Growing

The time, always passing

Has left its touch

Upon our hearts.

We feel it in the

Way we tighten our lips

Turn our faces

Avert our eyes

It shows in the coldnesses

Our small and counted slights

Returned, unfailingly

In equally nonchalant ferocity.


Today, let's choose to cleanse this grime

Gently from our spirits

To remember the smooth current

Of companionship

Of camaraderie

Of friendship

And together, let us row this boat home.

Snow Days

I love mornings like this.
Mornings where the line
between
Snow and sky become hazy.
When I feel as though I am driving in
the only corridor
To reality.
Mornings where anything seems possible;
all lines, angles, potentials.
Mornings which fall around me
like your breath
And the promise of day.

Tourists

You know things had to change.
It had been time and gone,
And we both knew something left
This last time of all times.
We locked eyes and

Embarrassed, continued to roam around
As though the truth hadn’t just slapped us each
And told us that we should have listened:
To the hours as they hissed by;
In the driving, in the fuelling of the car
In the short walks and shorter kisses when
No one else could see;
To the progression of our lives, separate and disorderly.
We clung to each other far past reason,

Pretending not to notice when fingers
Clasped just a little less snugly than before
Finally slipped away completely
Not noticing the cold of aloneness
Because we were really ,all along,
Just visiting lives.

Mariner

I do not recall just when
You began again
To swim within my veins
Your fingers resumed clasping mine
During half known dreams

At what time did you and I
Start knotting into we
So cunningly the threads entwined
All, I confess, unseen.

How can we be so far apart
And yet I taste your skin
Your soul must be a mariners
Sweet without and salt within

Here we are my darling one
Again returning to this sea
Lets use this net which we've made
To forever catch eternity

Cinnamon

My mother tells me that I should take some cinnamon
and put it into my morning oatmeal.

Only a quarter teaspoon is enough,
she claims

To make my cholesterol go down.

Even though I don’t have high cholesterol
Even though there’s nothing wrong with me

I stir the cinnamon into the milk
which makes the oatmeal a tolerable temperature.

I guess this is what love tastes like.

Side Show

The worst of the roadside attractions
Was the one we found accidentally;
Where orchard workers like zombies
Stared from grayed picnic tables
As though we had fresh brains
Tucked somewhere in the car.

Walking into the apple barn was strange
An experiment in the limits of our mouths
As, upon hearing our salesmen talk fruit;
Flies drifting lazily around his reedy tones
Smirks were poorly contained
And giggles pushed on the backs of our throats.

We could have killed that creepy dog,
Which rested, a breathing cliché,
Under a rusty truck in the late summer heat.
With the adrenaline throwing dust
Behind us as we left, and, after
Looking in the back seat surreptitiously,
We ate those soft tart red apples
The whole way home.

Wait

When it seems that spring

will never come again

and trees stand fallen
with leaves unable to wake

Wait.

And wait again
Until it seems your heart

will burst with solitude
And, lonely, feel twice the joy
When flowers burst
full-blossomed
from what you thought
had
gone.

Heart

I saw this one floating
a long time before I recognized it.
It resembled driftwood
long, spiny, and torturously curled
towards the center of the river
On that shoal to the left, the one with the big rock
where I had never seen one before.

That might have been part of it, too,
come to think of it.
Because I just didn't expect to see it there,
in the middle of things, and interfering with all of them
by resting along that shallow spot.

I grabbed my hook and prepared to draw it to the bank
This compelling piece of driftwood
Which, I idly thought while pulling, would look nice
Cleaned up, denuded of seaweed and the relentless razor clams

Which had attached themselves with
biology's reckless determination,
and placed in my garden, possibly where I had taken to
meditating of late, where the new Buddha sat with me.

This was my place, I thought, my vein, my water.

And I couldn't allow it to be disturbed by something like this
piece of driftwood, coral-white and large enough to catch

all the debris of a crazy-wet spring, and hold it
deep within its convoluted prongs.

And so I dragged it in and
recognized you.

Planted

I lay on the grass when I'm at a park
Generally shunning shoddy benches
Which wait, shivering in their bright green paint,
On concrete slabs, within their rain-free prisons
For someone else to love them.
I don't care what I'm laying upon
Or how long ago the dogs have passed by.

What unearthly smells
May be clinging to the back of my shirt
Upon rising are the least of my concerns.
What matters is the touch of green
Tickling the back of my neck
And the sun warming my innards
Like a good grilled cheese sandwich
In these languid late summer days.

Plans

When I am older than this still
And skin folds traitorously upon itself
The mirror doesn't hold the me that I recall
Will I mourn for what I didn't use
When I could have?

Neither the firm flesh nor the springy step
Neither lustrous hair nor sparkling eyes
But the chance to live free, to love deep
The chance to truly change - forgive?
To celebrate, dance, help, learn, teach
And before I die - to live?

