Untitled

When the breeze lifts the leaves
and the ground fills the air
I see us; fumbling about that innocent
slope of a hill, its trees and branches
with no idea the secrets they'd shield.
Dirt, stone, and grass mingling vividly
with the scents of a first love's breath
caught, not quite sure how long it'd be
before the spell broke or the bells rang
and reality touched that innocent
slope of a hill. Its branches with no idea,
dirt, stone, and grass mingling
with the scents of a first love's breath.

Mud and rock

I hung posters in his room today;
comic book heroes, Disney favorites,
good guys galore.

I wondered when you'd see it,
when you'd walk through the door.

Likely a year's worth of Sundays;
by then would the heroes be new ones,
would Disney stop gracing the walls?

Would my hair go grayer, the lines deeper
by the time you stepped over the porch
into the house you've not ever seen?

I'm no less afraid of the ending
these days.

It's a little like trying to wade
through mud and rock with no boot
or stick to guide the way.

No real path just jumbled vines,
random rocks, and mud that appears
to take on a life of its own.

Leaving mine, and his, with little hope
that wading through to the end
will do more then ruin shoes,

jeans, or even jaw lines, when
it gets too deep.

No punctuation

I went to the beach today
walked to the water
hopping over logs
that struck me
as too random to be
anything but

I wondered what you'd think

sitting alone with only
the slightest of waves and a sun
insisting on one last stretch
across the sound
tossing its glare about as if
it had all of time

watching layer upon layer
of mountain top
change shape with each minute
or wave that seemed to believe
dancing the tide was a far better
than succumbing to the many moods
of a northwestern moon

I wonder what you'd think
in the face of such enormity

would you sit silent
no need for voice
or would you pace the sand
overturn the rocks looking for reason
or the odd crab left behind
by those too in tune to stay close
to the surface

Cinq (a string)

It gets
most difficult
when even my finger
tips grow tired of missing you.
You would

think it
enough to stand
intact through another
week that passes a month in time,
you might

even
hold the belief
that tomorrow comes with
the innocence of a newborn;
eyes closed

to much
else beyond the
constant flow of life he
suckles at his mother's breast, still
it gets

severe
from time to time,
when even my finger
tips tire of wanting you near
again.

Thirteen

After the anger cooled
a Wedgwood blue
I recognized your terror
.
stranded midway
between marbles
and runway models
.
I do believe you'd
will yourself to fly
in Mustang speed

or maybe travel back
in science fiction fantasy
reverse the wild chaos.
.
Instead you teeter the line
a toe on either side
despising both
.
the marbles
and the models
you crave.

An ex-muse comes calling, (or requests below the belt)

You knew what voice to wear,
calling with "fly to me"
on your lips.

It sung of an old poem
surely writ in feathered glass

touching the page only long enough
to soar it the next.

Upon leaving

With the grief
a quiet comes.

Fleshy minutes
drip the clock.

Mourning herself
perched beneath,

cup in hand,
gorgeous
in her patience.

Untitled

There was nothing fierce
about it, more a gentle
finality that settled
like a slivered rock
might find the river's floor
after flitting about her skin.
Some little boy flinging rocks
from the shore as if her chaos made
not a bit of difference to the days outcome
and did it really?
She'd not fail to smooth out properly
before night fell,
or morning brought another rock.

Some kind of confessional bullshit

I've found I prefer to be hungry.
How odd to rather be empty.
How foolish to hoard the insight.

Like two windows facing one another
reflection and reality folded together
clean as the branch late December
tapping on one, showing the other,
sharing neither.

I've found it becomes agreeable
to only survive; though it makes
for an odd life to examine,
pick apart, staple together
like some fifth year med. student
might slide that weeks course onto the table,
some hope that adaptability won't prove this life's
most striking feature.

I find it most difficult to be both
masochistic and insightful,
though what better evidence of survival?

Perhaps that of children born out of wedlock,
out of doors, out of a drunk night, out of a chance
for anything but, and nothing short of,
survival with an intensity only the truly hungry
can appreciate.

Tonia

I read your letter last evening,
and spent this one figuring
how it is you appreciate women.
Do you hold them in your arms
smell their hair, caress them softly,
read them poetry against a southern sky?
You know they say most
lesbians have no real passion,
no real need to come across
that line we blend so brilliant
it turns orgasmic.
Are you one of those? Feigning
passion with the men, saving the women
your skin, your breath thick in the night;
hoarding the orgasm from them both,
for those moments alone
in the dark where no one can watch
the muscles along your belly twitch
with about as much control
as your first lover had late at night
when the fear of being found out
held as much charm as the idea,
that a real body would take him in.

