oft on bus seated next,
every one of your senses
adjusting, modulating,
to her unpredictable
solar flaring

you don't ever risk
that first missing
           misstep,
your entirety is
sun bursted
        (un)/consumed
in unhappy joy of her
consuming presence

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you laugh
years later
re the topic of
your first shaky
foot in the mouth
a classic misstep
first bow shot,
opening one liner

and each storied retelling  
is nature!s
snow and rain
refilling
the love of your
groundwater table
welling up

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you love her scent
the silly hats she wears,
her short skirts arouse,
that last open button
a misstep invitation,
angry it incenses,
her every solitary everything is
incense,
pervading a daily
co-riding
passenger's
oxygen? starved soul

~~~~~~~~~

her umbrella is a wet
selfie stick
accidentally opening and dousing
an un random next door
seatmate

just another unlucky misstep for
someone sitting next store,
oil on the fire of
happily ever after

two selfies are last seen as
one
un selfishly
toweling each other off and
on
with wet kisses

~~~~~~~~~~~

you eavesdrop on her
earbud music,
weep internally you do with
crazed jealously

The Temptations
are so unfairly
singing to her
"Ain't to Proud to Beg"
and neither are you

you heart is misstepping
to every beat,
your fingers
thrumming,
you idiot, not quietly enough
humming
in the next seat

the first,
will not be
the last

smile exchanged

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

poem writing on the tablet,
amidst the groaning awful
no moving
city traffic

overheated bus
combustible with
winter snow dampness,
wet dog sweat smelling people clothes

all you want to do is get home
shower off
the daily dirt

the poetry writing pastime
is the place
where you put yourself
to better to pass over
your sour surroundings

her finger rattlesnakes,
misstepping over,
noisily invading,
the invisible boundary
constructed to hold up the
eye-averting
Keep Out sign
to momentary,
too neighborly
strangers

her red painted
pointer finger
smudge prints on your tablet,
accompanied with
bespoke words
"try this"

that smudge suggestion
won't come off

insisting on crediting
a shared authorship,
you ask for her
email and cell,
so you can share
her
forever

co jointed tangled
bus and bed sheet first efforts
on writing, all about
what you play~argue
what should your entitled poem
be titled

you think

endless short love story bus poems

but she prefers,
with red fingers persuading

the first misstep is the best

both see the merit
in each other

Into the thicket of brambles and thorns,
Where the weak hearted die, and the stronger mourn.
Tread softly my lamb for you know not what it poses,
The danger of stopping to breifly smell the roses.

The start maybe green and vibrant with life,
But the farther you go, so greatens the strife.
Tread softly my lamb for these thorns don’t abide,
To the laws of our God and great pain they hide.

Hold to the trail and center your path,
If you stray but one step you’re subject to wrath.
Tread softly my lamb for a slow wit entices,
The evil surrounding like simmering spices.

In the day travel and find shelter at night,
For the dark beings fester in the absence of light.
Tread softly my lamb and ignore all thier pleading,
For the shadow filled brambles can be very misleading.

Avoid other faces like the tell tail smoke,
None stay friends and hands will constrict as you choke.
Tread softly my lamb and be wary of vices,
For all will strike back with much higher prices.

I have trod on these trails and wisdom I earned,
But I’d have none if I hadn’t from misstepping learned.
Tread softly my lamb but do take some chances,
For with every mistake your knowledge enhances

Tomorrow is your birthday, her birthday, his birthday.
It's thinning this suit of reddened skin. Boy-nails are never
As sharp as they need to be. Toxins don't work fast enough either.
5:00a.m. stop for premium unleaded just outside of Big Sur. Once you were in the devil in a Jaguar, leather biker jacket and a crown of gold.
Mused to be. The insides of the stomach must have claw marks by now.
Panting, misstepping, riddled with whys and whens.

Time is critical, yellow or black nail polish; signature colors. May minutes be returned and reused where aching poison ails but does not deliver. Tomorrow is your birthday and maybe you'll allow for the cleaning of ***** from your hair and the body crooked, lingering over your night-terrors with cool and wet cloths.

This is some tremendous furnace of unrecoverable agony. There is no use chasing the wheat. Into a bunker or hurrying the footsteps into the sea. Ghosts of humans trawl the flesh entombed in permanent suffering. And the men and women glue themselves to its familiarity and melancholy.
So many great hopes were **** into one hand and ******* into a folded over pillow. We are too old to have Fraggles living in our ears.
May my chest explode before tomorrow unless you would unvex the curse who devours language and desire and all these hours.

~for you~*

~~~

when I put
twosome of twisted lips together,
long dragging one foot clubbed,
agony before the other,
but one hand obeys commands,
the other disdains, ignores,
one only eye-seeing, vision impaired,

and the body laughs at the notion of
paired coordinates

tongue disobeys desires,
limping thru life's everything,
thoughts locked down on pause,
mid-think is a cassette tape
in a seven-second delayed,
a fist cannot be unbroken, unwound

chorus of mockers,
herd of haters
rejoice in my diminution,
using my weakness for ammunition

for I am a stutterer,

just another you,

misstepping, fracturing,
the minutes of a life disastered,
suffered, sadly, no gladly hanging about

but I do not forsake hope

repair each word with the honor
of a slow enunciation distinguished,
ungainly shaped, yet soldier-motion forward,
in small poems and  with one hand holding

for I am armed with certainty

as I stutter thru living,
more than awaiting, comprehending,
you, you,
understand full well,
that we are all handicapped

salvation arrives when
a touching whisper heard in one solitary ear,
you sir, you, are not alone

for who among us dare deny
*we are all stutterers

You just couldn't do it,
And it was unfair of me to ask.
You were never invested
The way I was.
Your free spirit floated
Between relationships,
Swiftly sweeping in shadows,
Like it was haunting hour.
I was locked to you.
And you,
You were looking only to be free.

But still I wanted you.
At that point my body and mind had confused the feeling with need,
But as I was fed heavy doses of maturity
over the years
It was clear that need was not what I had felt
It was desire.

But to you I was latched
I clung to my idea of you
As if I was grasping the side of a sheer cliff.
Fearful that my next movement would take me away
From your face,
Your eyes,
Those lips,
That
Smile.

See it was never devotion I had asked of you.
But still my confused semblance of feelings was,
Hopelessly so.
And, you knew.
In fact, you used it to your advantage.
When you needed a shoulder.
You called me.
When you needed to talk.
You called me
When you needed
Anything
You called
Me.

And so, after you last disaster in love,
As we sat sipping on whatever red wine
You had yet to pour down your throat.
We laughed, and in between chuckles
You told me you,
"loved me"
and asked why there weren't,
"more guys like me."
Misstepping what I believed to be an opening,
I asked why we couldn't...
Why it wouldn't workout...
Between us.
Instantly sobering you.
A feat in itself.

Between stutters, you managed to make your point.
And through a fog of
I love you, but I'm not in love with yous
And the serrated haze of,
I just need you to be my friend right nows.
I knew.
I knew that I would never be unchained.
I knew that things had changed
I knew that I'd always be,
Second place.

Mud
The sort that slips between your toes
and fingers
that cakes your clothing
and leaves all things
unclean

Worms
that you dodge after a rainstorm
walking the whole way
on your toes
as to not crush them
but the sickening slick sound
of inevitably misstepping
and killing one anyway

Rain
that covers you from head to toe
that steals the heat of your body
and gives it to the unforgiving air
that rebirthing metaphor
that doesn’t seem to be working

Thunder
but in the distance
none of the power that threatens
none of the shaking terror
just a memory of something
lost