ceaseless oceans 2

Something ends where the reeds grow sunset.

Starting in pale white clouds of snow,

they brown and shoot dark

raising themselves into shades of red,

then burnt orange and yellow

culminating in almost invisible tips

pointing into the ice blue water.

I am a flea in the fur of the earth

Bristling and waving stiffly in the oceanic breath.

Within reach, purple berries of the cedar

Cluster like crystals in the rock,

Hustling themselves deep in the olive green leaves.

I will make a house like this shadow grove.

When I climb out again to see the bay,

Boots crunching into the prints of deer

And mixing with the coyote,

I am face to face with two swans,

Muscled necks U’ing to fix their eyes on me,

scabbed feet swiftly paddling them forward.

Nothing sounds except their heavy breathing

Through the nose, close to their eyes,

As if some congested giant had thrown their heads

From too little clay.

We would have an unpleasant fight, my numbed limbs

Sluggish and encumbered, their winter-hewn beaks

Accustomed to violence. I imagine

the taste of their blood, thick, metallic.

I go closer.

They stare and stare, somehow warm in the half-frozen

Water. The ducks cackle in my ear.

A cold wind blows and there is the hum

And thump of small birds taking flight.

All the while it grows darker and neither i

Nor the swans will give of our temporary territory.

This is the way of winter.

There is no better life to be lived than this.

Find a way to survive.

Some fly away, others stay

and weather the season.

Everything gives way though.

There is no resisting what you must give up.

Even the geese as they fly

Make small noises with each wingstroke

If you listen carefully, their bodies stretched

To make organs with the wind

Against a burning sky.

This is to be paid attention to.

I worship what is in us that survives,

That wants us to-- the hot muscle

Of fascination, the deep sensual pleasure

Of the thing that we are and the world we experience

Splitting, reforming and combining

Like the half fresh watered bay

Forming sheets of ice along the shore

That at some point, without you noticing it,

Give way to the tender grace of the ocean.

ceaseless oceans 4

What joy there is in the hoofprints

I find in the snow

From shivering deer who after snuffling

Wet noses for green things have gone back

To a place I do not even know the name for!

How good that the world

Is so much bigger than me.

That birds whose species I do not know

Congregate beyond my sight in the sudden darkness

And warble throaty patterns which I cannot

Put into words. That there is everywhere

Around snow and ice that is melting at an imperceptible

And yet precise, rate regardless of my attention.

What a world—where the fox knows the joy of

Its teeth first splitting across the living skin

Of a rabbit whose heart beats fast from running

And I with rotund belly lean back,

Turn on a lamp, and open a book of stories

Within which are references to the names of men

Who have written thousands of pages I have never read

In a language a thousand years old that I have never spoken.

That the earth continues turning this day is a miracle to me

For I have nothing to do with its turning

Its gravity, spin, and momentum predating all human life.

What a wonder, what luck

That I might explore these soon to be ruins

Alone with but a plastic flashlight and goosedown jacket

That I found in my grandfathers closet.

What joy to walk down to the edge of the water

Where there was once only water

And touch the thistles with cold fingers,

And hear the laughter of ducks and the gurgle of frogs

Where once life had not even been imagined,

But where somehow now the imagination grows

So large its worlds expand beyond all comprehension

And infinite worlds of dreams open

Inside this one hovering about every thing and beyond it

Creating like manifold gods things never thought of.

The holly now stings my cheek,

How hard it is, cartogenic skin

And small, bright berries a mystery to me.

I could live a life transmuting the sun

Into sugar, or counting the minute bits of dust settling

And becoming my grey stone bones, or swirling

Bits of glass in my teeth then spitting them on the beach.

How good it is that the world is huge

And can hold within it

A body such as me

Filled with an illegible sadness.

ceaseless oceans 3

I wake late in the still house.

Birdsong drips over the roof as

Ice melts in the cold sun.

The tree I once climbed as a child

Still stands, solitary and with arms

Spread wide. There is another,

Of a kind, I have never noticed,

Protruding from the thicket behind it

In the back part of the house where I have not

Stepped since my memory began.

What if this tree has grown just now

To grant me access to the silent

World of the dead, where mute birds

And dreams build their nests?

Last night, we stood by the ocean together.

All about seagulls cut the sky

And a wind skipped from the lighthouse

To the bridge. You were quiet,

Looking out with narrow eyes

As if you could see all the way to the other side.

I looked at you and you blurred

And I heard the water tapping at my feet,

But I did not want to go.

