into wordless work falls
one's soul—and I panic!
will I awaken God
in this quiet of years
that still deafens like a wall?
will I learn by His seventh word?
for you, by you
good fruit was raised
in our own garden
quiet and strong
gathered, rooted
in the golden summer air
whose breath told of hours, of days
of far richer poetry

trees die, however
like lovers and myself
speaking often of tears
yet never any face
giving over a once-nourished world
to hushed laughter
our world—spent—
we now groan
and meet the changes
with neither peace nor trust
just seasons
grasses and farewells
the wakes of ghosts exposed
by fertile reason

Sometimes you're my elder
and sometimes you're so young
Sometimes I think you're crazy
But I believe that you're the one
These are the very words I told you:
Sometimes it's difficult to feel sad
when I can feel you all around me
and see a future I never had

If I could paint a portrait
that could show you what I see
I really think you'd understand
more of yourself and more of me
But I just don't have the talent
not the colors, nor the eye
to paint you both inside and out
but how I'd love to try

So sing to me of all the things
you find it hard to tell
and stagger me with your written words
just when I'm sure I know you well
Trouble me with your unnamed fears
your thunderstorms and rain
and trust each other as we move together
through our growing pains

Tired clichés, filed away
Somebody saying, “I’m here for you”
In so many ways
that particular phrase is something
I’ve found has never really been true

You made it clear that you’d actually be here
if I ever decided to call for you
But drawing you near
would be my greatest fear for
I’d have a problem just asking you

To be devastatingly honest, I really don’t know
        if I’d ever be able to say
       “I need you here…  Please come”
That’s me, though, it’s not you…
        It’s me
        It’s not you

Inside me I know that you won’t let me go
reassuring and frightening simultaneously
But in spite of my glow
there’s still trouble below because
Help is a four-letter word to me
        Help is a four-letter word

Her scent kept the animals unsure
She imagined people living happily, ordinarily
utterly soaked in their usual, sober directions
masking traces that suffer a sort of revealed thrill:
A lean cat’s desire to embrace men’s secrets
in nice boxes, shaken innocence and sour blue haze,
warmth flooding those damnable death-oil pools
Yes, her scent kept all of the animals unsure

the wind at last has shifted 'round
from the north it comes rushing in
cutting deeply into my face and hands
sending shivers along the surface of my skin

the temperature here is dropping fast
snow and ice are beginning to fall
you can feel it well up inside your bones
cold enough to make me want to cry out:

I'm icebound
crystal forms beginning to mass
I tell you I'm icebound
waiting for the storms to pass
i need the warmth of seeing you again
to finally start
the beating of my heart

pavements encrusted in sheets of glass
the winter holds me like a vice
i have to watch my every step
my feet so cold they cannot feel the ice

seems as if my senses have all been dulled
snowflakes drift as they fill the sky
they don't even melt when they touch my skin
feeling so numb it makes me want to cry out:

I'm icebound
crystal forms beginning to mass
I tell you I'm icebound
waiting for the storms to pass
i need the warmth of seeing you again
to finally start
the beating of my heart

A country girl who likes to dream
and in her mind she’s going places
     she’s never been
and where it looks to me that she may
     never get the chance to be

A country girl who likes simple things
she’s trapped inside of a circle called
     a wedding ring
and so she reaches out to me
     if only in her fantasies

A country girl who just wants some security
that she knows she could never
     have with me
but still she reaches out to me
     if only in her fantasies

Because she’s the one that her family counts on
     She’s the one that everyone likes
And she must always remember who she is
     even when she’s dreaming of
     me at night

She could never tell anyone
that in the hours before the sunrise
     she dreamed of
     me at night

A country girl who’s waiting for the day
when she can finally spend some
     time with me
And although it may never be that way
I know she’ll be reaching
     out to me
If only for the moment and
     if only in her fantasies

I believed you lost your ability to hurt me
long ago

and I do like to think that remains true
even now


[but you still have the ability to cut me deeply
in so many unforeseen ways]

cocoons as windows
disguised as tea, disguised as silk
that protective solid, a one-way order
no outside touch

outside, morning
organs *****, larval, the sticky crevice
recalled from leafy fluids
making sin from sin

corroded sins
untouched, unwatched, remain concealed
remain in another forgotten cocoon
yet they still yield silk

another silk
of morning sweaters, coarctate, twig solid
offering cocoons of another casing
another skin, another order

resisting order, reminiscent
hard, evolving, exarate, growing teeth
to touch and tear at exoskeletons
another fluid appetite

cocoons and fluids
the remains of caterpillars and wings
every secret allowed, accumulating effort
and one-way mourning

morning as a window
mesh-like, yet opaque, and exquisitely final
morning: everything to the cocoon!
I facilitate my order

