I Long

I long to introduce you to your better self.

Your artist, your apothecary, your alchemist.

Your architect, your drawer, your painter, your prophet.

I long to help you unlock your treaure chest 

on the desolate beach

and run your hand over all your hidden gems

and pearls

like a rosary

until you pray to yourself when you are weak.

I long to introduce you to your stronger self.

The one that is tough as boot leather, yet welcoming.

I long for you to find kittens in the empty boxes of your soul

and play with them, running yarn as long as your arm

and smiling which each tottering step.

I long for you to feel the sun on your face, every day.

I long for you to wake up happy, held for a moment in an embrace

just before you wake up, whether I am there or not.

I long to introduce you to your better self, the one that smirks at magic tricks

and is amused but has the real thing in the back pocket.

I long to shake your hands free of the false things 

that comfort you

Shake them out like grass clippings on a blanket

wrap you in wool

give you hot chocolate

and introduce you to the warm fire

of your own soul

which chases away the shadows for once

and for all.

Gratitude

The passionate words I hear from mouths that are not my own

hit my ears differently.

Instead of a cold crack of a bat hitting a ball out to center field, it feels warmer,

like a pitch perfectly landing in a huge catcher's mit.

Eve & Newton

When Eve took the apple from the tree, after the serpent told her to, on that first bite, didn't she think to herself, this should have been a radish, or perhaps raw ginger, to better reflect the sour gravity of the situation? Apples are far too sweet, too tasty, too succulent, to refreshing to be part of such a calamity. The snake smiles and slithers away, perhaps thinking of oranges and lemons. Oh no you don't, thought Eve, why not bring me sour grapes instead? She threw the apple up to the Gods who held it, waiting centuries to drop it and hit Newton on the head. 

I am an Echo

I have no where to go, I am waiting for you to speak.

Then I can move through the room, bouncing off of the walls. 

In prudent silence I exist for all time until my moment arrives.

Tribe of Dragons

 Belong. 

Freedom of the Mind

The ice is slippery, 

I fell

into another dimension

winter of the soul

freedom of the mind.

The earth is dusty,

I stepped

onto the prairie burning

summer of the heart

freedom of the mind.

The stone is sleek and polished

I glanced

at it under the rushing waters of the river

spring of the vision

freedom of the mind.

The leaves are red and orange

I quivered

floating like a piano melody

rise of the spirit

freedom of the mind.

Tempting Fate

I've often made up my mind at just the wrong time

Busy bee with honey lips

Seeing the signs and laughing at the guns.

At Dusk

His black beard was the color of the sky without stars.

Her pen was broken and ink was spilling on the oak desk.

Their rough elements were caught in the door as they started the car.

One's work is never done not even at dusk.

People have a way of loking down the well.

She didn't know the difference between the sun and a flash.

He stopped the train with a loud yell.

It didn't matter when it crashed.

So long to Louisiana with its cypress trees.

If time was a string and I was a bell,

and I make a sound

I cannot tell.

Lucky Roots

The chunky hunk of ravaged bone left after the vultures desceneded from their airy throne was thrown, haphazardly by a buzzard, near a hyena, a paw, a beak, a tuft of fur. This is what had become of the zebra which had been running fast, desperate even, in his final moments. When I try to find a balance, like the zebra's fur, a black and a white, a yin and yang, I can just be, because I am like a tree, rooted in place. I do not run, therefore I cannot be chased.

The Jogger and the Dead

A woman was jogging in the graveyard 

The blacktop paths were clean beneath her feet

Perhaps she felt safer away from cars

While the quiet there gave her some relief

It was still an odd choice to say the least

She huffed and puffed among the grey tombstones

While the skeletons laid there fast asleep

She like them, dedicated and all alone

Her arms moved as she took another breath

More than anyone I have ever seen

She must be at peace with both life and death

Who knew it was in a fitness routine 

It still struck me as a little crazy 

Speech is Speeding By

Speech is speeding by I see the bits and pieces of it, like tornado shrapnel

out of Dorothy's window.

