Lounging, today, on Your back porch
I saw America's men
Holding their tiki torches
Toward all they had been

I saw all of America's men
Wade angrily out into the icy upper bay waters
Toward all they had been
Through the tears of their mothers and daughters

Wading out into the icy waters
Holding their tiki torches
Through the tears of their mothers and daughters
Lounging, half-drowned, on Lady Liberty's back porch

Underneath a sun baked deck in San Jose
A flower was born.
Sun dappled, it unfurled its small green hands toward the lawn where
Globes of water still sat on the shoulders
Of green grasses to catch a glimpse of the sky,
who's cool breath had so recently whispered them into being.

Every day, as the sun peeked through the
Slats of gray wooden decay, the focus of it's impeccably golden eye would enevitably fall upon the delicate petals of a small blue flower.

Where had it come from, such a flower? Fallen out of its sleeve on the way to the garden? Had it been blown astray in one big gust? Where were the other flowers then?

They are gone. The Partridges disbanded long ago and left in their place a corpse
of tortured cedar, concrete, and angry hot metal. All now home to one small blue flower, who dances whenever given the chance in the spotlight of it all.

I only tell you this because because I watched that flower die this summer. After a gaggle of men pealed back the carcass-home, a flood of light came tumbling down upon all that had unknowingly benefitted from its protection, mostly weeds.

I should say, the lawn was the first to fall, well before the house itself, though it fought valiantly.
Hoisting its mystical morning globes skyward, like an offering. Golden death still spread like a flood across the lawn, catching every unshaded corner until all was bleached and unremarkable to look upon.

I remember how odd it must've looked, one blue flower shooting up from the grey mounds and yellowed grasses. How excited I was to see something so small and beautiful set free. How long I lingered there waiting for it to die.

"Metaphors are Dangerous"
is something my mother said
To me recently while hovering breathless above
her calendar; waiting carefully between the spaces of functions, appointments, and birthdays. Blank.

I asked her why she had me.
What became of my first calendar,
my genesis, the foretelling of my arrival?

What was "god's plan" for that lifeless heap of events she threw away in an afternoon, after everything within it either happened or didnt? Was it whisked away to trash island, with the other spent husks that had the audacity of limited use?

Does it still exist?
Stained and useless, wretched paper
sprawled out in the sun. Has it been completely reformed? Sent out as several paper cups, a newspaper,  a birthday cap, a kite?

What would god think of "used" calendars? Would he? When he reached our day of being in the cosmos, did he look at us and say "you will be used or you will be nothing" and pin us to the wall? A useful but temporary tool?

Why do we begin something at all? Why must we blow the balloon up just to let it go? Is it still a "balloon" when it's lying limp in a stranger's field a mile away?

In my mother's silence I knew she had no answer for me, except that "metaphors are dangerous" as her hands full of paper-cuts flattened the page.

Over the heads of 3am stoplight dancers
through the viney brick pub where Verily
bleaches the bar-tops by beersign fluorescents,
past the last streetlight to blink off where Hope
is marching brisk-ly through the muddy dark,
under the first confused crimson leaf to fall of autumn
with not an eye to see,
upon the sill where Early leans/
checks the time and sighs smoke behind the window,
through the Oaken Chapel doors where young Clöse
writes his first sermon and cries,
out in the alfalfa field where the fireflies whish
and Sol says goodbye to them again
hoping one day they’d take him too.

Beyond the yellow hill
Where the homeless sleep alone,
Illumination strikes the lens white
And they are new.

It's a song we sing.
a foot, a car, a bullet
train to becoming-

Jan. 1st,

New Years drowns
its yesterdays with alcohol
and needle ships to
summer paradises made of ice

But in the morning,
when the frost retreats
into the suburban sidewalks-
slides its way down
into the drains-
mixes with the wastes and vomited
dredge-water of a year gone whipping by,

I see the children of the defeated
mothers poking ugly toads behind the shed
with cardboard hats fashioned
from discarded Budweiser boxes,
barefooted on dewy grass
with capes of an old bed-sheet
thrown out when daddy found mummy
in the arms of another woman~

I watch the fathers of men
smoking, sunken, and sitting
                                                    on the docks
of the world's beach-towns
wondering forlorn how they got there.
Their orange cigarette tips-
dying stars over the water.
The collective orange glow
both artificial and desperate
shines forever outward~
                                          toward the pole
where Johnny always kisses Sally
and they love each other
until they don't.

