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.

I am swaying in circles:
knees locked, eyes glazing,
tasting each second as it splits on my chin.
there is time on my shirt sleeves.
there are dancers in my grin.
there is the semblance of someone else
looking within.

I am stitching myself
seamlessly, one-handed,
into the fibers of horizons and moons.
there is a music of planets.
there is *** in its tune.
there is the new-green innocence of a bride
and indefatigable groom.

There is a part of you in me that wants to run;
A fear of sameness that once drove you from the sand.

There is a part of you I am looking for in my chin;
A boldness that lingers somewhere hidden under my teeth.

There are parts of you crammed into my shoulders;
A stubbornness filling up nearly every doorway.

There is a part of you in me that is smiling;
A pride like when you call me your son.

There are parts of me that are singing,
I am certain it is your father's song.

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

Words:
Road blocks
On highways
Of thought.
Plato dreams
Of speaking
Utopia.
The cave grows
                   dim.

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.

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.

The reason that mutes the murmur of my lips
for the silence no one near me forgets
is the ******* of my heart.
Without knowing,
of what would it speak?
Filled with words,
the hollow cap peeks
into the muscles and bone.
Flesh for a kingdom,
thought for a throne.
The heaving poet sleeps
not sound,
not silent,
but there at 3:15.
Spilling his spiraling
tic toc dreams
between the pallid sheets.

I have fallen down holes one hundred words deep
And with every slippery movement of my tongue,
My world seems that much darker.
I have formed sounds in my mouth good for nothing but regretting
And released them as poison to the ones I love.
Droplets of toxins filling relationship coffins
Faster than the undertakers can have them prepared.
I swear, on whatever is meaningful to you,
I was not born with silver ***** in hand.
In my youth I spoke truth with the purest intent,
Building mountains I would climb to feel closer to the sun.
But as my feet grew longer and my eyes grew wider,
My ears learned the ways of treacherous men.
The first time I felt myself falling it was fun.
The rush of my own voice ripping its way past.
The second time I felt myself falling it was fun.
The thrill of the drop made my heart stand still.
The third time I felt myself falling I heard drums.
Faintly at first, but no doubt, they were drums.
There was the sound of skin, stretched over emptiness,
Shaking in the wake of a violent hand.
My eyes folded narrow, slipped shut, opened wide.
I could not discern whether I was the drum or the hand.
Both shaken and violent, empty and strong,
My skin stretched over my ribs and under my fingernails.
Seventy words down in the hole I heard the pulse,
At ninety words began the droning.
Matchless tone, like piercing your lungs
And listening to the shout that escapes.
At ninety-five words I hated them collectively.
At one hundred words I hated my self.
I have fallen down holes one hundred words deep.
Please excuse my silence.
The darkness that looms one hundred words deep
Is sticky, and icy, and true.
I am not afraid of heights, only of leaving them.
And I refuse to fall in front of you.

Avalanche pending
The look in a drummer's eye
           Bury me alive

Pull them from their soap boxes,
these poets,
these preachers,
these dreamy-eyed sleep wreckers,
these shivers in the night.

Their words are made of anxiety,
this shaking,
this thunder,
this stirring of the water,
this pungent drone.

Tell them we are sleeping.
We do not wish to wake.
Tell them that our ears are filled
With mud from the stomach of lakes.
Shut them up, whatever it takes.

Drown them in the current,
the walking,
the awake,
the heavy-footed neighbors,
the bare-hearted teeth.

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.

It’s cold and dimly lit, this hall of everyday.
My fingers trace atoms, material and unforgiving.
I pause at the door, inconspicuous, but familiar.
Beneath it myth and whim cast shadows on the floor.
I can smell the gardens of wisdom and lore
and almost believe it a memory.
I don’t remember when I lost the key.
Good things are never seen going, but gone.