Why do I even mutter?

The Tin Man knows all my worries which stir my beating heart to speak.

The Lion nudges me to get off the ledge.

The Scare Crow he is long gone.

I miss him as he is running through the field.

Make me a big black crow,

make me an apple tree,

make me the flat face of the emerald,

as it gleams.

Sentimental Eye

The tear expands just before 

it falls.

The cello tells my story better

than my words.

Sisyphus has great calf muscles 

by now.

My tear is merely the same as the

sweat on his face.

Sonic Bonding

We laughed at the exact same time. I could tell you were about to tell a joke. You said it was told to you by a mime. Sign language doesn't have to rhyme. We were deaf, both of us, when we lived inside the drum. I surfed on the cymbals, screaming to a halt and falling headfirst into the sand as the waves threw me up like Jonas and I hit the cliffs. The pebbles started to fall like rain.

The Future Missle

Way back in space time, blind to the pigs and the slaughtered rhymes

I found myself slipping into your black holes, wanting to go where I can't go

walking on the piano keys, hitting every black note.

Whispering through the trumpet tones when it blurted out the misanthropic

radio optics of my frequency frequently freeing me from my distress

you thought it was over I was reeling

spilling red thread from my retro dress

you had me so figured out every line in the sand

every moment of my life was a glass tower

but your dreams now are flattery

nothing no more power.

It's a future missle now, a plan of attack

a steroid pumping attitude to get your life back

I never meant to hurt you or cause you pain

why did you have to lock me up in this glass case?

I will burst out

break the glass

I will see you back

in class.

I'll be in the back with a sharpened pencil,

hanging on every word before launching skyward.

Corresponding Parachute

Miles of the madness drawn down threads

spinning on the wheel lengthening dreads

petals of the flowers fixtures on the scene

syllabalic majesty on tough streets lean

People and the papers peeking at the news

nosy to the neighbors sitting on the roof

binoculars and frying pans

shocking to the teeth

the minds of madness grinning while

the bankers and thiefs

keep on 

taking quarters from the pockets of the jeans

the shocking gestures meant a lot of

caught the attention of 

the money changers at the temple funky in their dance

The wedding of the credit cards and the marriage of the damned

I stopped you just before 

you got 

blood on 

your hands

tipping on the mysteries I drank the secret juice

and plotting my demise and jumped

and opened up 

my corresponding parachute.

This prose was written in the fashion of a drum solo.

Maple Trees

Equally efficient in separating the high from the low

her atoms spin silently beneath her crown

growling in the morning light

her sun fighting its way through the forest of her mind

as she chooses which book to read.

She is sufficiently undressed enough to know that the heart

stuck to her sleeve was not attached with superglue

and can be removed, like an errant leaf

in the autumn, stuck to her sweater.

A pile of books makes for a good thing to jump into

she rakes them together with her fingers

she gathers them from the lawns of bookstores

and pulls them from the shelves.

They sit here in a pile of many colors,

fighting their way into the forest of her mind.

Trees make paper of course, and paper makes words

where her thoughts grow, like oak trees

or raspberry bushes, knotty pines and maple trees

swaying silently in the breeze.

The wind is motion and the trees are caught between

stillness and flight.

The decision comes down, the choice is made, her thoughts are split by an axe.

It flows like maple syrup.

This morning everything she reads is part of a tree.

Ode to Black Ink

I thought all of this black ink was going to dry clean

that the paper would remain white. I thought all of this white paint

would splatter perfectly on the black canvas and I would be

here, 

some angel,

some inverse Jackson Pollock standing on the edge of the

Empire State building waiting to swan dive into traffic

and rising like a phoenix with scrapes and bruises

but still fully functioning

and heart fully beating.

It started then with this black ink--mightier than the sword.

