They build their gods by hand
on Frenchman Street -

cup by cup inside baroque bars
bearded by brine-iron galleries,

fronting veils of mourning-lace
over ruddy O-mouthed faces,

dotted with glitter-fizzed phone forms,
glass skins decanted into alleys

shoving light down cobbled brows
and back up the laddered spine of palms.

They fill their gods with song,
the hairy-starred sky a smoking mirror

that pushes the music back onto us
as we scroll night markets in slashes

of color and money, strangers dreaming
on each other, discharged from the dives.

They don't build their gods to last
on Frenchman Street -

every night is only walked the once -
dissolve your empires, let the words

plunge under the strange black lash
that drowns the eyes to sleep.

I made a list of the things I am afraid of.
On number three, I wrote a word, "Tomorrow".

Tomorrow comes second, first comes today.
Even light, which is the fastest thing we know of,
Cannot make it fast enough to skip today
and make it straight to tomorrow.

Tomorrow is clever.
Tomorrow is truly tricky.
Every today I live,
There's a new tomorrow waiting for me.
"Oh the agony."
"I don't know what the new tomorrow will bring for me."

Everybody's tomorrow's a different tale
And tomorrow shows up every day without fail.

A tomorrow's always there,
A tomorrow always comes,
Until it does not one day.
Maybe then I'd wished
That I'd lived today.

When the urge
to react to the
tactless clowns,
and
down looks like
up,
and life's teeth
are sharper than
a steak knife,
breathe,
and take a
sacred pause.

all these puny feelings
are so misleading
but i follow them
they lead me
someplace familiar
an old creek
the sound of silence,
crickets
and the singing lady
no ravens in the sky
still trees, eerie
the only things alive
in this landscape
are my ghosts plunging
into sea

tornadoes invite me
and i walk right in
nothing's been kinder to me

send to my home a killer
knocking on my door
with a letter and a knife
upfront
he will fall in love
and hide his knife
and give me the world

send to my home a lost man
roaming the woods
knocking on my tulip door
the fragrance is a trap
he prepares to fall in love
his eyes full of secrets
the most dangerous
of men

she crosses the line
black hair shining
like the raven's wing
alive like a bird in flight

eyes, soft, so complex

like a church's stain glass window

the sky above,
the sea below,

are not as blue.

and her seductive, smiling face,
lips blowing shadows,
courting lovers

a little risk involved,
a little madness necessary.

she'll steal your heart with passion
to set the night on fire,
spread the smoldering ashes across a page

and dance ballet while strumming
your heartstrings.

some jump into the fire,
and some are never free.

that flash of fire,
a savage love
as there ever was
burning through the canvass,

but when

she smiles...

my love, you wear silence like a coat
and i am left drifting like a far-out wave.
the wind tangles leaf and sky.
winter is barely noticed, the moon
is a ghost of forgotten flowers where
the night sings to the starry waters,
sings of our love. everything is sailing
like a ship in a bottle, a kaleidoscope  
of brightness, gothic hill and wildflower
ruin, flowing like a silvery stream.
do you dream of me? do you burn when
the night wraps you in her cloak and the moon
unwinds the waters of the seas?
do you dream of me?