Silence

With little call for discussion
I passed the day.
The occasional sharp breath;
memory of last night's
celebration of life and death,
brought the most noise
I cared to make.

Mourning

Finally, you give in
. and become wood;
slowly, as you'd imagine
. life seeped the shell
you might hold
. quiet on the log
laid near the shore
. in one last stretch.

Love Letter

Yesterday I drove to the snow,
. thought a bit of you
. a bit of me,
and the clouds, huge,
pressed against the mountain,
seemed to be waiting for the sun
to back down so freely,
they could roam the sky.

I wonder, would you think them cowardly,
sitting on the mountain's edge
like Mother Nature's Cinderella,
alone at the ball
fingering a strand of pearls,
not quite comfortable
in the power of magic?

I prefer to think them polite,
standing down like the step sisters would have
if Cinderella had once, found her voice.

You, my darling, would see yourself
the sun, the hero,
asking only the chance
to share the sky.

Strangely I would agree,
still, hardly oblige.

For Joshua

I once wrote a poem of a fish
gutted on some dock,
rainbows, naturally, glinting off scales;
the odd beauty of its death.

Still you, I can barely
touch with the pen.
Every attempt delivers
the most peculiar picture;

a tiny slip of a girl perched
over a churn, her ladle shaken,
and cream, free of it’s skin,
spilling, pouring,
over her feet.

Cheryl

Cheryl



I want(ed) to be you,

your strength, your light;

I want(ed) that

to be part of me.

I dreamt, as a little girl,

not of being a princess

but of being you.

All green eyed and ready,

ready for anything and looking,

always looking, for more.

Only the brightest of spirits

can claim the same.

I want(ed) that,

to be that person,

that person I see every time

you come to mind.



* There was a opening if you will that is pasted below. My mom read it at her services.

I am at a complete loss for words and those who know me well know that is crazy unusual; I always have something to say. It is one of the many things I likened myself to Cheryl; she certainly had a lot to say.


I have a list – if you will – of the women in my life that I see as the glue, the strong ones, the ones that can do virtually anything and survive. Cheryl has always been on that list. I fancy myself on that list about 30% of the time and the other 70% look to the others on the list for inspiration.


For me, Cheryl embodied a strength that is really unexplainable. She faced things in her lifetime that would break a lesser person and handled it with the grace and skill of an Olympic Gymnast.


She came to live with us when she was eighteen. I was in awe, she listened to cool music, had the greatest white pants I had ever seen and goodness was she beautiful. I remember borrowing (and ruining) those pants when I was in Junior High School. I can still, to this day, see the pants in my mind. They were white “jeans” they had stripes like a bad set of drapes might, cream and white, and zippers clean up the middle….plus they were hers and I was, as I mentioned, in awe. I have never, to this day, slid into a pair of white jeans without thinking of her.


At my most confused times she was there, at my silliest and craziest moments she was there, from Oreo cookies to camping trips; never did she judge. I think Scotty said it best the other night; she was a “WOW”. She walked into the room (or your life if you were lucky) and you knew it for oh so many reasons.


I grew up wanting to be nothing less than my Aunt Cheryl. Today I sit and still want to be to be nothing less than my Aunt Cheryl.



I will miss her always.

Late this morning

Late this morning
with the tide (perhaps
a bit too high)
the cynic in charge of belief
fell silent.

The log was damp,
the air, still thick
when a little boy
sat down too hard
in the sand
and you smiled.

Then, I knew peace,
a willow's peace,
born only to lay hands
on the occasional high tide.

I wonder,
what will awe me
a second time?

Half born (A Villanelle for my son)

I'm flipping back and forth, a poem and your
history, hardly qualified to lend
either a proper voice, or life. Half born

I've found both meander about the page
as if they, rather we, haven't a thing
but to flip back and forth, a poem and your

life. Laid out on paper like you were that
day after breaking both bones in your arm
neither a proper voice or life, half formed

in some perverted pro-choice protest laid
down on hospital grade, or college rule
left flipping back and forth, a poem and your

history, hardly qualified to lend
a hand much less anything relevant
with neither proper voice or life. Half born

at best, on a good day, when decisions
don't bend sideways and I can do more than
flipping back and forth, a poem and your life
neither with proper voice, or life; half born.