Here with this ink I lay into humanity, I lay into posterity

I write the dream into fruition I shape desperate boredom 

with my bare hands into a clay like man.

I write words which state my point of view, my mind, my brand.

I am almost delierious with the drunk power each tiny speck of black has,

becuase together they become greater than the sum of their parts

whether I like it or not they become a legacy

if to no one else but me

so I judge myself 

because the critics are out to lunch and if I come up short

I only have myself to blame as I look into the mirror

looking forward as much as I can despite the reflection

where the distance in the mirror

is just what's behind me.

Funny how that works.

War of the Roses

The roses grew in rows along the road

we picked them up and stuck them in our shoes

The fragrance was strong, the sun shone like gold

we climbed the hill and hummed a honey tune

A tiny speck of red among the green

told us that the artist's brush had painted

A scene of glory not unlike a dream

A summer's day so fine we then fainted

We slept like puppies next to the roses

Oblivious to what time supposes

as if we found a sleepy poppy field

where all wounds of war can now be healed

What a find! Soldier of fortune

spin the wheel

and rest here where your bones and your heavy boots

are wrapped up in the rose's roots

that slip around your souls

like eels

running to the ocean

underground

may your hands rise like a hammer

to hear a thousand birds stammering

as they sing a joyful tune

the roses are in bloom

Vigil by the Lake

The seance started slowly, building up steam

until it fed the demons and the everlasting dreams

the sunsets and the lullabies never heard again

the night that the waters won and stole our only friend

His turtles and his salamanders now will run astray

with no one to care for them and nowhere to play

Everyone's heart is saddened, and heavy here tonight

to watch the boy as his soul silently takes flight

Sugar Water

The pine tree hangs over the garden, its long green boughs falling like curtains while a hummingbird whirs dangerously close to my ear and sticks its long beak into my brain to take out some sugar water. Why not let the alphabet take a break and just write poems with mud today? I would like my hands to be covered in the clay that made Adam, and for lunch I'll have the apple that caught the eye of Eve. It's all water over the damn now, anyways. The Sistine Chapel has already been built, Thoreau has already lived by the pond, what shall I do to find some spiritual corner? Tilt my head and let the hummingbird in?

Twin Invisible Eyes

I've got twin invisible eyes

I see the past and the present at the same time

They meld into one perspective

two halves of one sea

I've got long strong arms that swing

like a pendulum

time no longer holds my face to the floor.

Instead I fly on the trapeeze

back and forth like the tides

each side of the coin shines in its own way.

Everywhere Except Canada

I fell in love with a blue man. He was wearing a black hat. The brim of the hat was custom made. I had a goldfish named Linda at the time and she moved with flowing orange flags, waving her fins to say hello when I came home. It had been a long week, I had travelled everywhere in my mind. Everywhere except Canada. The forests there were too pure, the rivers too clean. Instead I had spent time at Miami's coldest beaches, waiting for the seaweed to be untangled from my feet. I was barefoot as I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, silent as I walked through James Baldwin's black and white San Fransisco, separate from those lonely South Dakota nights that Cowboy Jake used to tell me about. I was riding in a blue car, thinking all these black thoughts, the orange traffic lights were flashing as I made my way away.

Stones Making Bubbles as They Fall

Her heavy voice sunk down like a stone into the sea

or a riverbed on the edge of the Mississippi

Where toil and trouble was not Macbeth

it was the life that many led

So many hands on so many drums

have made these rhythms which are now

at the jazz club.

Every conga drum and every cajon

every burst of laughter

that bubbles up.

Evidence of Human Life

The bobby pin was bent,

it looked like two fingers making a peace sign.

It fell from her black hair,

and landed on the blacktop in the hot sun.

That is why it glistened.

My shoe stuck to some gum,

which had also landed on the sidewalk.

It was less glamorous,

but evidence of human life nonetheless.

Gravity does not wait

for me to finish my ambitious errand.

The sweating summer street

today is full of fragile life glistening.