in a century,
and I will call THAT man my peer."

Tom then turned and, on the weight of his cane,
shed the last of his living tears.

Twigs and things
Sticks and strings
Patchwork fabric
Wallpaper of dreams
Rapture forever
In the eye turned back
Sweet cradle
Unsung in use
Robin’s loom
Of earth and tears
Sacrifice woven
Between the laths
Wallpaper sings
Children see magic
Robins see sticks
Twigs and things

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 fear I might one day roll down these hills
without so much as a dimple to stop me.
Erosion is a powerful force of nature,
even more so of human kind.
These honey-tongued vipers with sandpaper suits
have quite the moving picture show.
Narrow shoulders offer far less resistance,
and it is easy swimming down stream.
I fear one day I will have filed my edges
to the point of no return.