Magical Pockets

I am so 

in love with you that 

all my secret pockets 

have been turned inside out

revealing old pennies

flattened by rusty trains

cat's eye marbles

miniature gold shoes

that my dentist gave me

when I was seven 

one small moon ball

that bounces very high

and glows green 

when you look at it 

in the dark along with 

the thing that now keeps 

me safe so I wear it 

to remind me just how

love feels disguised

as a thin brown cord

tucked beneath my shirt.

Perfection

It's so lovely not to try

to just know

exactly how I feel about

you and how you feel about

me and to think about

how 

I am going to leap into

your welcoming arms 

open wide as a smile

as fast as a Porsche

let loose on the autobahn

The Door

How it opens and shuts

a valve of sorts letting 

things in shutting things out

in and out and oh how you

have unlatched unlocked

all the make-believe worlds

I always knew were real

from the time I was seven 

tucked undercover with a flash-

light and a book about a prince

who kissed a dead princess

back into laughter.

Storm Brewing

A red roof dulls 
beneath a gather of gray 
a bridge stretches endlessly 
as the horizon yawns 
swallowing the last drop of sun. 

A river sits expressionless 
waiting for a fish to jump 
and break the perfection 
of its composure while trees 
stand in soldier silhouette 

rapt with attention to a sky full 
of clouds brewing to overtake. 
At the water's edge a stirring; 
one reed bends a head 
to the weight of the first drop.

Semi

it's something much bigger 

than a breadbox

and has lots of wheels

Hello, I Love You

won't you tell me your name?

-The Doors

The grass the desert the cold

air as it suddenly swooped

just as I arrived and you turned

to ask me where I had been

(all day)

when you really meant where

had I been

(all of your life)

and when I answered

(at the pool)

I really meant

(I just don't know) but

now that I do -

hello I love you

the grass has never

looked so green

Metric

Get hot, get too close to the flame 
Wild, open space 
Talk like an open book 
Sign me up 
Got no time to take a picture 
I'll remember someday all the chances we took 
We're so close to something better left unknown 
We're so close to something better left unknown 

I can feel it in my bones 
Gimme sympathy 
After all of this is gone 
Who'd you rather be? 
The Beatles or the Rolling Stones? 
Oh, seriously 
You're gonna make mistakes, you're young 
Come on, baby, play me a song 
Like, "Here Comes the Sun" 
Come on, baby, play me a song 
Like, "Here Comes the Sun" 

Don't go, stay with the all-unknown 
Stay away from the hooks 
All the chances we took 
We're so close to something better left unknown 
We're so close to something better left unknown 

I can feel it in my bones 
Gimme sympathy 
After all of this is gone 
Who'd you rather be? 
The Beatles or the Rolling Stones? 
Oh, seriously 
You're gonna make mistakes, you're young 
Come on, baby, play me a song 
Like, "Here Comes the Sun" 

Gimme sympathy 
After all of this is gone 
Who'd you rather be? 
The Beatles or the Rolling Stones? 
Oh, seriously 
You're gonna make mistakes, you're young 
Come on, baby, play me a song 
Like, "Here Comes the Sun" 
Come on, baby, play me a song 
Like, "Here Comes the Sun" 
Come on, baby, play me a song 
Like, "Here Comes the Sun" 
Come on, baby, play me a song 
Like, "Here Comes the Sun"

She

Her love,  loss, lack of life 
unwaxed candle flickers 
out stairs fall away into such 
darkness risers treads risers treads 
nosing rough on fingertips crawl 
step by step disoriented inward dark 
is it up or is it down the knees say 
up hurts more down is a breeze 
good she thinks 

screaming into rooms 
pain shoots holes into corners 
she has not yet found

Listen

If you tilt your head back just so 
under the leaves you can hear 
canker worms slowly eating 
like secretaries click-clacking paper 
teeth instead of keys and the trees rattle 
death even though there is not a breath 
of wind and you wonder - 

when did life become so full 
of such tasteless devour?

Prairie Fishbowl

It is world of parabolic
horizon, hastily razored fields
left-over stubble of unshaven farmers
where stooks stand at dawn. On the day

he is buried, land vibrates
knowing hands that have loved it
are returning.
Stands of poplars shake

their leafy lanterns unfold
sound crisp as linen, a memory
of dresses sweeping wooden floors.
Nothing can compare

to the way prairie breathes in
breathes out, embraces season
with sudden death, painfully labors
spring to green; and so it goes.

As he is lowered, no sound
but that of lowering, until the train -
its language leaving us before it begins.

- For REC - 1921 - 2008

Dreamstate

I woke startled

scrambled for a pen

something about the

 

stars pressed white

sandwiched between dusk and dawn -

earth heaved into violet

 

and remembered your taste

as you shook into-

my mouth trembling

Dead Before We Hit the Water

"Typically, if you see intact bodies and multiple fractures - arm, leg, hip fractures - it's a good indicator of a midflight break up"

"In an in-air break up like we are supposing here, the clothes are just torn away."

What's the difference between that and this?

We are all just falling with no realization

that we are dead in the water

long before impact somewhere suspended

high up in the stupendous formation of cirrus

we believe in the theory of carry

believe in the philosophy of catch

buy into the theology that angels exist 

working below silver metal wings 

at the mercy of auto-god-pilots:

Just tear away my clothes

before I start to fall I want to feel

my bones fracture.

O how I would love to write

about the sudden screech of tires

and how it arrives

crashing into the side of a once

sturdy building until it tilts -

just so

the same way his left hand travels

down the right length of her torso

while his right travels up the left

length of her arm

and all she can think of 

is the way he plays her chords 

sounds emanating from a hollow

watery spot that he is divining

with a only a sigh and a quiver

So Far

You don't have to be 

closer you're the only one 

that gets it so far

Signals

They creak and sway in communiqué 
instinctively tuned to that ancient curve 
found in the gentle hollow ear of land.   

These signals have stood for years 
witness to rail-riding tramps 
departure and return of geese 
curve of her Grandmother’s hip 
bent with harvest 

And now they stand between 
old graves and warm tracks 
listening long to the length of ghosts 
whistling to the weight of trains 
he starts to spin 

like a weathervane lost in the echo 
of wind she starts to spin like a leaf 
lost in the branches of Poplar 
they creak and they sway 
in this magnificent silence 

very much in awe with 

what 
on earth just blew by.

Tilt

We depart in the swallow of footsteps

the backwards sweep of leaves

the what ifs

the why nots

treacle at the bottom of a maple tree -

we are born under spigots

catching and falling

in a world full with the salt of concern 

 

when all it takes

is the tilt of the tongue

to find the sweetness