sitting next to me she pointed to the keychain - smiling with a stranger like giggling at recess, how lucky, how lucky
the sky was not there when i went to the courtyard but instead a new set of stairs to a new set of bricks and cold quesadillas
i always thought loitering meant staying the night but i promise to tarry forever, how lucky, how lucky, i shouldt say such things i know, but how hard to resist when i hear someone on the other side on the other pane of glass, oh how lucky, how lucky, i look forward

though just a patchwork poem of different lines,
this sonnet shall begin my journal still.
it lacks in structure, not in rhythm or rhyme
and serve it's purpose i am sure it will.

"a journal?" you may say, and ask "what for?"
and i reply "i got bored on a plane"
my grandfather suggested that the lore
that university brings should be lain

within these pages, if i ever write
these out on paper which i may just do
once i return from durham and alight,
this metal bird that brings me there unto.

i don't recall how many lines to add,
though with this quad i think i shall be set
my future works will be more thought ahead,
and probably not from inside a jet.

all things considered, i quite like this poem,
and if my father asks, i'd surely show'im.

Cher journal,

Je n’ai point envie de te décrire ma journée périlleuse.
Tout ce que je ne veux, c’est t’écrire des vers inoubliables,
Que mon cœur, me dicte, éprit par la beauté de ce monde.
Car, tu es le mémoire, qui restera dans les mémoires.

black blanketed empty ice
i didnt want to bring it
i didnt feel the pull the push the desire the bone-burning fire
i think i might be losing what it meant what i felt what i dreamt
grieving on pine needle floors
"TO DECIDE"
is it even up to me anymore
"everything that i want
i now have to give up
because it seems appropriate"
(appropriating portions that you punctuate)
if abdication is required well then so be it
or at least that is the manner that i will depict
as i realize the extent to which i fluctuate

spotted in tears parallel to peers
for the impact is unimaginable
intangible ungrounded unfounded unmanageable

i stand in the back row, watching the casket sink lower
im never sure whos inside
whats divine when theres nothing alive
to what capacity will the constraining factor maintain
incapable, an electric field of rage, inescapable
a negatively charged invertebrate ablaze
as if i ever had a chance against the flames

yellow crosswalk indicators underneath my shoes
sillhouetted familiarity by the garden ledge
and instead, wiping away water, stopping for the view

six identical plates, twelve identical more
will i wont i, pushed aside
deciding that right now i will be fine
six identical breaks, twelve identical torn

this future does not carry over
perhaps it is that i will be declined denied reimagined revived
i will never be ready for anything old for anything new
not even clouds in windows in lines
i miss you i miss you i miss -
well
i miss what i used to think of you

but standing in that row
did you hear what i had whispered
a candle lit dinner in tandem to splinters
for some time
sitting alone at the table
inside of my mind
would i even if i was able
did you notice
did you falter
are you stable
the stone had a name like mine

there was a heron in the sky when i crossed the street this morning. ive never seen a heron so far from water, so far from home. i watched it gently, despite the people walking. i dont always break the unspoken in this manner, and although ive been more often lately, it still is not consistent, and so feels notable in this instance. of course there you were when you werent and lasting considerably though considering what is normal to me this was not notable.
but a heron was flying when i got off the bus today.

i felt as rested as ten with completed checks yet really i was running on a miracle three with more boxes than i could carry with my hurting wrist and hurting knees -

dear god,
will you hold me so softly with mercy in your palms,
will you tell me so delicately what you mean when you speak,
will you set me so lovingly to the floor when you must let me down,
for there will come the time for me to die.

at six fifty pm they turn off all the lights. and down the block sitting at the stop, at last a moment to catch up, and that is when i saw the second one that day.

dear heron,
will you fly again so starkly with your ever fervent beauty,
will you seek me out so blatantly though subtle as you have been guided,
will you return so frequently further, but not so much you disappear,
for i would love a heron to fly when my time has come to pass.

holding you feels like an inevitable. intangible yet legible. i dont check the clock when im waiting for the bus. it will arrive when it does and when it does i will get on it.

i saw two herons on tower street today.

Aphorisms rarely confer the comfort they intend
                                    BUT
   “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”

An antique wooden trunk sits languidly beside the road (Alabama State Highway 98 Scenic Route, Main St. Daphne, for those that need to know) atop a concrete culvert cover amidst a color-guard composed of an unused ironing board, and a mildewed duffel-bag (but the nicer kind- made of synthetic blend, with the wheels that don’t really roll, and an extendable handle that’s stuck “in”; not the heavy olive-drab canvas of the pop-culture cliche, found slung across the shoulder of the love-lorn/shell-shocked/long-lost soldier returning home unannounced in a lifetime movie melodrama) discarded haphazardly, and awaiting their diesel-powered trash-truck ferry to the afterlife of moribund things; but serendipitously and surreptitiously it is to be rescued from oblivion by the unexpected happenstance of a passerby passing by distractedly (gone out of his way though he really has no where to go, just somewhere to be, eventually) meandering through town, down alternate roads making his way to a rendezvous with a friend to give them a hand, for a minute, with some chores they’d like to get through before they leave for Atlanta, because he hasn’t seen them recently, and he had nothing better to do.