Power lines, trees, and the human condition

My lover hates power lines,
the way they barge through his sky,
as if he were the owner.
Still he hates them, distracts him,
his mind spins a bit faster with
the buzz running in the air
like some impatient fly
spinning around the glass waiting
for the picnic to move to the grass,
so he can climb inside.
In the same respect he loves trees,
the way they scent his air,
as if he holds special claim.
Still he loves them, they calm him,
the way they are about lending shade
without a single thought. Not like people,
with their penchant for measuring this and that.
He didn't care for them,
and rightly so when the corner tree
is struck clean through the middle
with power lines, as if man had finally
gotten his fingers in every bowl
only to find once is never enough.

Conforming (or not) to form (or otherwise)

It's this belief that I had to leave myself
to love properly, as if I'd be found,
not by some God, but a man. Perhaps not
my brother with his sticky breath,
even my father, but a man,
the same animal that can rape to make a point.
A man nonetheless,
one to grace me with another title
to choke down, drown under, marry into.
Save me the delusion
of being enough without this practice
of leaving myself to love properly,
being saved, not by some God,
but a man
even if it meant creating one
and it did
so I did
and with him, you,
all of you, again
with your sticky breath
and careless ways.

Piercings, tattoos, and self-mutilation

I turned twenty-five and stuck a turtle on my chest,
a mask on my shoulder, and a wild flower
later that week, for the turtle's company.

I stopped short at the anklet, too near the bone.
Anyway I remembered the burn along my shoulder,
and the warning of addiction

half-way through my first mid life crisis,
driving across country with a recorder,
highlights saved on audio for my son.

The continental divide (twice), a perfect square
of baseball diamonds, an enormous rock
formation into Utah that lent weight

to the Mormons parking it in Salt Lake
to worship god, or marry many women.
Who knew which was more significant,

who cared in the face of low standing clouds,
healing tattoos, and huge rocks
crouched on the edge of salt slabs.

The scene did well to cooperate with
my love of extremes and the belief
that I was beginning and end,

wrapped up nicely in various displays
of self-medication, or self mutilation?
Certainly the difference lay in definition.

Regardless that was before the piercing,
there you had some mutilation.
'Course by Thirty and ten odd years

from my last line it was either the belly or me
dancing through another mid life crisis,
and as any seasoned addict knows too much

too soon, is no better than too little too late,
so the belly won a hole clean through it's top
and me, I only leak from time to time.

Denial (or insanity's definition)

It's as ridiculous as flicking your tongue
across the sore you made,
biting your cheek, early last week,
pointlessly running over what will
only turn to scar tissue one day
if you don't stop snacking on your mouth
as if the wounds will always heal
smooth as glass.
Still, you taste the ridge
a good three times before it hits you;
a soft tissue testimony to what you might hear
sitting across from ten years sober,
too wise to hold the definition hostage,
like some two-bit terrorist might finger
a grenade in an innocent's view
an explanation of sorts,
mingling with the guy
who would have drunk cologne,
and did when push came to shove.
“It's the denial that spreads”
Like some overzealous virgin
flung over a poorly made bed.
With her you can dance barefoot
on unfinished floors and stay shocked
at the splinters you find.
Without her you'd slip on your shoes,
polish the floor, a virgin no more
Six one way - half dozen the next,
it'd be over.

Morning after

I can feel you still. Along the inside
of my thigh, as if you left fingerprints

each time we shifted, so I'd remember
this morning reaching to shave,

where we'd gone
last night.

Cats, dogs, and veined hands (A Villanelle barely conforming to form)

My hands look old today and it seemed strange
I'd be only thirty and three years in
to you when it struck me odd that I'd age.

More that it would show, not with grace but veined
like that feather on the beach we saw. Still
today they just feel old and it seems strange

the dogs don't notice the heat, cats won't gauge
the sun, and I don't have that much to say
to you; being struck so odd that I'd age

without you. If you consider the range
of circumstance we had its no wonder
my hands look old today. It does seem strange

not to have that quiet touch in the rain.
We were young, younger; I said I love you
to you so it strikes me odd that I'd age

with the cat in crisis, me barely sane,
gone with the feather some three years later
when my hands look old and it seems so strange
to you that it'd strike me odd I'd feel aged.