Lights started up on the waves

First one, then two, then a hundred,

What wonder, whether stars or boats or fire,

But nothing compared to your hand

On my shoulder, your short fingers

Pressing your weight on me

As you turned and mouthed something

That the wind took away

So all I heard was the laughing of the ocean

And then I was alone.

campaigns end

Cup this 2 year bottle draining

light out of the doorway.

it is the cold night, it is the short morning

it is day old croissants eaten by the punch clock

and notes furiously scribbled down on menu scraps

and hidden.

it is the cooks dropping out of school,

cutting their hair and moving back in with mom

in blackwater new jersey and

the gun sticking out of stewards’ belts

when they answer the door unpaused call of duty

triangulating the room in blue light.

He said he could fix anything,

He said he and the other seafarers tossed

Their boss over the railing one night

Because of what he’d called them.

It is midnight but I am sitting down to mint tea

and pulling apart fried fish with my fingers

with a view of the bed with 2 different color sheets

splitting it for mother and son.

Will you walk down this hallway with me

Where the broken glasses pray to the god of forgiveness

And the booms of raucous banquets make them sound

Like chandeliers crying if you close your eyes?

Hold my hand and tell me why Mario keeps getting the kids

Ribcages jutting out of the floor

And Rose must bottle it every night

And play it safe with a legal team

She could never afford.

And after we make love I watch her sleep

For the first time in a year, lips puckered

And cheeks slack like a baby. How close to bliss

We are at times, held apart by inches of breath.

How close to death, tied by our eyes looking

Everywhere else—I hunger for elusive honesty now

When the streets and I, the cold trees and i

Are the only ones awake, I crave the invasion

Of the real over everything.

Oh conquer me so that it might not feel this way.

If I submit to sleep tomorrow will begin,

And I do not know what I will do tomorrow.

Where do the winds go?

How can I flow like water with this loss

In my belly like a snake, the things we did not do

Slithering through my veins, the lives we could have led

Bleeding into me like venom?

I howl with the wolves tonight,

I keen the end of day.

I am collecting dust and moisture to rain down from a great height

I am winters heart beating fall into submission.

It is over and for all my love,

People will suffer. I am leaving them in their rented apartments,

In their vacationless years and scuttling smiles when their boss comments

On the deep cut of their uniform. I am leaving everyone it seems

And may not find.....

Well, forget what I was about to say.

I am with the night tonight,

An end is an end, and this grief will pass too,

Like the gravel moves from the bank and settles

In the bottom of the river.

new zealand poems: shifting seasons

Unlearned habits speak for themselves in our bodies

As we work, as we fuck, as we eat.

Come learn a universal language, come speak it

With me so we might hear your voice in the eternal song—

It becomes so much more.

This is a dream of the mind body plunge, first of its kind

Kind politicians pleading a case for spirituality

Against nothing, but within within within.

Are you the religious kind? Are you seeking comfort?

My father told me a 20 year old is firing him

On his birthday.  His body never looked so much like mine

As climbing out of the freezing water. We were mourning something

And celebrating it too. I am searching for the door--

A way in, ancient language counting points

Of light, only to find myself in a room of runes

Carved by one hand, or holding out my hands

To the walls and finding a way in—

Is it cultish the demand for new central living?

Is it cathedral reclusiveness?

How does one live a life devoted to that which is most holy?

The droids are bending their knees to the trees now,

And our Marxist eye is robed in light, is singing

“the necessities of life will come to you.”

The hearkeners, the beckoners, they are here

In the long ripples, they are not forever

Nor do they know it in their supine positions

With heads shaved. But that which has not been is coming.

Where will I catch it, in the pine barrens

Or by the barren Baltimore coast? In the unseasonal

Heat of los angeles or in the brass reflections of new Orleans?

Or will I make the novel? Or will it come to the rituals of my forefathers?

My grandmother’s tallit covers my shoulders with silver images of Jerusalem.

The kipa fills my limbs with stiffness. I am a white bird in the migration

with ice caps melting and poles shifting

And I do not know where my body knows where to go.

This is the unveiling. This is the snow turning into spring.

This is the covering. This is the light filling leaves with death.

I am fiddling with the keys to her apartment, with my car doubleparked

In front. Always the goal was to be like a stone, like a tree,

Like a river. But has it gotten closer? Jake is dead and the dead

Do not play any music. Here are some goodbyes. They renew

Themselves like vows. Perhaps it grows like that,

In furrows that change the earth. In drunken texts and decisions

Which hold one part in particular up to the light,

At least for a little while. I am keeping the plants alive,

But I have too much stuff to move and stay the same.