I stumble home at dawn
on the quietest day of the year with
the undergraduates:
Seekers of love
Seekers of purpose
Seekers of seeking,
Glassy eyed and slurring
Memorized facts about underground reservoirs
And the disappearance of the ******* honey bee,

Falling into ditches
And lying there with the sunrise in our eyes
Drinking and smoking anything
That will help us
forget we're watching the sunrise from a ditch

forget that if we're lucky
we too will be sitting on those docks,
flicking cigarette butts into the water,
and hoping Sally thinks about us sometimes.

Now-
the worried porch lights of Orange County
are turning off-
~And the mothers are curling their blonde hair
hoping someone will secretly fantasize about them
at work
~The fathers are covering up the smell
of cigarettes and alcohol with expensive cologne
and fantasizing about that blonde from work

~And the graduates have invested
in more comfortable ditches

Waking up there
next to you
is like being born
to a Symphony
of warm water-bells~

Your smiling eyes are light houses
where the ghost-light keepers
ring out their fears with silver bells

a lovely Symphony of bells
calling my ghost ship
of white noise and lonely violins

to the easy morning light
you wear like a crown
of laughing daffodils.

News Flash:
                     Religious Science has created life!
                     With heat and pressure
                     and Sounds Sounds Sounds!

                     Watch their lead-boy
                     dance and sing
                     recordings placed in his
                                    chest
                   ­  by People Who Know.

                    Listen close
                    to his strictures about what
                    is abominable
                    you can hear their voices
                    in the crackling gray
                    noise:
                    
            ­        The buzzing of cieling fans
                     in offices far away, Oz
                     The humming chatter of
                     "The maid found a dove
                     drowned in the pool!"
                     "Oh, how unsanitary,
                      truely abominable."

                      You really should see
                       him dance
                       in the Starstudded Ballroom
                       where the wicked pace
                       in the side-halls
                       dreaming of childhood summers
                       at the lake
                       and kisses in the morning.

                       Holy Science has smithed life!
                       Holy bullets smelted a fine
                       man.
                       Wholy Holey Holy Bullets.

This is a recurring dream,
it slips into my veins
on the best and worst nights
warm and vibrating
lik blue jazz:

I am sitting in a tunnel, huddled
scared and staring, open--
into the hazel eyes of Sarah
the wandering angel of San Jose,
the cool Sunflower in my brain
as Peter Sarstedt fills
the blue-bricked walls
with, "Where do you go to,
My Lovely?"

Shaking my teeth
and ribs
like old blank dice,
lovely accordion sobs-
What vibrations!
Echoes and blue memories running into the dark.
I hear you Peter, She hears you
I must tell you that--

and when I wake
all that's left are the echoes
of my accordion heart
and the sounds of traffic
over the plucking
of red chords in street.

I was wandering
like the others when
Music!
rang out over our heads,
The Fiddler was benched
in the square--

with an instrument
strung: beautiful red
strings.
They were quivering
like tendons,
The Fiddler plucked
music from them,
from us--

Strangers danced about,
silly at first
and then slower
confused and close--

I remember the spinning,
the blind Fiddler grinning,
the red strings singing
their promises to us,
I was dancing
like the others

and in all of our loneliness
we danced our feet raw
to the tune
of The Fiddler's jig:
A Call To Threadbare Hearts

I heard you in the shower
something sad and slow

I fell madly and instantly,
and you didn't even know

This morning I watched you
stumble into the bus
like a drunken moth:
straw-headed, foggy,
jacket clinging to you
by one shoulder
like an ironic flag.
America has claimed you!
Just like Our Moon,
those ironic flags of liberty.

Chortling, choking
on nothing but your
immovable child-like
sadness. Leathery
wings sprawled, gaping,
stinking of whiskey and ****.
You were screaming
at a woman across the aisle
whose eyes also gaped,
who didn't see the revolution,
who feared her reflection in the
eyes of "Made In The USA".

Who is she? What form
have you given her?
The mother who soaped
your tongue with her bitter morals?
The sister who boiled her
life away on a spoon?
The lover who embraced your wounds
despite EVERYTHING
and then became one?

