I’m tired
my body seems to be telling me
to go to bed and sleep
but I know I couldn’t,
for this poem is lurking inside
and won’t be denied
as much as I try.

Can poems be found in the tired
in the brain of one who’s wired
to look here and there and everywhere
like the bird perched atop the chair
in the backyard, its head swiveling to and fro
watching for cats or humans or hawks flying low?

I guess I shall see if there is a poem taking flight
here and now teasing twilight
will it swoop and settle in my mind
will my muse become archly inclined?
Or maybe I’ll dwell on that attentive bird
and in that dwelling find the words
and take a lesson from the throat of its being
breaking forth in its flight or its singing.

Is there a verse down there I’ve been saving
while the sapling Tallow is waving
saying goodbye to the dying day
dancing the wind in ***** ballet.
Is there a line
in the recesses of time
between vital concerns
and issues that burn?

I hear the cello’s refrain
playing nearby in mournful bane
it takes me back to practicing Strauss
on the piano, filling our house
with dissonance and verve
getting on my mom’s last nerve.
But oh how music flourished and reigned -
the joy in my soul could not be contained.

Thinking of what music has meant to me
and composed in me a sweet symphony
brings me alive here in this sacred space
replaces fatigue with energy and grace.
I stayed here long enough to find
these wisps of memory and rhyme
that so often provide the spark
to lift and fly me out of the dark.

Kiss me with deflating lips
Beach body beached on my mind
Fated errors in our minds rejoice
At distance confirmed and hammered in

To lift a veil and see the wolf
Corrugated eyes blend with the sea
Of unthought masses watching TV
Of the dark road, the foreign path

It's hopeless when your sleep
Loses its pull, its fire to be
What happens when legends draw their maps
And don't mark the road you knew they'd make?

I know I'm too young to feel this desperate
Never found the days that would keep the nights warm
Never saw the glint to the Tigers bite
Never saw the moon above the wave

Too old is an expression lost on eyes
Glassy for timebomb putty
Artists weary become manufacturers
When ignored, when declined

Beach body, that's what I had, a belief in clicky thoughts
Understanding caved in to knowing
And knowing fell to fact,

I've built my way, carved in gritty stone
That as sand my footstep knows
I'll crawl forward, step by slip
And follow the path up till the ahead.

I write 'you', just look,

then you can see what it says –


and you will read love.