I think I’ll trust my hands even if I cannot know the mask

That turns away from me. In the twilight of summer here,

Asking the one I love to change, I know

I am leaving this world perhaps forever, and noone

Is making me go. But what,

What are we going to do?

new zealand poems: on taking a shower in the glass box by lake wakatipu

everyone wants their picture taken

while looking at something magnificent.

My mother cries out in startlement

And we all jump: “oh, look at the birds,”

Albatross on their silent wings against

A grey cliff. Everything lives on top of

Everything—like children clamoring

for a front seat at the sun, like dads

on a wine tour, like anyone scrambling

to make sense of this life. It is uncomfortable

not knowing where the top of the mountain is,

snowcapped and glassy above the clouds,

or is it another hill, stubbled with growing things,

surmountable. This strong current carves itself

down, leaving impressions, I am

struggling not to say depression,

the way these trees struggle

quietly and constantly within the vines

swelling with sun. i do not need much.

A place to take off my jeans

And a light to read by.

I long for the naked gesture of the toki.

From her. From myself. Back home.

But surviving is a simple thing.

It continues in pain,  like a duck

With a split beak, like a sheep

Limping up a hill, like a day

Hour by hour.

And so what if I am angry that everyone

Wants to be seen as contemplating

Vastness? Hera Lindsay Bird slaps me

Says, so what if it is ugly to hate?

It is yours and I say it is beautiful,

Like our patience laying itself down

Behind the mountains in a bed of gold and blue.

I do not need much, I think.

I spend little and often go

Without food if I cannot get it free.

Id rather walk 5 miles lost

In a city than grab a taxi.

Id rather love than be indignant

About what I deserve.

But I want so much.

I want the world

In a distance I can walk in my lifetime.

I want sun breaking through clouds

When necessary, and wind ringing

Everything around, and rain on my face

And across the fields, purple and moving.

I want to always remember

The wonder of waking up

And my heart strangely beating,

The cold outside of dawn’s mist

Clinging to the lake, and the world beyond that

Bustling about, but making itself huge and beautiful

Like the love of your life in streetclothes belting her favorite song on the highway on her way to the love chapel in vegas with you.

new zealand poems: glenfern

trapped like everything

but blue, holding fast to

curtains drawn in the dark

and looking where we know are

mountains.

Cook for those who cooked

For you, sometime, and tell me

About the disappointment

Of sunrise with no sun.

I am tired of days spent

Holding out for no rain, counting

Dollars spent like karma

Leading me to this life.

Welcome to now, slow

Flowing stone of ice, I feel

My sockets carved like a valley

By deep and groaning movements.

I am reading poems about my own heartbreak

Written by a bisexual woman halfway

across the world. I guess that also describes

the one I love. I guess I want them both

laying down a bed of apologies for us.

She should be sorry the way she treated

Mary Oliver—the way her brutal honesty

Caught my soul like jade in the river—

Now I am raw in a sleeping house wanting

To cry out, it is too much,

All of it, too beautiful this

Green that is life that takes over everything

like the lake that gives life, this grey

That is water that changes and pulls

and covers the world like night

And is kb’s eyes even as i

Struggle to be here and she is

There—too much, the world

Beginning anew, looking up at new stars unable

to find a pendant to prove it to myself—

Too much knowing these others in the dark

That look like me but who’s souls

Do not, knowing they are going through it too

Equal and strange like the

Glacier moving down the mountain

With new snowfall, its foot

Curling up as it melts.

Discussing north korea

And oblivion we say—

It never touches who it should—

Being here is hard

Because now is sad

So many are gone

So much of me is gone

Washed into the ocean of longing

I know I am on dry land but

Right now, not all of me

Can love the rain

new zealand poems: trainride

the wind drags its fingers through

the sand. Have we become numb

to this? the feeling of grey cliffs carved

by river, carved by glacier, by dynamite

as we speed through. “what must it

have been like, to lay the steel forward

into the unknown” my mother

asks. “you make me think of that.”

I am wheeling through

Tunnels and fields like the gulls

Through the sky. The walls of

The mountain are close when

We run in, it is dark

In the husk and bright when it is

Broken. All of us pupate

In silence—I sleep when I want it to end,

Don't know about you.