Twilight

How different you and I became
After that leaden night, with those heavy words
which lay on the ground, jagged like pewtered stone
But we could not see.

How there lay the swords, spoken, but wrong,
Broken, mirroring how the truth, silvered
Was twisted, tarnished, tortured, by each of us.
But we would not see.

I realized, long after we had parted,
After shrapnel grey had bitten our feet as we walked
Away, to the opposite ends of this steely moon
That we both still bleed in Technicolor

Cold Fire

There is
In all the world
Nothing quite like you
And for that I am completely grateful;
For only a star could be
So remote, yet
Burn me.

Holy Night

angels polluted this place
hanging nacreously close to every turned head
each batted eye battered by luminous feathers
stricken senseless with immutable bliss
leaving traces on faces
glimmering opalescent as moth wing powder
as eyes go slack and wide
opening to the light of truth
as though salvation were hidden there
in the gaudy twinkling of stars on strings
in the hum of lightning coursing in tidy cables
in the oohs and aahs of parcels and packages
burning a heady path to the soul
while seraphim ground out their cigarettes
stamping feet and warming hands
at these all too infrequent fires.

Silver Wear

tarnished spoon
sitting in my cup
stirring me
to think of you and I
together in that
great big bed.
it was almost before
sleeping
when your arm curled
around me just so
and I nestled under you
as moss beneath ferns
soft and wet
and blind.

Trail

The hell with love
The hell with lust
Stumbling on
This road to dust

There is no truth
There is no trust
Walking alone
But end it must

Life leads on
Unkind, unjust
And today’s steel
Tomorrow’s rust.

But trudge along
We can, we must
The battle’s unwon
Til the final thrust.

The Way Home

Driving home
Snow so thick
There was nothing to see

No highway, no street signs

All there was: blurred by wind;
Doubled up in the reflections
Found

In flakes mirror white
Blinding

There comes a point
When driving through

Flakes mirror white,
Flying

You believe for a half-held breath

In all the tales you giggled about
With the wisdom of youth
Where there is nothing to fear,
Nothing to be

All that remains is to take a deep breath

And trust the path is there.

Estrus

In our wants we’re simple
The best of everything
In desire, simple too
Wanton, ravaging

Within these base desires
We have ravenously made
Heat within us rises
And we are feral, unafraid

Some day it’s bound to happen,
Instead of lifting, our lust falls
But can you really blame us?
For we are just animals.

Appley Stuff

Um...like July of 2006, I'm thinking.

An Apple Haiku

Whitest flesh within
this skin waits for teeth to bite
chew me hard lover


Just a little tribute to the fact that I have recently finished the last apple that I will be eating for a long time to come.

Come to think of it, I actually have a poem about apples too...and it was a lot like this one. Hang on a sec and I'll look for it.

*imagine time passing because I am actually looking right now-ish*

Here it is:


I am consumed by you
whispered the apple
And yet I remain
With you now, forever
In your skin
Your blood
Your bones
Devoured completely
But somehow surviving
In the scent on your mouth
The juice on your tongue
And though there were others
Before me,
There are none to compare
To the depth,
The breadth of me
The supple taste
Within you I am all.


And there you have it. Nighty Night, Three Day Apple Fast. Good morning, great big plate of I don't care what as long as it's not apples.
Lovies!


P.S. I think you know I wrote that second one before this fast, right?

Emotion

Nov. 16 2005

leeching out of marrow
drifting up
on gentle puffs of steam
pulling away from the bone
like a well-boiled chicken
seperating itself from me
until what is left
can flavor the odd moment
saturate a conversation or two
color an evening of pillow talk
but otherwise
refreshingly silent
falls into the scrap bin.

The Cashier

Nov 16, 2005

I noticed first her eyes, her eyes
as though heaven's fire hadn't ashed her
soul, but nonetheless scarred,
like the old man waiting in line at the
grocery store,
pursing his lips as though I was all that
stood
between him and the tenuous salvation
offered by whole wheat bread and rich
chocolate ovaltine.

Though her eyes were green as iris leaves,
so green
you could smell chlorophyll hovering around,
photosynthesis awaiting her permission
before molting insipid cells into colors
unrecognizable save to the sun,
who has seen it all before, and knows,
canny, how it will carry on,
her skin held the desert in it's fragile
network of lines,
in it's taupey glow,
cheekbones high like dunes,
copper in flourescent lighting,
making me thirsty.

I wondered what secrets she held,
what cold wind traced through the peaks and
valleys of her soul.
What could she tell me of who she was;
what could she reveal,
were she strong enough to tell;
were I strong enough to understand.

But the reciept was in my hand,
and I was walking out the door,
propelled almost without thinking,
and the moment had passed like
the breath of a bat,
the droning swoosh of the automatic doors
compelling me to move on,
my muted, "Have a nice day" ringing
churlishly in my ears as I
found the keys to my car,
and drove under the sun,
who had seen it all before.