How many others have passed by the unmapped X, but never saw it for they were so myopic in their missions and goals: rushed and unconscious, on autopilot, en route, to work, or to lunch, to mid-day meetings with clients for paper and gold; How many missed the possibility of adventure passing by, the childish excitement that could unfold, if they had just looked up from their phones and coffees and looked around for signs, untold? How many noticed the slight shimmer of fantasy left sitting by the road, but couldn’t stop because they were in a carpool, they weren’t driving, or just so unimaginative that to believe, for a bit, that a treasure exists outside the storied pages of fairy tales was too much to do, or too much to bear, with a rundown, old soul. Did a child see, with impressionable eyes, the chest of treasure left by a fool, unattended, out in the open (not buried, not even a bit, barely even hidden from view) and instantly wonder, too, just what might be inside? Could it be shimmering, shining jewels, loose and encrusting golden crowns, and goblets, scepters and silver candlesticks, precious oriental silks, or bullion and pirate *****; possibly a magic lamp, or maybe some enchanted tools?! A flying carpet!? Perhaps A Ghost of some grim ghoul. Did they beg a guardian to stop the carriage, but were denied and told, “we have to keep going little one, there’s much to get to that you don’t know. You have to go to school.”
Well, the glimmer caught the eye of one beholder and made them think immediately, “That looks like treasure!”

Indeed!
It did look like treasure: a literal chest, built of heartwood with a carved arch-top, weathered paint, rusted hinges, metal bindings and filigree.

(It was obviously empty of value, scuttled, broken, and relinquished to the refuse heap; However, To one with a limp, and a bad eye, and a deaf ear, brandishing a homeward bound insignia upon his chest and an island luck charm in black ink on his leg, whom you’d easily confuse for a pirate misplaced, you can see how it might seem to warrant an inspection.)

Plus: It’s uncommon to find a treasure chest
in the trash, in this century. Perhaps hope got the best of me; but also I knew its fate was not to be buried under heaps of plastic and rot.

I’ve a friend whose proclivity one could describe as a collector of things, useful and abandoned... but not a “hoarder” like on the television - Unless you count Ariel as such- with all her jetsam, Knick-knacks, thing-a-ma-bobbers, and dreams.

We are “of a kind,” prone to picking up after others, collecting aesthetic driftwood- anthropomorphized or just architecturally interesting, finding faces in fallen leaves, pointing to leaves that look like bugs, picking up bugs dried up like leaves and or sticks and stones and broken bones of small creatures long left rotting, beautifully decaying detritus of modernity - deemed useless; but still WE believe a greater purpose lies within, undefined by its usefulness, to be determined by it’s form Rather than function, appropriated and repaired  or dismantled and “re-crafted” into art, by simplification. Driven by a simple inspiration; To make beautiful decoration.

I pull aside, let traffic pass, circle back, reorient and reclaim this bounty of the proverbial “spring-clean.” Its condition is one of slight disrepair: needs hinges re-attached; but otherwise in fine shape. I collect this treasured trash and return to my path, on course to its new home with my friend to whom I was already bound; But now I come bearing gifts.

His smile was worth the drive and the dumpster-diving and the the whole day.

A gift given is a love lived-in, and a smile
shared with a friend Is love and life for me.

Like soap, your poetry cleanses my soul.
On paper, I'm filthy from your touch,
and your honey is sticky on my fingers.
But, your words and your laugh are a spring
that douses me in bubbles and gold.
I sip from your tears and sweat,
and youth revitalizes my skin and bones.
You are an oil that enriches
and cannot be rinsed away with water.
You are the dirt that gets under by fingernails
and houses the seeds of a hundred flowers.

Night comes for us all.
We watch as color and saturation leak from the world
until just a half sphere peaks in the horizon.
When the sky touches down and up rises the moon,
it is only its reflective glow that we have to light our walks.

Night comes for us all.
Whereas stimuli and light override my senses,
the coolness and silence of night dampens them,
and with it, my thoughts race.
As my body relaxes against cool sheets,
my mind is buzzing,
and my heart tiptoes from one place to another.

Night comes for us all.
United but separate, our experiences are the same.
We look at the same moon and spy the same stars.
We linger on the same wishes,
and in the anonymity that darkness grants,
we dream and ponder and hope
that something hears us, sees us.
And in that dark anonymity of night,
that subtle weight we constantly carry grows,
and we are anchored to the Earth’s core.

Night comes for us all.
We wait for it to pass,
yet every day, we welcome it gladly
for rest or fresh eyes.
It is a gift and a gurney,
a calm and a casket.
Night is what we make it,
and night is what we need it to be.