We steal touches across a void:

Did you know they moved up

A meter in the quakes? Even when

It seems everything is falling. Do you

Want a lolli? Im thinking of a bracelet

For her.

What have we forgotten

We’ve forgotten?
Can it be done on purpose?

Because these rolling green hills

With sharp yellow flowers

Are making me remember

I could live here

I might die here in the grey

Passes as a storm rolls in.

The wind is tugging at my sleeve,

Asking me to go inside—

But in the cold I remember

Nothing specific but something

Quite old

I am a wild animal

Reading symbols into the elements,

Scared and shivering,

Alive and trying

To stand on two feet

And mouth the name of god.

yom kippur 5778

Arm around my mother

Hearing psalm 148 for the first time

We are falling asleep in the sermon

I am coming home in the verses.

Boy, it's hot in a tallis and your father’s sport coat

Boy, it’s sad when we speak a thousand names at once

For kaddish.

Boy, we’ve got a lot of arguing to do,

This family.

These are the holidays of the new moon.

This is rejuvenation.

But mostly, I feel the spokes

Of the wheel; when I rap my chest

And sing, it hurts. She cried.

He went to bed unheard. They

Exhausted themselves talking.

They aren’t going to get it,

At least not from me. Marks missed.

Not like clouds in the sun at all.

My dry tongue is that I have not spoken.

And my legs quaking is the gutless way

To use conversation for power. And the sweat

Running down my back is the river of doubt

I harbor. And my swollen hands.

The chives on my breath. White scalp.

Isn’t it beautiful? My whole body alive

With sin, reminding every second

What it must do for love, what it must do

Not just to stay alive but to remain ALIVE.

When we call, we talk without talking.

I say I feel a painful god, and you say good.

You say you can’t hear me, it’s too much like confessional.

Here is the bud of the root, and the root of the bud,

Here is the cold april rain for which there is no jacket,

Here is the branch holding on outside your bedroom window

That knows our love defies simple laws like death:

Your foul weathered love makes me want the ocean.

Your sunblue eyes cool me, watch me pant

Naked on your floor with nothing in my hands.

I have to run to snatch you up

When I see you praying beside the bed,

Or trying to find your WE folder,

Or putting on pants.

I am sorry I have ever hurt you.

If you're a bird

When was the last time

I sat in the trees watching

the brown birds with their black

wingtips dig baths for themselves

plumply in the gravel? Birds this small

always look afraid— whether house sparrow

or northern mockingbird—but that one,

quickly tilting his head and fluffing

his coat over a cigarette butt,

just looks free. Nowhere to be

but where he is.

The spring of some other place calls

to him, but not so strong now. Now

there is the sun and leftover burrito

in bright tinfoil, and the others chirping

excitedly,

and children waiting somewhere higher

but—-in this moment—I cannot

fathom the reason for standing there or there—

the feeling of that freedom—the life of it.

Long after that hotel is union or

not,  after our government expires or

our bodies evaporate into a cloud of blood

and radiation, after the pencil skirts and neckties,

this ground will be here

and it will be covered in slow falling leaves that become dirt

and then plants will grow and the homes

and skyscrapers will crumble, the forms will die

but there will be life, hungry

birds in the sun and squirrels

passing between them

in an agreement so old

it seems aimless to someone like me,

terrified of what to do when

not working 60 hours a week.

Be the body you are.

Raise your voice in praise.

Nothing has been given that

will ever end.

Love does not die.

People die.

The large speckled bird with black chest

and long legs runs from the shadows.

Northern Flicker. It evades death 

every second

in this city full of dangers,

but I am the one

who is afraid.

l'shanah tovah

There are no endings Only new beginnings. Carry me with you this night. Hold it all
for as long as you can, as close as you can to your heart.

coco nara

Coals breathe with glowing ferocity

That comes from somewhere I am not.

The wind blows, pages turning,

The tree limbs are lit from beneath

With false light, painted summer for the last few

Days.  I sit out on the roof every night

Trying not to drink. If the day goes by,

an intake, without rain,

then my knees will bend and hurt

As they spin over desolated streets

Beneath skyscrapers. If the night goes by, an

Out, fan churning the creaking scraping rumbling

Of my sleepless foundations grinding down

Into the earth, then we will

get to the next one. What

fills these days of awe? Where

has it poured out?

The schuykill river splashes up

Onto my shoulders and smells of gasoline.

A child is going out on the water for the first time.

His aunt looks silly in a too large yellow life vest,

but she will not take him back to shore.

