i feel like potential is dripping out of the tips of my fingers
golden ochre spilling across every surface
staining everything it touches
marks and scar of waste to show that all i do is fail
use it use it use it
make use of this potential before it leaves you, my mind screams
use it use it use it
so i do i do i do
and slowly ochre turns to a shimmering bronze
i can't pay it any mind

I feel my ****** begin to swell
like a red ballon.
Slowly.
Aching too.
Sometimes it’s catching a bit
of your breath
when you sigh.
And sometimes it’s the sight
of your neck.
You lean sideways,
and I look toward you,
wondering:
why the desire to reach you
is so strong.
Why this pull?

I wish I could make you feel all I smell and see
When the sun shines through the tall grass in a Southern Maryland breeze
When field flies hover in the golden, fading sunset, suspended in their wandering
When crickets and croakers sing their evening songs, humming along to the universal sound
When twilight fades to startlight where city lights fade to black
When love is planted and pruned in rolling rows of farmland
When new seeds sprout of a life worth falling and staying in love with
When the pages of history are not simply learned, but lived
When a small boat's sail first fully fills with a westward wind and leaves the dock in it's wake
When children come in from play to mothers and fathers, smelling sweet of sweat and sunshine
When sand, soil, shells, and stones pave paths for the bold and barefoot
When brackish water breezes stick to skin like kisses and tans and waves on the shoreline
When Spring fades into Summer, and early May silently yet steadily stretches in her seasonal tension of the in-between
I wish I could make you feel this.
|b.g.|

boom. bang. pow.
the sounds resonating from my inner thoughts.
louder than any cannon and stronger than any wind,
is the storm that is brewing in my mind.

they say my mind will settle in a week.
i never found this to be true.

I speak to you now, former wife, another time, another place
I don’t know where you are, where you’ve been these forty years
But in that year, that sultry, passioned summer in Japan
twelve months past exchanging wedding bands,
we rode the train in to Tokyo every day
from Nerimaku at the city’s edge,
apartment on that narrow street, floor two, and no A.C.
only a floor fan to blow the steamy air, but
the *** was great, the sleeping not so much
and you in your green forties style patterned dress, mid-length
would often melt my heart,

Remember, if you hear me, that as time to come home neared
we were favored by an Imperial Palace gardens private tour
from a friendly diplomat, how we made the connection I forget
unless you, my dark-eyed twenty four, might remember
I’m not likely to find out, and does it matter?
He proudly showed us small silver waterfalls
catch light over well- placed rocks, the full ferns lush,
and roses and lavender the best of what was left
of manicured flowers, I held your hand,
in this seeming almost the perfect ending

To six weeks of endless interviewing, I was so glad to have you there,
law and grad student couple walking with our grey haired friend,
an austral early evening breeze brought kind relief,
the blessing that can come with late August’s setting sun,
our host pointed to tiny flecks of red and yellow
almost imperceptible on the vast sweet-gums we passed
observing that the Japanese revered the sight-- this time of year
as if anticipation of the coming season were sweeter than the fall itself,
And I have never forgotten that revelation
And I have never forgotten the fleeting smile in your brown eyes
in that long green moment of the western sky.