I am what I have always meant to be;
Though my teeth and tongue betray me,
Though my hands twist knives in my back,
Though my love falter and compassion cease,
Though my utmost effort be found wanting.
There is a lion inside these ribs
Ambling about the graveyard.
I am every intention and ghostly footprint
I would have left in the sand.
I am every word still chained to my gums,
Every tear I have not shed.
I am the music heard in the empty places
Between my body and those I love.
I am always more than you see of me,
More than the expanse of my limbs.
I am forests of sycamores and birch,
Whitewashed and shedding who I was,
Becoming who I mean to be.

There are times I wish you would throw out the canvas.
                                        Be as reckless as I love you to be.
Let loose the hold you have fixed on this earth and plunge
               Head-long into the ocean, daring yourself to breathe.
Brush your fingers across the coral until your voice starts to bleed,
                       Then paint the sunken whale bones with your song.
                  Drink chestfuls of love until sobriety loses meaning.
        Tell the world your secrets while it sleeps in your arms.
  Speak with the grace of battering rams and truncheons.
                                       Stretch your mind until it weeps.
                                             Collect these tears in bottles,
                                               Break them on the streets.
          I would hang your soul on my refrigerator door
                                            Any given day of the week.

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.

Her quaintness was saturated with 'sweethearts' and 'honey,' bespeaking the youth of my face. I have let its hair grow free for three days now and the bare patches are starting to show, but it seems I have not fooled her. No. I have not fooled myself either. My teacher shoes feel a half size too big and my feet are sweating profusely. I wonder if God made summer for the lemonade or the perspiration. In three years I will have developed a label for this period of my life. I am currently three years short of expressing myself properly and I fear this will always be the case. What do men do in empty hotel rooms? I kick off my shoes to watch them bounce bluntly on the carpet I have seen somewhere before. There is a poor imitation of jazz playing in the lobby and I'm positive someone has mistaken it for the real thing. It leaves a weak hope I will fool them too. Maybe most men are pretending.

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.

float my body over the sea of stones
the sharp cold nagging of the senses
grab me by the tongue and turn me inside out
set me free by way of the wind

When is a word of power
Holding the keys to time
Unlocking doors to limitless wealth
Amassed in the houses of centuries
Our future is naught without us
We are naught without our past
We are not without our past
Calamity follows the unbelieving
Those current keepers
Blinded by trend
Those content to exist on a page
Without ever reading the book
Memory is rite
Remembering is prayer
We are disjointed from our God
In a life purely contemporary
We forget more than we are living
Writhing in the deficit
Slaved to the moment
And the evils of its quarantine
History is sacred
To be held with gentle hands
Revered and cherished
For its honesty

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.

And then it was time to live again.

After so many tombstone day dreams
and chills from winter's breath,

After closing living room shutters
and doubting fragile steps,

After plucking the penultimate feather
from Hope's avian breast,

Spring came round that corner swinging,
and what was there to defend?

He is a fool
who, when the sky is lit
in the morning dew,
scowls at Spring
and shrugs.
She is immutable.
Brimming with chances
and hard won charm,
not a tremor in her voice.
She is singing.
Always singing
that honeysuckle song.
He is a fool
who misconstrues his gravity.
Ignorant of his orbit,
trying to tilt the world.
She is unruffled,
and he will roll off her back,
smooth as the mallard,
washing his face
in the sunrise pond.

I will swallow broken bits
of the apologies you won't let me give
until I make my stomach filled
and dense enough to sink.
Pulling on my heart
with fingernails of memories
and memories of fingernails
and voices mixed with mine.
Mixing wine with vinegar
in the corners of my mouth
I'll spout and spray this canvass
with the tragedy I want and have not found.
I am still louder than my heart at times.
You know this all too well.
Tooth and molar pass my tongue,
Swallowing culprits one by one.
Lift my jaw above my head
And use my heart to think.
Drink the offering inside my veins.
Use the knife I spoke to you.
I will be lying in the field of somber pauses
Where you first helped me to speak.