The coal trains go over the old bridge above our head

And we look at each other, both wondering why suddenly

We are in the flurry crows and the air carries the linden trees

To us, and it is cloudy out. I do not know.

I do not know.

I roll up my sleeves at work,

Cordone off different parts

And smile a sleepy smile

At everyone who wants a sleepy smile.

Women write their numbers on checks

Though I wear my ring on my left hand.

When the old folks come before

Their lecture, all I can think,

Is how miserable they are, only speaking of death

And complaining about the chairs, with so much money

And life left, it isn’t fair. Even now a mystery is whispered

Inside me, I know jake heard it through his blood even

As it went flat; even sid as he called out for help,

a sound I’d never heard , knew it like a bird call,

knew it like a song. “Never let me be that.”

I roll up my sleeves.

My hair is on end with anger at this.

Where has it poured out?

Where have they gone?

The city is built on living ground,

Snagged amongst plants everywhere growing

Everywhere surging up between the lattice of concrete.

Where do you think the roots go to drink?

I am so very thirsty.

thanks for the birthday present

you have given me myself
heavy stone of life
looking out and in looking
fragile, hard and self-encompassing
you beautiful song,
you angel of the present. how
do you know the child
inside me but love the man?
how has you heart clocked
the moments of both our lives
with its unsteady beats?

the house is abuzz
and you are a thousand miles away
this birthday your knowledge feels
a thousand ages old, like the hum of wings
or a spark of light. i have held myself
open a long time to the elements--
for growth, i say, for love,
for unknowing, but a bark has grown,
a course skin covers even the me
below the organizer, the poet,
the lover, but you
have surprised me.
a touch not gentle, not harsh,
but knowing, you knew i would open
even deeper.
i am a terrible storm at 26, blindfolded
in a field of swords, i am looking
out at mountains, i am bringing my hands
from behind my back.

the night calls to me
as i step out in a thin shirt.
my body sparkles with muscle
like concrete over tree roots.

this thing that is me is awake.
i hold a heavy crystal out to the moon.
my life has run beneath the earth
and has known this sky and the lake waters--
it is an offering.
your eyes are closed in the heat,
sweat on your lip--
you have been cruel, but
out of life. you have been scared,
but out of love.  you swallow me
bit by bit like the ocean.
but what you give--
oh what you give.

long day's journey

We roll the lamp shade up

And the city is bigger than

The city is, all blinking lights

And river to water.

We are rocking out there in the waves.

“No sleep, not safe.”

Outside—the humidity mugs

Visitors one by one, turning them

To patients, borrowing moisture

From their eyes.

The lines have been blurred

Since I hopped in the car 3 days ago—booze sleep tears

I hit 120 masturbating to the sunrise--

That night was dark.

My grandfather had a stroke.

Shortest night of the year but couldn't quite

Get through it.

He taught me how to roll a room

With laughter, chew it like

Salt water toffee.

He produced sons who produced songs,

Anti-military, but growing right with

Money, he might have spat them out

His socialist mouth if he still had the energy,

But now it looks like it takes all that's left of his pectorals,

traps, and abs to alternate his

Heart beating and chest blooming.

I can see the muscles breathing heavy.

His eyes do two things: close.

Search for her,

flashing within artificial retinas over

objects without recognition –

undocked and motor running.

Unrecognizable his voice as it cracks

Like something of a shell, but she is there

Leaning close and the words come,

Each its own careful argument:

“Hey. Babe.”

This is the last time I see him.

When he thinks he is alone

He rasps into the phone

“I will beat this.”

And there is nothing to do but go,

because I will not pour my despair

into him. When I wrap my arms around

my grandmother, I can feel her flight,

like a caged bird,

like a woman watching the love of her life

fade. Then she stops and something erodes

for a moment, she releases and crumbles

like a clod of earth breaking loose

and disappearing into the sea—

then she hears it, the first sight of home,

a whisper of land:

hey. babe.

november 7, 2014

“First Words”

~After “after earth as seen from Earth”

~or “back in space once again”

Everything dies ungracefully

The raccoon on the side of the road, hands covering its head which lay between its legs

On the way home from work—

Deer with all four legs together, tongue out, blood splattered yards away—

Cousin suzie sending her daughter out for groceries, then hanging herself in the study—

*******************************

Evening came and it grew dark quickly.

*********************************

I said “I’m afraid of tomorrow. And the next day.”

Sara said, “look at the light.”

The scarred blinds stirred from a wind though there was none.

