I have a girl now
she is
beautiful, really
she's smart and she
laughs
and she calls all my bluffs

I have her now
she has me too
so it's fair
if you ask her or me

I have a girl now
and I smile because well
I'm  happy
she says
she's happy too

I have my girl
and I've lost my girl
though I have her now
so I smile

At night, only sometimes,
and maybe I'm drunk
I look for her
for my girl

but I'm drunk
so I smile
and smile
and I smile
and grin ear to ear
and smile
(so I think)
as I smile
and grit all my teeth
and grin all the while

He noticed a scorpion on her cheek
crawling up into her hair
She didn't seem to feel it there
and kept speaking, so he sat still
and listened

When she was finished the creature
stopped above her ear
its tail curled in the air
He reached to her and brushed it off
with a silent whisper

Mighty,
she thinks, sizing up the
sheer rock face
gazing back at her

all the world falls away
dismembered
reality sorting itself
into its peculiarities

scaling heights
with undue levity
she ascends
at no light price

peaking into secrets,
locking eyes
with eternity

He ratchets a smile
she sins in her heart
and he pallets a romance
she fearfully starts

He catches her breath
in a bottle of time
and melds her aroma
to shards of his mind

She sketches a portrait
betrayed by the dawn
and illuminates fantasies
kept all along

He pallets a romance
she smothers it slow
and he shatters the bottle
that she overflows

I saw a man crying,
so I asked him why
He looked up, and
told me he was
the happiest he had
ever been
"So they're tears of joy?"
"No." He said
that when he realized
it was the happiest
moment of his life, it made him
sadder than he had
ever been, to know that he would
never be as happy as he was now

The ivory poacher stalks his prey
each day he walks the silent plains
a gun slung high upon his arm
no warmth within his gaze

Elephants nor rhinos sought
but two or one extensions of
an ivory tower painted red a
bullseye meaning meant for dead

The ivory poacher sights his barrel
warily delivers narrow
slivers of a weathered corpse
thundering down to the earth

an ivory tower in his hand
or two if it's an elephant
a clean pristine white he holds high
and on his soul a red bullseye

When I was little and the
bushes were a forest for my thoughts
I spoke with them of birds and flowers
hours in their company

On summer days the waves ashore
assured me of the tides of men
and we discussed the flowing sand
the beach an ageless hourglass

Now when I walk through groves of trees
along the banks of mountain streams
I see beyond the plains of youth
but I hear nothing of the sea

The mountain swells from the ground
like a tsunami
She lilts up it's slopes as
a deer streaks past,
I stop to watch but immediately
my love calls me
"Higher," she beckons

The trees thin out
in the asthmatic air
from here the earth blooms
forever to the lip
of the sky, where
the wind whispers Fate
I stop to listen
"Higher," she beckons

The air turns to ice
I can just see her face through the howling snow
giant boulders emerge from the storm
monolithic faces
their eye's alight with Prometheus
and from their mouths
I hear Pandora's consequence,
but there is no time
"Higher," croons my angel
and disappears in the flurry

"Higher," her disembodied voice echoes
but I'm at the summit
The wind whips my face
the Moai groan at my feet
Pandora murmurs away

"Higher, higher, higher,"
chants my love
But I am at the summit
the valley looming below like a dare

Fate screams Her secrets,
begging my ear
but she urges me on
"Higher, higher, higher!"
so I jump

No one can say what it was like (when
we fell in love) before the universe

After the big bang, they say, it inflated
faster than anything ever has

Faster than light

Space ballooned by wild orders of
magnitude, precipitating existence
(your rose petal lips)

It only happened once, this inflation,
then the universe hit its stride

Only once, (when we touch)
but that was all it took for the stars to shine

the wind Murmurs
she Whispers helpful hints
to butterflies and leaves

she Insists
sometimes for naked trees

Flows the fields delicately
into one rippling organism
pulsing in time
with the silence

she never yells or gets
angry
just too Enthusiastic

I would like to be the wind
that blows through bamboo forests
(my lovely) and whips up storms
I would like to be that wind blowing
through bamboo and make
the forest sigh

On crisp April mornings, the wind
that carries the scent of spring
(my sweet one)
I would like to be the wind
that blows through bamboo forests

rushing through your soul (my
lovely) as we open the year

Thirteen moons
rise from your shoulders
eclipsing our eyes
before they wane

silver-blue mist
falls with the sun
setting slow
setting red
spilling its blood

Thirteen full moons
wax round your face
framing our secret
eclipsing fear

Prying
solace out from
the night
Thirteen moons
circle infinity

Candle on the river Lethe
lead on to the untamed plains
where man will be refracted
in the spectrum of
infinity

forgotten in the rainbowed
folds of alternatively
real light

the bow
its name life
its work death
works unsung
if we unforget

Water in the ocean deep
pulled up from darkened depths
to the surface, out of sleep
warmed by sunlight once again

In the air into a cloud,
by wind blown to the eastern shore
not the first time it's allowed
to take to flight and steady soar

Back to the earth to furnish life
and slake its thirst for this day's rain
life's a stream of consciousness
that westward flows to the ocean

Setting suns each twilight brings
echo death knells, thunder rings

Oh no...
oh no, no, no.

Yes...

Yes!

"Yes."

"Your eyes,
oh your eyes"
He croons
She smiles
"The pout of your lips
such seductive beguile
Your laugh,
its joy!"
He tingles her pride
"Your lofty ambitions,
so much to admire"
"Say more,"
she leans forward

"Your eyes,
oh your eyes"
He offers
She stares
"Your porcelain face,
your alluring air
Your laugh,
its charm!"
She purses her lips

"Your eyes,
your eyes?"
He murmurs
They glare
"Your soft, rosy lips,
your silken hair."
She turns to leave

"Your eyes,
your eyes"
He repeats quietly

Your heart is my home
it holds me up
from the mud
(when it holds me)
and down to earth

When I hold you,
you float my heart
(you hold it then
when you smile)
out to orbit yours
there in infinity

The smoky smell of autumn leaves
settles inside my mind,
like a rose petal
fossilizing inside a mountain

In wintertime snowfall
blankets the blemishes

In springtime rosebuds
seed the air with hope

By summer the air
is pregnant with passion

But I fall more in love
with each autumn day,
her palette of colors
coalescing to your hazel eyes