They saw Her brightest hour
blest of thy Humble King
and, thus, o'er Her, garlanded
marvels in that once-forgettable manger
blooming in the Holy Mother’s heart

Then the harpings in the manger
did smile unto the Lamb of Mary,
strangely heralding the night-tide
beneath a dome of heavenly stars, a sea of
quiet hours and Mary’s grateful prayer

Guide His noble crown, ward
of that Humble purple chaplet
O Speechless Child, wrapped so in
kingly prayers that never had Bethlehem
in nativity kept, nigh or afar

my spirit feels the power of wings
born as I shed the full cloak of my birth
humming a quiet little verse to myself—
come!—comfort me among these flowers

soft desires freed in this, our bed of grass
I scent the warm rising dough of your skin
I sense the sun heating the dew and wonder
when will this lover wet my skin with tears?

don’t hide from love — go outside and touch its face
don’t lock yourself — inside this raw and heartless place
and when you’ve healed — and all our blood has washed away
take your broken dreams outside — into the light of day

you love the light — yet darkness choked your soul
don’t dread the night — go walk your grievous, lonesome road
and when you’ve healed — and the scars all fade away
walk outside and feel — sunlight comforting your face

you’ll find someone — who’ll share your point of view
then you’ll walk far — along the lanes that we once knew
and when you’ve healed — the vicious pain kept finally at bay
you’ll feel our time dissolve — into the light of day

I learn so much just watching your fingers
       move along those strings
       so quickly, so gracefully
       from note to note
I try to follow while my clumsy hands
       struggle to keep pace
       from fret to fret
       I suffer, but you smile at me

Your shining nails will
flash along that violin
anticipation rises as I wait
for you to begin
Well, I might be in the wrong time
and I may be a measure behind
but I look for the confidence I find
       in your blue eyes

You give so much, I see it in the faces
       of those you have touched
       would it help you to know
       you've also been touching me?
So play your songs, those simple melodies
       late here in the afternoon
       can't you see just what it is
       you do for me?

Your shining nails will
flash along that violin
anticipation rises as I wait
for you to begin
Well, I might be in the wrong time
and I may be a measure behind
still I look for the confidence I find
       in your blue eyes

What are you trying to tell me?
     Can’t you hear what I’m trying to say?
Do you sometimes wonder if we know?
I’ve learned that some of our questions
           unspoken or not
           may never have really been heard
           never really have been heard

They may seem lost
     They may yet be found
behind your soul’s locked doors
Sometimes they return when
           you and I least expect them
           in some written or spoken word
           in a written or a spoken word

Someday I may awaken
     to find you’ve up and gone
and I’ll probably claim to not know why
But you’ll have explained it all to me
           perhaps not in so many words
           and I just won’t have wanted to hear
           No, I wouldn’t want to hear

I want to understand
     the meaning of all of those things
you’re so desperately trying to tell
And I’m learning to listen, though
           with my heart and with my soul
           for what I never hear with my ears
           I’ll never hear them with my ears

There’s a certain level of comfort
     and always a measure of surprise
to be found amid our verses and our lines
And from within your silent armor
           behind the truth, within the lies
           I know it will all be there for us
           in your own time

     I know it will all be there for us
           in your own time

Frightened and confused
perhaps happily alive

Hell has a history written by the author
of this awful game

And while poetry laughs at our troubles
it tries to understand

I'm just a ruddy human, God
****, ******, **** it

****!

Isn't it funny
how the more I need you
the more you drift away?

You'll feel so hurt
when I do end up
getting along anyway

Isn't that funny?

I tried a calculator
to determine just how many
times I've thought of you
over these neglected years

After a few hours it just
laughed at me: ERROR
I had to laugh as well
The ****** thing was right

It seems to me we lived a dream
and like any dream, I feared we would awake
I wonder if we ever would have learned to love
if only we’d known just what we had at stake

It seems to me we had it all
and foolishly we let it slip away
but there’s never any guarantee that love,
when it appears, is ever really here to stay

     Sometimes I hear you in the distance crying
     —howling and calling out my name
     and with such a raging storm upon your lips
     I wonder if they’re tears
     or is it rain?

     Lord, let it wash away these memories
     no matter if they’re tears
     or if it’s rain

It seems to me I always find
your beauty rests securely in my mind
and the love we shared still clings to me
and memories we tried to leave behind

It seems to me that we might find
our paths may cross somewhere down the line
When your eyes meet mine will I still see
feelings that still linger after all this time?

     Sometimes I hear you in the distance crying
     —howling and calling out my name
     and with such a raging storm upon your lips
     I wonder if they’re tears
     or is it rain?