You were eating an apple
from your pocket,
"Red Delicious,
the MOST American fruit!"
It was mostly rotten, sweaty
brown core staring into me
like a terrible moth's eye.

I watched you until
my stop,
I'm sorry I don't know why.
When the bus-man shoo'ed you off
I heard you scream after me,
really howling.

I'm sorry I can't save you,
I'm a moth too.

I ran home this morning
and left all the lights on.

I am a snow-man/
a collection of
cold and beautiful
                                     c                c
                                            i              u                       a
                                                    r                m      t
                                                                          s                  n
                                                                                                       ces.

4 o'clock, saturday
Dread and Panic are holding hands in my chest:
An extraordinary case of the mean reds
watching the gray
from my kitchen window

the cars parked over cement fields
precisely 300 vehicles when full
the boy sitting on a gray bench waiting
with his baseball, shh! His gray father is shouting
at his gray phone, his gray wife finally called that number.
all gray.

      the sky here is almost always sleeping
a blanket of melting nimbus
the gulls slide inoffensively over the roofs
our courtyard grass trembles for them

the wind falls out of the bay
wind, the world traveler without a suitcase
I imagine it kicking up dust in exotic fields
only the rocks are gray there,
gray because they deserve to be.

the whole scene is quite extraordinary
A Run Of Wild Horses! Gall-lop-ing
gliding offensively, red and white and gold
shining sweaty and flying!
can you imagine?

--it's starting to rain and the boy is still sitting,
he's so gray now I can hardly see him
the wind still spills in from the bay down the road
where I can see them running from my window-

Mains whipping like flags of furious change
Hooves beating down the cement footpaths
The streetlamps are crumpling into heaps of flowers
Tails raging back and forth, metronomous passion chords

Fast, rapid gaining (Lover's Heartbeat)
-the boy is yet unaware
legs of inspiration fast approaching
-the cars twist into red willows over golden hope fields
Shh! His father, master of gray has been sacked! Tr-am-pled!
Now his body of flowers lay in the street!

Arrest. They have arrested.

Standing tall and silent like Liberty
they take the boy upon their shoulders,
an acrobatic wonder
and continue slowly across the grass
-it still trembles for them
and take flight, to the next courtyard
and then the next.

I'll never forget the grayness of his eyes
as he disappeared over the trees
who were once chimneys,
his mouth was stuffed
full of flowers.

when that strange man in the park
asked me if love could cause physical pain
i told him that i fell in love with a smile
once
a smile that lassoed and squeezed my heart and lungs
until they were one boiling *****

a smile that buried into my back
pulled out the pink shy parts
i paid an expert to destroy
pink devils
i cried into my cousins shoulder on autumn benches
pink tears

i fell madly pinkly in love with a smile
plucked like a fish from dark winter water
admired
looked after
worthy of inspection
smiling breath on my scales and back
where the pink between them is apparent

then hurled back into winter water
where the day discharges slowly over the grass
in the courtyard.

i told that strange man in the park
my pink insides fizzle-pop like meat on
the summer sidewalk
when i imagine the smiling angler
making that next pull

admiring and smiling
cradling the back like a
pink chalice

That one thinks it's first catch.
As did I. Dark lip burn marks
On the pink.
Physical Pain.

Your holey         conscience is
waiting
for           you
                                in the shower.

Oh, marvelous maker of maps,
Do not deny
that you too are lost.

I was real quiet when
I closed
              that door.
You smile like bro-ken glass
and walk like the newspapers left on subway benches-
we've watched them        float
like dandelion seeds
while the train brought in its
catch of businessmen.
Do you remember?

I was real quiet, understand,
when I wept and you were sleeping
there beside me.

Do you know you talk in your sleep?
It's wonderful and terrifying-
you are screaming and crying
and reaching like a newborn,
and I want to save you.
I want to lift you
up and out
with my kisses
and my arms.

But I touch,
and you're wide awake.

You stare, and I stare,
and I want to tell you I love you,
and that I'll kiss you up and out,
but you've already closed
                                             that door.

Some days I'm afraid of
-the wall-

From the here-and-now
I can hear the music and
feel the rumblings of trees
shooting
up
beyond the brick
and running ivy.

I can hear the laughter of
friends and children and a lover
I have yet to love
fizzling through the cement cracks.
It's just a whisper when it reaches me,
but I want to know them
so badly.