Obsessed

There are times when running is the sanest of options;
not your mundane jaunt with denial,
neither your drink to the bottom,
breathe your last line, fall numb into cotton clad,
king sized paradise for one, kind of run,
rather a save your ass before he crawls in
and steals the skin out from under your feet kind of run;
you get no test from the local administration,
just in case fire breaks out exit here kind of drill,
this here's the real McCoy.
Hell, you've seen that look before, on the junkie down the street
staring through the needle as if one more minute without a blink
and in the plastic he'd be; one with the gods of oblivion.
So let's not vacillate, hesitate, flutter your spring time wings
like some over zealous butterfly
hell bent on the deep purple taken up next to the daisies.
No you'd do best to slip on those five inch,
man made, stainless steel reinforced spiked heels
and march your proper, pinky finger lifting,
beer or wine drinking, gorgeous ass right out of dodge
and find someone, somewhere
who wants you more
and needs you
less.

Doves

When I'm old I might appreciate
the energy it took walking around
wrapped so tight, even relaxed,
hands shook.

Maybe then I'll allow myself pink
undoubtedly you as well.
I never did relish purple
and who else would stand still

for my spinning about
like some toy flung across the room?
Or a child left stunned in fascination
or maybe frustration?

Yes, in the end it's bound to be pink,
you, and the theory that choice
existed on some level.
For now I'll just try to figure

if today we're friends
or if we're lovers.
Perhaps watch for the gulls
that when blurred just right
look to be doves.

Fallacy

My shoulder burns again.
It's the tension, or the tattoo.
It hasn't been the same since
those damn needles.
It was the ribbon that killed it.
Full black outline. Less needles or something.
Plus he did wield it like it was some
kind of carving tool.
Not like a chef touching up a turkey, chicken or
heavenly fillet. More like an ice sculptor,
all in a flourish to finish his first fancy mustache!
It's gotta be the tension. Or the couch I dropped on it
playing my version of superwoman. It's hard to say
with the bombs (that weren't really bombs)
still screaming in everyone's ears.
It doesn't help at all that you're gone again,
all I can hear is the screaming and the damned newsman.
Plastic make up, canned voice, plastered hair.
Fallacy at it's finest, so much like your reasoning, so near my denial.

In the Grove: The poet at Thirty

She saw him stretch;
long and lean -
the timothy bowing to his form.

A plane rattled the window,
sliced the lone cloud -
one shape bending the next.

Silent he shifted visions.

Somehow, before awe
turned intrusion, she left him
to his day.

* The poem above was inspired by a poem written by Jane Kenyon and dedicated to my son.

She was an inspiration; he continues to be much the same.

Seattle, early morning.

he Cascades were unusually lit this morning;
the clouds had backed off appropriately
and stuck to the city.

The day seemed to exist only at the base.

Evidence, perhaps, that from time to time,
even the gods know enough not to blanket
something capable their own weather.

Late Afternoon

It was more the second time
your mouth flitted about my thigh,
where you moved as if you'd lost all choice
and my skin slid a fabulous waltz.
There, beyond the rain that granted
our Sunday afternoon laid nude,
I reached to find you, find me.

Serene

Because she made love to her pen,
wore her hair a tangled mess,
slept only when the rain stopped,
they figured her strange.

Because she drank her wine
from the bottle,
her beer with a straw,
and appeared never to eat,
they decided she'd fade,

like the ink on the pad
she scribbled, violently
as if she had a point
at the end of her fingers;
tapered like the candles
her mother melted in cheap
wine bottles to light the room,
to lay with her father,

to create the woman,
that wore the name,
that matched the mood,
the flavor, the lighting,
of second hand candles

Witness

There was a second when I thought to breathe,
to feel, to crawl under my own skin, turn it
right-side out, claim nothing more
than capability. As if disrobing
mid-sentence were entirely normal (accepted).
More likely it'd find you half undressed
with as much life as an eight (times 7) year old
hound stuck somewhere in Iowa exhausted
with July and it's knee high corn, serving him
as much purpose as you, naked on some corner,
skin all upside down and backward, stumbling over
your words, wondering who's idea was this anyway?
Still there was that second when I thought to reach under,
to touch myself as if I cared a great deal.
You came to watch, and did so fascinated
it was hard to tell which was more beautiful,
more natural, you struck silent, or me
struck alive by my own hand at your witness

Through the window New York - early September view

The scene unfolds
with little finesse -
sweaty sidewalks with

angry jackhammer wounds
gaping long after workers
call it Friday.

Children - barefoot
with sticky
popsicle stick parades

mourn summer's end.
And you - quiet
on a stoop

knees gathered
tracing the cracks. . .