Twelve handlebars and six left feet
Plow their way through arrogant Spring
Catching mouthfuls of melodies that swim the air
Stuffing twenty-two pockets with laughter
     Spitting seeds of care
     From cherry-stained lips
     Into the gulfs of ever afters
Slinking their legs and elbows through rafters
To spy on the honesty present in dreams

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.

Come and rest a while young soldier.
Lay down your arms and sleep.
Your bones have battled your blood
has battled your lungs have battled your kidneys.
Come, take refuge, and weep.
On days you feel like the lines in the sand
originate somewhere in the palms of your hands
and trace your every vein,
when you can't shake the shellshocked feeling
of blood cell battle cries,
before your eyes wander distant,
come dream a while of peace.
Even God rests his mind once a week.

And on the road back to your body
that looks less like home
than where you you've imagined yourself to be,
stash a few visions of tomorrow in your pockets.
Eat them like candy.
Wake with the taste of hope on your teeth.
That golden-ventricled soldier you left standing guard
has picked up his drum once again.
March on to the rhythm of his faithful resolve
with a the song of revolution on your lips.
Rise up young patriot.
Fight tooth and nail.
Wear your flag on your skin.
Take aim at anything that tells you
you were born to be less than free.
March on into the morning,
each step taken
seizing peace.

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

Sometimes I fear that your arms will pass through me.
With the wisp of uncertainties,
that you will reach for comfort
and find the wind lonely.

Sometimes I fear that one day you won't hear me.
With the clamor of fools,
that you will cup your ear
and hear nothing but indistinct drowning.

Sometimes I fear that one day you might see me.
With the drab of a pauper,
that you will look intently
and see an impoverished soul.

Bahia,
I drown without waking from your dream.
Like silk you slide down over my eyes
and it is dark as it should be.
Should we,
before the dawning of demasiado,
tip toe accross the waves
to dance in the streets,
I believe you will have convinced me
once more,
beyond the shadow of doubt
cast by the swaying trees,
to sink in your arms as you sing to me.
Bahia,
dulce Bahia.

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.

Reach
Beyond my dim reflections,
Around the imperfections,
Down the hallways of my heart.

Reach
Because I feel like I am sinking
Beneath this sea of thinking
There's no one with arms that long.

I don't even know what I need to know
To believe You are who You say You are
And that everything's going to turn out grand.
I need to see Your hand.
Reach

There is a shell I have never broken.
I watched you check your mail.
I had already found my keys.
I waited.
You waited.
You knew there would be no mail.
You watched me scrounge for my keys.
There is a shell you have never broken.

There is dust on the shelves
and more shadows than light to allow them.
The floors are awake with a moaning
that crawls down hallways my feet avoid.

Why have You brought me here?
to this place of introspection,
to my untouched furniture and silverware,
this place where scarcely a mat is welcome.
Why have You brought me here?
There were lists of reasons I hid the key
behind the smiles I wore as diseases.
This museum of wounds and clever bandages,
of wars and fears and organs broken.
My face looks foreign in the picture frames.

These are doors that scare me;
That stare back boldly with eyes like nights
when you find yourself without a moon.
I am embarrassed to say I will need a guide.
I could not tell You the bedroom from the pantry;
it has simply been too long.
The walls have shifted and carpets moved on
to cover some fresher stain.

What You mean for me to find in these piles of relics
is beyond my understanding.
But if I am to go on, then my knees will need convincing.
Speak to my infant soul, Dear Friend.
Convince it to sit down with me for dinner
and let some light in through the drapes.
Open the doors that divide me from You,
and make me a place worth living.

There is no poet like a knife.
There is no rhyme like dance.
The first time I held your hand in mine
Was the only love poem I have given you.
Fists full of dirt
Beads of sweat on skin
I have understood God the most when it rains.
When elements collide and my face becomes water.
There is no profanity like absence.
There is no obscenity like callous.
The last time I shook my father's hand
Is the only praise I have known.

