Knee deep in swaying green grass
Moving like salsa dancers, tempo, tempo
Walking along old paved roads
Fragments of tejano from speeding, *****, trucks
Rushing towards me, receding into the distance
Step, step, one after another, clear blue sky
Shadows of barbed wire criss-cross, rusty, hooked, threads
Moon lingering in the sky, waiting for its turn
A swig of warm water, to wash the dust away
Spat onto burning pavement, dreaming of shade

Box fan chops up the light pouring
through my window.
Distorting birdsong as it rotates around
& around.
Your silhouette, casting a shadow on the carpet,
in my imagination.
Fresh strings on my guitar, standing in the corner,
unwinding, to be re-tuned.
Sitting on my bed, watching shadows run
their predictable course.
A cocoon rests on the sill, artificial framework, escaping
its organic shell.
Only to be trapped by the screen, never
saw a flower.
Just a pair of dried wings, crumbling
on the window sill.

Scribbles on a yellow notepad, this ink won't last
Letting sweat dry from a long walk, half way there
I didn't notice it on my first passing, or my second
Third time is the charm they say, don't they?
Now I sit in this scummy drainage ditch, writing
A tree, growing from a pile of waste concrete
Dumped carelessly by rough, tired, hands
Green leaves adorn it, this oddity, only a sapling
Like a flower on the peak of Mount Everest
Or an ice cube in the middle of the Gobi
This is not so grand, this urban contradiction
Some day it will be as tall as me, maybe taller
Stretching its limbs, eroding its base
Praising sun rays through photosynthesis
Pushing down roots through man made constructions
Reclaiming the soil from which all life springs & returns

Rains turned a blind eye, & the world dried to dust,
choked.
Then all the worms died, baking in cracked, rotten
soil.
When this is over, it'll be like we never really were in
the first place.
Just dirt, soon enough at least, when we find our place
among the worms.
No page will remember our names, who would care to
know them?
Another wave of life, pushed over the edge, into
the organic meat grinder, six feet under.
Do we keep breathing, this same breath, or do we
stop all together.
Do we walk on, or pause & listen to the
oceans crashing music.
Do we blink, or let our eyes dry, sitting behind
***** glass windows, watching it all cave in.
Endless streets, scattered faces, a million different
stories, untold.
I'd like to know the names of cavemen, to utter
them once again.
Just to say I didn't forget, just to pretend I
tried.
I saw your hand prints, outlines from smoke on
rocky walls.
I wish I knew your stories, your common words
& wisdom.
It's that way for every name through history,
recorded or otherwise.
If we took every misery suffered by man, and wrote a book,
would you read it?
Would you burn it?

Writing words in the low light, the night light
By gray illumination, pooling on my window sill
Casting a shadow on the carpet, though dimly
Faint traces of music, on the edge of hearing
Teasing my ears as they filter under the door
I'd like to hear it, to replay it once or twice
But I sit here writing in the low light, the night light
Outlining thoughts for no one to read
Wasting ink has become my night time obsession
Hoping for sleep, the insomniacs dream

A dreary September day, raindrops the size of quarters,
smacking into the windshield at 60 miles per hour.
Passing through this subdued city, a concrete jungle,
grown quiet in the tempest.
Gravel & broken glass tumble over flattened bottle caps
& cigarette butts, into the gutter.
A lone man in a white shirt & blue tie rushes for his car,
stomping through puddles, newspaper covering his bald head.
He must be thinking about getting out of the rain,
or getting back to his office, his tired cubicle life,
or how he's going to make it through another endless day.
Selling his soul & happiness for enough money to support
three kids, his wife & his mother, to put bread on the table.
To have a nice little house in a nice little suburb with a
nice little lawn, a tombstone, a paragraph in the obituaries.
Now we're crawling along the asphalt, the scene replaying itself,
a different story, but the same, always the same.
A figure strolling between dumpsters, looking for a dry spot,
a blur down an alleyway as we speed by.
If it wasn't raining, she'd be on the corner with a sign,
living on dollars a day, enough to buy a few beers &
forget about it all for a while, until the next day.
To many signs with "Veteran" or "I have children"
or simply "Help." To many people with signs.
Then you really begin to see them, crouching under balconies,
one or two at first, do you really even notice?
Just a nameless name, a faceless face among faces, a storyless
story, with so many stories to tell you.
Mismatched shoes, a shirt to small & to thin for this
ripping wind, this freezing, tearing wind.
Under overhangs in any dry place they can find,
a kingdom of soggy cardboard & pipe dreams.
But this is nothing compared to the overpasses,
every single one packed to the brim with the homeless,
escaping from the downpour, trying to find a place to sleep.
The night is coming and the rains still pouring, and the winds
still howling, and I have a warm bed to collapse on.
I have food in the pantry & food in my stomach, & clothes on
my back, & hope for tomorrow, such hope I have, such illusion.
I remember his face, as we sat at the red light,
waiting for the trivial green to wave us on our way.
Old enough to be my father, huddled in his blue poncho, slick
from the rain, shaking from the cold, waiting for the night.
Beard like tangled roots, hair gray as concrete,
just like concrete.
His eyes told of emptyness, of routine, clenching that
brown bag idly, watching the world pass by.
Another name that fell through the cracks, for no particular
reason, things piled up, what could you do?
No job would hire you, you were just a pink slip, then a
foreclosure, then it all went to ****.
Your eyes catch mine, for that brief second as we pull away,
& I finally see your sign, such beautiful handwriting:
"I am human."

***** beats, kids barefoot in the street
Running up & down across two yellow lines
In little parks with iron fences, dead grass
Surrounded by broken fences & empty houses
Rotting off their own foundations
Slowly the foundation crumbles,
after the frame is long gone.
Slowly the grass reclaims concrete,
transmutes into soil.
With roots as deep as oily puddles,
runoff after the downpour.
Waste your life in four cornered rooms
Contain your life in ceilings & floors
End your life under cheap sheets
There is a garden out back, full of weeds
Strangling out sunlight with noxious yellow flowers
I've turned over that soil so many times
But only weeds grow