Suddenly

Suddenly I am less terrified to be your daughter
A little less ashamed of how tangled we became,
those two years after my son.
Grown as a tree might
grafted in some horticultural design.
Suddenly, I know I am yours
as I know he is mine
How innocent we all become
when it's that simple; how horrible
to have found it now. Maybe it's the lighting
in here today, or the unnerving way you all
sound alike on the phone when I call
and your brother(s), son(s) answers.
Perhaps it's your leaving so soon,
so soon after I'm not so terrified to be your daughter.
I am a little shaky, my feet aren't quite my own,
rather like roots in new dirt, fingering around
for a solid grip.
Maybe it is just the lightening in here tonight,
or the air with it's musky feel,
or perhaps it really is you leaving so soon,
so soon after I am not so terrified to be your daughter.

Conforming (or not) to form (or otherwise)

It's this belief that I had to leave myself
to love properly, as if I'd be found,
not by some God, but a man. Perhaps not
my brother with his sticky breath,
even my father, but a man,
the same animal that can rape to make a point.
A man nonetheless,
one to grace me with another title
to choke down, drown under, marry into.
Save me the delusion
of being enough without this practice
of leaving myself to love properly,
being saved, not by some God,
but a man
even if it meant creating one
and it did
so I did
and with him, you,
all of you, again
with your sticky breath
and careless ways.

Intimacy, Control and/or Oral practices.

I won't clean my teeth in front of my lover
Lend witness to that thin red line
flung about the sink edge
when inevitably I have to spit.

Lay proof a crack, a leak,
a fault in the foundation.

Too much stress,
not enough sleep, or food,
or peace of mind,
to keep the tissue firm.

In the same respect, I will take him
whole into my mouth,
turn his minutes to hours
Run a tooth, a lip along the edge
a kiss sends him over.

Settle him in a nerve racked,
or nerveless semi-state,
too close to perfect, to(o) pure
to give thought to my mania(s).

On being honest (for Joshua)

You spoke
to me, at last.
Unsure, at best, as if
you had grown uncomfortable
in your,
(with my)
touch, rather your
own skin. And it hurt, clean
through the tips of my own fingers
to watch
you move
back into your
self as if the smallest
breath bled, a touch less, but still bled
each time.

Haiku times two

Tonight on the breeze
your voice found me; astonished
the willow spoke back.


This evening I sat,
watched a willow dance the rain;
thought only of you.

Bonfires (or surviving)

Anymore, it's the tiny bonfires
that light up my shoulders,
dance a bit on the muscle
I crushed moving that time.
Alone, as if it lent an air
of dignity to surviving;
not living, not dying.
More scratching a trail
through mud and cement,
a bag of tricks pulled along
side like some lunatic magician
might carry his rabbit's foot
as proof that once
it came from his very hat.
A testimony to his magic,
to what he was,
or rather what they thought
he might be one day
if he stayed behind,
or rather ahead,
of his magic.

Butterflies

You called. There had been a party.
Johnny was there.
His daughter was getting married soon.
The Allman Brothers were on the CD.
Melissa was playing, did I remember?
I was wearing white
it was that place on Main
with the windows.
The juke box ate a dollar
before giving up the song,
and the sun had bounced
clean off the floor.
Did I know it still caught your breath;
still fluttered around some five years later?
I had read somewhere
butterflies were suppose to die
after just fourteen days,
but damned if it didn't flutter
as if I'd come home,
hearing you again.

After a time

It's the irrelevance
I miss -
. brushing a hair
. from your brow
. still damp in sleep.
These memories
slide in smooth
defy regulation replies
of the single;
these you don't confess.
Rather you smooth them back,
give the obligatory laugh
at celibacy;
move on to world peace -
something remotely relevant.

A Minute

I miss you again.
Seems I am all right for
what the kids would call 'a minute'.
Then I remember your touch, your skin.
Your arms around me when all else failed.
Always before I fell short when it came
to leaving you. This time I just deny.
Finally it's seeped everywhere.
Like a bad paint job in the kitchen
might allow the grease of years past
to stream the walls in the
oddest of patterns.
It's as if the walls were crying from years
of being covered in shitty paint.
I can almost relate when I run my hand
along my side, touch the curve of a rib.
There's not much there anymore.
Muscle perhaps, thin layer that it may be.
Too much like the paint for my taste
seeping memories of previous owners
from every pore.