I’ll have you know that this started out
as a love poem
but then I got lazy
and distracted when the dog started biting my leg
and I decided that this process wasn’t
worth it all together
and went outside for a smoke

that’s when I tried to call you
but you didn’t answer
I guess it’s Valentine’s Day
and you’re probably
with some other guy who’s more
sensitive than me
but can he smoke as **** as me?
or cough as loud?
or breathe as heavy?
well probably ******* not
and maybe that’s a good thing
that he’s healthy
and doesn’t smell like the inside of a Texas Roadhouse
before they decided that smoking killed everyone
and no one could do it there
no
not even the good looking people

you always said I was good looking
well
above average
and I cooked good too
and that one Valentine’s Day you said
If you asked me to marry you right now, I’d say yes
that was after I killed the bat in the attic
bought you a bouquet of bleeding hearts and
brought home the puppy
since then
my typewriter has busted
and you have left
P.S.
I still have the dog and
I renamed him Juniper
because that’s what happens when you’re
drunk
and sad
and alone

but now I’m happy
smoking a cigarette
listening to my neighbor’s massive wind chime
conk and sway in the crosswind
and I feel as alive as ever
knowing that you’re
wiping off that red lipstick with a poem I wrote you
because your date just got done
and he’s not sleeping over
and you’re just about to
walk to the back patio
and smoke a cigarette
because you want to die
just as bad as I do

this is where you
own our love
purse your lips and
twist mine
because I am the one who has
to sleep without
you no compromise
you said
as I ran my feet
over
the smooth 12,000
threads but no
body

even the patter of the
rain can’t soothe
it hits my face
in horizontal
crosswind and I sit in
that same fold out
chair on the porch
looking out across the park
at the children playing
in puddles

now when I think of
your highlighted jaw line
I am truly gaping at
the mirror that shiny
shiny reflection where my
eyes pop blue
and I’m magnetized at
your breathy yawn

what’s in your head?
what caused this
boiling
this cream that
settled on my coffee?
actually
already
easily
I am forgetting
interestingly
intriguingly
amazingly
you still taste sweet
when I blast music
in my car and then I hear
myself uttering
*thank you.

Fickle Silver Maples lie forlorn in the -
stillness of Noon , melancholy belles that change -
their sullen tune by the belated , crosswind steamy Georgia afternoon
Dandelion sprinkled prairie of home , bordered in thick , red clay
trenches , kudzu covered period homesteads , Spring peach
and pecan orchards drenched in wild , unabated orchid and coneflower
Sweetgum cones rattle in nightfalls cooling breeze without respite , riverstone retaining walls , whitewashed barns and gravel drives , Bantam hens perch Live Oak branches along flint , cobblestone pathways

You're the crosswind that causes droplets to fall from the leaves;
A canopy of green, the mirage of a pale-green summer storm.

You're the steel stringed guitar you so skillfully strum;
Raspy and warm, inevitably, you'll pull me under.

You're the snow drifting off of the lake;
Iced and stony, but nevertheless, fleeting.

and all these gods are in one place
conspiring and -
all your efforts are misplaced
whining like an -
off-key note in a seraphic choir
lamenting a -
weekend's bitter aftertaste.

here's a thing you can't avoid:
a war of worlds on a bedroom floor
the house is kept unlocked at night
and a crosswind billows through the door.

...and all his questions are ignored
he chipped his teeth cause he was bored.

we wrote missives to a shallow grave
dug with musicals we rearranged
to fit the arc we fashioned here
as we waltzed atop the sinking pier.

...I am prone to switching off
So I will never turn you on.

(In commemoration of August 9, 1945)

The tree will follow Hiroshima
and Nagasaki* winds by its hearts.
“Yes” if
winds wade up and down
“No” if
winds whip across and crosswind.
The tree’s will is in the leaves…
All leaves are hearts by having
ventricles and atriums in their own ways---
even in the cactus and pines---
just watch carefully and listen astutely
to their bristly rustling…
All
leaves sway, sigh, and sometimes, sing
because they are the tree’s hearts:
open to sunshine and rain pour; blight and moonlight----
the true meaning of love!
Here, my love, I’m just a servant of
your branches, bark, and most of all
your lovely and deep roots.



*Nagasaki was the center of Japanese Catholicism by early Jesuit missions

a narrow tusk of crosswind grazing my cheekbones
as i lean into the teeth of a comet... wincing and turbulent
but still a boy. tossing moonbeams to a catcher's mitt
and all the while bewildered at the sum delirium
of Life's yes.

embroiled in the kingdom of the smallest things...
i trundle from my Kismet like a drunken crow.
i skip the stones for breadcrumbs on a perpetual wave
of vanishing points.

And fall in love because, because... because.

No investment.
No skin off my nose.
- went back to Fool's day
- and then back to all in, free

No loss in time's eternity,
ended in the awesome knowing.

All trials in the ready past, ordo,

Seclorum Sanctorum Ordo, aside

ordinarily free visitor alien status,
-not allowed, they say, my status
holding no sway,
as a free spirit, they
no say, in the way things work here,
-crosswind to all good fortune

now was set to be long
before me, or thee,
verily
very mankindish, we may make do
imaginable causal agencies,
amen-emo-pet insurance
points in prepositioned order,
as we meander after looking out
past the creation of the sun,

some say, and may know, but we,
the common sensors on the planet,
amused and amusing others as well,

we are finishing a projected imagination,
the rites of spring, proposed as worthy
of our Fantasia evolution from Fool's Day,
through several saints days and processions,

all about the passions,
all appointed anointed salves
slick as any Bucky ball solutions
to the smooth, slave mind fear, hell,

set the captives free, break every yoke,
find the shibboleths and laugh at those,

not the accents ya'll'll use to abuse,
the speaker who stumbles …
tongue tied
while quoting Cretan poets.

justice exists in the world
it just can't be everywhere
for everyone
all of the time
but stay sweet my dear
keep a smile on your face
ignore the crosswind
deny the warning signs
there is no good and bad
only people doing
the best they can
with that they have
and despite your
reminders of all i lack
you'll neither find in him
so why can't you love me back?
memories of you are
like being stung by a dead bee
buried dreams and visions
and all that you meant to me
hope is a waking nightmare
just like that bee, long dead
i prefer the surrender in sleep
til i awake, your last whispers
running through my head

Waist deep I find myself submerged in snow.
The feeling cut off at the base of my knees,
It seems I've lost all control.
The cold burns my eyes and when I close them I see the faint outline of your profile.
It drowns out the roaring winds submerging my existence, this waltz I've chosen to reconcile.
Those watching over me know I've buried myself here,
And there's a gleam off in the distance letting me know that they're near.
Accompanied by a shrill echo of an introduction ,
As I fixate on this image behind my eyes.
Repercussion
A whisper near my shoulder says to "Let it be",
But the hum against the nape of my neck rhythms "Wait, there's something left to see".
While recollecting how the warmth of your breath feels against my lower spine,
I admit with tears freezing to my face, this has been my foregoing decline.
With every beat my heart slows as calm as a dying breeze
After that last crosswind , my final decision to set you free

And she jumped
She jumped out of her comfortable, plush launching pad
And she tried
She tried to set every fan to crosswind towards
And she hoped
She hoped that, when she jumped, her cape would carry her
And she fell
She fell onto the shagged carpet, on her hands and knees
And she did
She did all of this, yet she moved on to more fun
And she went
She went on to ride her bike, more confident in her peddling, than jumping
And she knew
She knew that the ground was much safer