     Lord, let it wash away these memories
     no matter if they’re tears
     or if it’s rain

an eagle flying
weaving circles in the sky
birds in the trees
begin to whisper words of spring
highway signs
broken white and yellow lines
as I drive, I start to realize
how close I am to
seeing you again

winter’s gone
the snow and ice have melted now
I left my world
beside you in the fall
but now the sky is clear
and I can feel you drawing near
and those long, cold
empty winter days
have finally gone

greening grass
standing cattle on the hillsides
sunshine through old
busted slats of weathered gray
and as I pass by
I imagine the look I’ll see in your eyes
a look that says the
dark days are gone and
all the clouds have
blown away

turnpike tolls
and passing lanes
stand between me
and a warmer time
melting snows and
the birds return again
just a little further
down this highway line

when we began, we had no secrets
and we devoured each other's honesty
like milk, like honey

now we are weaned and we hunger for
any truth among the muddle of secrets
kept from each other's mouths

rarely ever straying, mired in those mourning hours
trying to recover tired shadows of how it once began
counting all of those buried nights in a flat red voice

our distances are littered with blood and bone, dear
still you, by pieces and joints, strive to mend this battered love
listen, old friend, to the graying silt of bloodless waters

heart, lips, hands all once breathed, emerging slowly
no wiser now, you blindly dredge the impermeable darkness
for promptly repeated pasts, not unspoiled beginnings

I'll never lose the gift you gave to me
a life that makes living worthwhile
and though it hurts me to know
I somehow let you down
the memory of you still makes me smile
Oh, it hurts—
but I manage a smile

Unfolding your letters to silently read
of the easy and hard times we knew
sometimes they can make me
believe that I could cry
although that's something I no longer do
Oh, it hurts—
but I can't cry for you

At night here by the lake
you know I find my peace
on this bench by the water's dark edge
and lately I've had time
to finally realize
that losing a lover never hurt
like losing a friend

at times, my heart asks
why can one hate so many?
and who made this rule
that we may love only one?

hearts filled with love
are a rightly worthwhile goal
but actually: love only one,
fall in love with just one

to love more than one's
worse than not loving at all
hate whom you will, dear
but fall in love with just one

trying the poets’ existence
the dimension of beloved fools
carried away from wrong
carried away from reality

worshiping those same sins
with confused imaginations
like lovers again themselves
to be forgiven as the lot

she suddenly died last night
her clothes are still there
her purse
her toiletries
all her things left upstairs
those the things that make a home
fixed in my memory

she suddenly died last night
nothing reminds me more
our dreams
our experiences
all those unsettled times
maybe she should have left a note
or one more memory

I can’t promise you anything better
No, my concern toward old roles,
negative behaviors, is now leaving
My positive emotions are merging,
striving, changing—an act of will
I've withdrawn at last
                                                        Trul­y complete
               Deserving, needing, just one unbroken
            person—one realizing hostile situations,
            writing journals with different messages
          How sorry to know that everything I had
     relied on all of my acutely unhappy changes
         Now: Engage anything, but need nothing!

*******, myself
I choose ******* myself
many small ******* to keep
that feeling of something engorged
always for myself

seminal pleasures gained
in each pocket used, spectral, every turn
touch memories and pieces of feelings
without destroying me, or
seemingly so

*******.
I think I still ache simply because
I'm always keeping someone, myself
in every other pocket, every outlet
fed with blue contrivance

precious kisses
hungry kisses aching for someone
to touch this last torn and weary pocket, trying
the warmth of my skin, something so easy
soothing the cool segments inside

someone asking for art
studying art, feeling art, then doing art
wanting, choosing, and finally clutching
this one last small myth
of who I am

mock the jealous night
and show me new joys
bind this truth together with me
you know faith far better, my sweet love,
than I, this blessed slave possessed

so calm my fiery heart
and feed my lips your scent
while the evening plays its tepid song—
hold me trembling against this ancient darkness
even as you devise your inexorable pursuit

she'll carry morning’s fading enemies:
a spiritual ruin and swallowed despair

blinding violent piercing stolen sea fires
one's vain movements—sacred, soothing

tortured poets watch cancer drifting past
gently stalking the pink dog-kiss of roses

radio band remorse is hiding stale lessons
gathering inside softly-colored Jesus static

my heart’s comfort has not been recaptured
but, not dead to feelings anymore, I’m waiting

always seeking fleeting holes in hard places
and sleeping without much space to dream