Bumble-bouncing
       off the hardwood floors
Tickling feet and
       feeding the evening
Our sides were split
       from waist to shoulder
The purple laughter ca
                                         s
                                           c
                                            a
                                              ding
Our faces painted red
       and our lungs collapsing
Determined to shake
       the earth from its axis

Tilt a little more to what seems right
Tilt a little more toward family

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

What is there in a footstep
wanting to be discovered?
Surely they are dancing,
who move without question,
following none but a song
or whimsical sense of duty.
Surely they are determined,
who are pounding their heels
back into the soft earth
that is calling them home.
It has been far too long
since I trusted my feet,
since I listened to their telling
conversations.

Verdant epidermis
rolling silk
farther than eyes
Veritable smorgasbord
twice removed
Coastal pull has
stretched you
bled you dry
forgotten plains
Do you still keep secrets
and give away bread?
Do you still keep God company?
Vested sustenance
true as earth
impervious to time
Velvet sodded canvas
I am moved

Everyone has ugly
We are blessed who do not see it
But when we do
We do
You did
And the words wouldn’t come fast enough
My story dried up
Leaving cacti in the silence
Sharp to ***** a wayward tongue
My head spinning with strategy
I was busy framing pictures
When you threw me away
It’s not that I lacked an explanation
I’ve just learned to tread softly
In landmine conversations
Your eyes were done with me
Far sooner than you admit
I lied to let hope live
I hoped the lie would live
But ugly is as buoyant
As you are gone
And lies are always dense

"It's happening on a day when the DOW industrial average was already down 175 points."
- Adam Johnson, Bloomberg Television, covering the Boston Marathon bombing


One by one she piled them,
bodies and fragments,
broken and tattered,
onto the golden scale.

their hands and feet,
swollen with innocence,
fell lifeless as the eyes
of their adjudicator.

where is your soul,
Lady Liberty?
where is your god,
oh, Freedom?

cold gears creaked
as the balance swayed;
songs of the hand
that guides the machine.

what is the stock price
of flesh these days?
and does our ignorance
provoke or appease you?

Boston, it seems,
is filled with heavy streets.
Inciting the terror
of empty pockets.

When our death tolls
read like itemized deductions,
something has gone terribly wrong.

Stoic
Seismic
The earth unfolds
His rubber band tight
Spinning out of control
Never even flushed
But the ripple of a vein
Traces thoughts he forgot
To bury with the pain

Grinding
Teeth
Tectonic plague
He’s got electric eyes
High voltage rage
Wraps it all in a smile
That he’s sewed shut tight
So the magma doesn’t peek
When he says “all right”

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

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.

I guess I sort of started planning a life with you
and the hook that hurts the most
is the one swallowed the deepest
but I don't really know how far down it went
because I didn't know I went down that far
I have spent nights with search lights and helicopters
trying to figure out where I love you from
and the closest I've come is a pocket tucked next to my soul
maybe that's why you said you needed space
because I am in the business of swallowing hooks
and you're in the habit of running

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 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.

Oh some ol’ day these bones, these bones will bid my body bye.
They’ll watch me melt into this earth like ice in mid July.
I can’t think of a reason or a rhyme for all the mess
Except to live a life that might prepare me for the rest.
‘Cause some ol’ day these bones, these bones will rise up once again.
They’ll dance like that ol’ prophet said and jump up with the wind.
And on that sunshine morning these ol’ bones are gonna shout.
Escape with God to glory, all the trouble here without.

I know the tongue
Behind my teeth
And the skin across my ribs
I know the peaks and valleys
Of my protruding knuckles
And the hair behind my head
I know the rising
The falling of my chest
And the scarcity of my whiskers
I know the eyes
Open to wonder
And the callous of my feet

I do not know the fear
Behind my cowardice
Or the judgment in my eyes
I do not know the depth
Of my ego’s tangled roots
Or the necessity to please
I do not know the anxiety
Grinding my bones
Or the lies of my heart
I do not know the color
Of my citizen soul
Or its longing for company