**********************************

These days I am learning minute by minute

Hour by hour, day by day

How I can feel like I do not need her.

***********************************

Mother tripped while carrying the dog after surgery.

The dark black ooze of the stitches dripped

After ripping across the brick steps.

Mother cried for hours.

We thought codie would die then--

Her huddled skeleton shaved bare and

Every ligament and bone testifying against her life

***********************************

My best whiskey glass covers a bed bug on the floor.

***********************************

In a dream sara asked me to come back over half empty white wine glasses, her whole croation family holding their breath on the couch. And I almost said yes. Until I saw the whole damn script lying in front of me, read my lines there on the page. Then I drunkenly railed. And thank god I did.

And left.

*************************************

I don't want another scratched disk.

*************************************

the ground is diseased with shadow

in moments, appearing to almost slough off

and in others, sitting up,

ragged, but alive,

reminded of sunlight, as if

just awaking from a dream

************************************

Sudden disconnect.

In the middle of a story of

The first time I saw a gun directed at me--

Suddenly realizing there was no one on the other end of the phone.

******************************************

Little sparrow burying its head in a water drop

From the stone cat by the $1000 fish,

Place where gardeners dirtied their hands on my heart,

Place where those who wish to go come to stay.

Like vines growing over a green clay pot

The days fall over and out of the sun.

But survive.

*****************************************

“are you a pusher or are you a puller?”

standing in front of a bright, clear window

looking over early snow-

bed bugs crawling up the walls

and drawn on several bathroom stalls

a small boy crying, squatting

“just go, just go, go”

when it’s late and it closes in

--it comes out both ends.

****************************************

the fall is as good a time as any to begin

putting pieces away.

Wash them out with whiskey.

Hide them beneath bushes on late night walks through dangerous neighborhoods.

It grows cold.

The dead leaves become puzzled pieces of a Pollock pattern

Describing the confusion of sudden emptiness.

A gesture at limbs they just were.

**************************************

The speech of the one whose bowels are eaten by the eagle,

Is of the proximity of his predicament to time.

Though he can do nothing,,it is always so close to over.

And yet his memory is washed out by the sun.

Mornings are difficult.

The state of things burning in

With morning light.

Very cold, shivering,

Then too warm.

And trapped amidst the sheets—

The idea that there is no way to change this process.

That I will wake up like this forever.

******************************************

The morphlings release tethers to shore

And drift.

They then release water,

Then air.

Then the borders of their very selves.

They may someday return,

Even touch the things they once knew,

But nothing stays. This

The morphlings have always known.

****************************************

seven swans beg forgiveness for the harsh reality they confront us with

that sharp god, that precipice

******************************************

Some say time is a circle.

And it is. But it comes back around on itself

Not once.

Once something is lost

It is lost, and even finding it,

It is a thing found that was lost.

And what it was before being lost, will always be lost.

And that is the circle.

*******************************************

The small things come back.

First writing. Then working out.

Sleeping. Meditating.

Little inoculations. Replacements.
How do you learn to replace a part of yourself with yourself once again?

Two years.

The warm feeling of hands on your back,

Rubbing along your pelvis,

Cradling your heart as it struggles.

*****************************************

Love can convince you you do not exist without it.

And though this may end, we never do.

. project.

. vehicle.

. state.

. contract.

. terrible pain.

. shell.

. addiction.

.escape.

. present.

. purpose.

. support.

. blind.

. assurance.

. challenge.

. scream.

.exception.

. rule.

. tomb.

. source.

Love is a home we are leaving.

And like every time leaving home,

It means we forget to remember where we are

and are destined to remember somewhere else,

Completely changed

yet somehow with ourselves once again.

*******************************************

night bloom shadow portrait shadow

dizzy rain shadow bloom

grey grey long shadow bloom

shadow blocks houses blocks shadows

bloom in the night over silence

blooming out of the dead space bloom

shadow bloom shadow bloom bloom rebel

shadow of a poem bloom under my windows bloom

time to do something other than drink shadow of the days when she was here bloom

shadows bloom something will bloom if I can just

water them, not kill them, behind the houses bloom yards, light blooms displaced

by bodies blooming houses blooming homes

love is a home bloom shadows behind bloom

but it is night now

all will bloom

*********************************************

There is something about who we can close our eyes with

*********************************************

At night the city misses the woods the most.

The concrete misses the gargle and spit of the stream.

The gutters --the duff

The struggling streetlights—the branch interrupted stars.

***********************************************