I have suppressed; sometimes I have wept
because I’m always too uncomfortable to forget

my instincts realized you
my movements craved hours
because time, more than pleasure
intertwined with you, your rapture
feeding on my desire
my delight

duvets imprisoned us
dreaming then: sweaty, satisfied
glad you slaughtered me, not the bed
how else to see the situation?
never bothering to
stand all night

accentuated pleasure; wishing
never to awaken, never to exist
you drowned me and dominated me
left me all square from my body
increasingly vulnerable, alone
as free as sleep

lost ardor, long hidden beneath these initial wastes
pinpointing the mines and matters, estimations and worth
your excavation operating on the surface of my bereavement
without any evaluation of its dolorous costs or the extent
of these ductile veins, rivers through our subterranean natures
your shadow requirements, eroded and befouled

now, neither my eyes nor I much love your dark
epicardial secrets, projecting deposits of debris, the chloride fragrance
of our secrets, hidden fires underground; your love, all and away
digging, mining proposed new lovers out of us both; gravels and
pain and gas; ferrous exploration; uranium reclamation anew via
caustic layers of ore and deposits of once-flowing love

alloys of dead flowers and waste form my rocks
seething into scabrous life like bantling cacti after a lover has risen
such risks always require a proportion of love be livid, recoverable;
threads of passion dissolved in the complexities of the body
grains of unconsolidated minerals evoking love and potash
yes, secret metallurgists like you pose acidic dangers
to my soft endocardial things

I wish I understood what's going on

[no reply]

I wish I understood the meaning behind what you write

[no reply]

I wish I understood what you're not writing

[no reply]

I wish... never mind

now I get it

Assertiveness: standing up
for your own rights;
Don't infringe upon or ignore
anyone else's rights, though

It is not aggressiveness

Start with an "I" statement;
It should be descriptive, not
evaluative or condemnatory

interact verbally
conceive ideas together
learn to work in a group setting
learn to verbalize their own ideas
respect the contributions of others
discover creative relationships
among ideas

Definitely a trouble spot
I don't usually mind sharing myself
     with others, but it is mostly in a
     superficial way

I can't say I've tried all that hard
     to improve my ability at it

I think most of my problem is
     lack of trust in most people
     I communicate with

Self-disclosure isn't easy, even
     with people I trust, but it's not
     quite as bad

Needless to say, there's a lot of room
    for improvement

Usually I see
     light spilling out from beneath the closed door
Usually I hear
     your breath whispering across the panes of glass
Usually I feel
     your touch even if it's just in my dearest dreams
But this time
     but this time

nothing
     nothing at all

Tuesday wanders
misunderstood
its only tangible virtue:
It isn’t Monday

inevitable frost patterns
encircle our moments

infinitely falling mirrors
that quietly sparkle

send icy messages of
wind and eternal regret

yesterday’s hungry smiles
carry divine ripened comfort
perfect lines—always—perfect
where those familiar sounds
merely whisper

draw locks onto memories
embrace soft autumn-worn help
racing then beside bruise-sore dawns
seen in everlasting looking-glasses
a chance to cry

the same daydreams pass
and sleepy overlooked hearts
ebb among overly scabrous breezes
borrowed labors lost
bitterly calling

unlit golden trees
rent, fallen away from warmth
shaped by these crimson hungers
lifting our fine new hearts
and rising desires

Boredom sits
heavily on our
heads.  I've never
seen so many blank
faces in my life.
He goes on and on
and on and on,
gesticulating,
describing, hopping
from one example
to the next:
"I died in a
complex society!"

they really aren't pieces of any one quilt
regarding one person, say, quite content,
easily content, actually and entirely sure
that certain novel thoughts might be
the diverse scraps of one of us—
perhaps they can comprise us yet

comprehend the larger totality, dear
little value lies in discrete images seen
in a lambent world, contriving to enlarge you,
please you, as if that would interest anyone—
well, there might still be a few—in a strange art
borne far too long, too much of it in pieces

where are your words
where are your words
where are your words now
poet?

You’ve placed these boxes carefully
   almost ruthlessly in my path
Must I sidestep them?
   Simply tear into them?
Or draw myself a heavy breath, pause
   and rest here among them?
Are they just packages full of our long ago
   or perhaps flush with a future?

I hedge, contemplating—
a sweating sky appeared to will us on
heating our loyalty, ensuring friendship
after my departure, remembering
our effort, given dearly
pruning

in the future, plant the dead
there; plant passed sections of
time, and the complications that came
of any blend of love in which I fell
wondering, myself, deeply
pruning

toiling without reluctance
once envelopes saw to my habit
cold days, old fears, and limp problems
all the mistakes of upcoming years
have hastened this day
pruning

drifting issues, written away
the fitting demise of a period spent
waiting angrily earnestly suddenly guiltily;
summers, memories from a younger start,
some still halfway in sunshine
pruning

consider, therefore, this case
something finished: the perfect mistake
feeling like the wind swept in unashamed
entangled relationships, waiting afresh;
however, I hedge, suddenly
pruning

we once shared potential
now shameful, disgusted, belittled
we slept together in prisons of
what we tend to avoid:
memory

traumatized adult children
now sleeping, eating, cleansing
facing the prospect of time
unashamedly scavenging
emptiness