Silhouettes in orange windows
of tall and beautiful buildings
dance, because they have time to dance,
and they know that dancing is important,
and I want to dance with them
so very badly.

I know I'm over there too,
leaning on that wall,
watching the sun
setting on something wonderful
while I sit
in this bivouac,
Here-and-Now.

He's leaning
and breathing,
and dreaming of the
sunset eclipsing wall,
and drinking in the light
like a fish,
and I want to know him
and dance with him
because I have time to dance.

I want him to remember me
so badly,
when he's leaning and smiling
and dancing in beautiful buildings
and loving, and being loved.

Some days I'm afraid of
-the wall-
but I know the sun is setting on something
beyond my view.

And even if the sun simply lingers for a few
moments more on
some empty vista,
I will smile and lean
and love every contour
with all of my being.

Eloïse wears too much makeup
And a bright red scarf
To the supermarket
Because she’s invisible.
She could feel herself
Melting away like a birthday candle.
With every new gray hair.
The colour of her lips and eyes
Drained out like oil
Into her blue veins
Which ran like maps of
Cities she’d traveled to
And loved within.

Eloïse wears too much makeup
And a bright red scarf
To the supermarket
But they still don’t see Her.

Pound, pound on the door
To my heart.
For I fear the swallowing stillness,
settling in like snow
On an old road.

Pound, pound until my veins,
Like dark mines, light up again
With orange bulbs-
And the voices of people I’ve been
Echo back
To my cavernous heart.
I will dance as the sound
Of their bickering
Beats. The walls. To life.

Pound, pound even when it seems
you are not welcome and only ghosts
Are listening.

Pound on that door
until your palms run red
And then listen,

While the echoes fade
And fall upon the rocks
Like Schroedinger’s cat,
dead and alive.
I will dance.
I will have danced.
Pound, pound
Pound, pound

I dream sometimes
that I'm drowning.
Foam and waves pulling
me closer, and at the same time
farther
from the sand.
You will never know
what that sand is to me,
Because you too are pushed
and pulled.
While your songbird spreads its golden wings
wide like the shore
and fades
just over the chasing horizon.

The wind still blows thru
The old Walden Wheel
Where we sat under that
Hole in the sky
And talked of flying
Far away and becoming
People.


The hinges still creak
Where the stars listened to our strictures
On love, life, and magic.
They would dance if we let them.
Speak even, when we could suffocate
those voices that insisted,
“Back straight,
banish your heart,
Balance it ALL."

Would you believe me
If I told you that
The wheel turns ‘round
still?

Would it disturb you to know
That it screams on without a
Master even now,
As you lay your children to bed?
As you lay your dreams to bed?
As you follow your lover to bed,
And dream of diving headlong off that
lonesome eye
into
the
black
Un-
known?
~
I was told the engine man
had been swallowed by the machine
Many years ago

The wind still blows through
That wretched wheel of ours.
Still ticking, whirring, counting,
Well after we are gone,
Well after the metals are scrapped
for timepieces and children's toys.

A cigarette
fell
on a gravestone once.
                                       Bursting
p o w d e r  like sand
over the names that
sunk into the stone:

Vessels         carrying memories
                      and dirt
to somewhere
that had burned away
long ago.

I'll tell you I was
there.
Waiting, cursing,
******* in smoke
as you too               embarked.

I will tell you the story of a girl who sold her soul to the world.
A girl who let the crows
love the heart from her chest,
who let the buzzards
walk with the skin from her feet,
who let the maggots
embrace the nape from her neck.

A girl who danced.
Who ******,
who lived without breathing
while the world watched
through screens smaller than her heart,
and loved the parts of her that still flushed
with the heat of her once beating heart.

I will die in this forest of gray.
Growling, craving,
gnawing on callused hearts for their heat.

Appendages clawing,
reaching to the point of breaking for the

soft floating seraphs

that hang in the sky
like slats of meat,
left for the beasts to salivate
and hunger for the meat of their own.

Parting the multi-coloured fragments of earthboundmist
was she;

shroud after shroud caressed her soft nameless face

before finally, trembling, she broke free.

Leaving me, bespeckled by the last free-floating globes of light

as she was taken behind the closed train door;

Alone amongst the travelers, wanderers, and the lost.

Blanketed in the glittering light of the morning, and set adream

amongst the weightless scent of petrichor.