Mapquest

Sometimes



when you're in love
it's hard to find your way around
sometimes it's dark
sometimes it's bright
sometimes there's a "you are here" sign
and sometimes not


it's important to know
when in love
or just visiting,


feeling lost


is part of the process
to finding your way
love seems so easy
to say
to feel
to write
but it's got back alleys
and shady ghettos,
just don't forget its penthouses too


mostly
being in love
is exactly what it sounds like
warm, fuzzy, never lonely
even when you think
you're lost



you're never really lost



and you're never
really alone
i love
being in love
and hope i never


really lose my way

Consider

Consider the gaseous
gravity of a new star
violently coming into being
cradled in the delicate
tapestry of a nebula.
Stellar Nursery.

It pulls and sucks in
particles and such
from millions of miles
around it's churning
empty stomach
Craving all matter to
sink to it's core
ignite flames
and jettison itself
into existence
With combustion and
enough heat to blaze
thousands of Earths to dust!

This orb of hell looms
in it's cosmic crib
consuming and destroying
its mother with white hot teeth
This sphere gives light
Light that is millions of miles around
Billions of miles deep
Fire so strong
not even the vacuum of space
can choke it

So violent this entity!
And yet only a sparkle
in it's galaxy's eye
One part of One trillion
floating around,
spiraling endlessly
being a part of a greater whole.
Lighting one tiny corner of
an incandescent galaxy

This galaxy, home to this newborn,
Is itself trillions of times larger
than our violent newborn
This galaxy twirls on its axis
at it's core, a black hole
sucking in all that it can
Even light.

But what light does escape
let's say, from our new born,
joins the light from its brothers
leaps out into the empty space
not between stars
but between other galaxies

This light, in brilliant invisible rays
and rods and spirals
travels not by distance
no, it's too great to measure in miles,
but by time.
this newborn light,
now millions of years old,
travels across the cosmos
and finally reaches the Milky Way

It has to compete with other stars
other closer, brighter lights
shining towards one Sun in a trillion stars
It makes its way,
year after million year
to clutter the skies of planets
who cling tightly to their warm center

these stars
sprinkle the night sky of earth.
Earth, who's blushing with
virgin green life
and sweating gallons of new water
That gave life to animals
who gave life to invention
who gave life to poetry.

Who look up at the sky,
and draw inspiration from
a single dot above them
singing to them,
writing about them,
exploiting their incomprehensibly
long journeys

And that fiery inferno
who destroyed its delicate mother
and joined forces with other
fiery infernos
falls so gently into our eyes
and makes patterns of
beautiful creatures

Consider
that ancient light now dead.
Those stars and galaxies we see
are ancient ghosts
spectral images of what is no longer there
that our children's children will have
whole new skies to look up to.

Consider
the family on the other end
who will see our light millions of years from now
will they too write about our beauty?
We'll never know

Consider
in our brief second of life
to look for beauty for which
we can write and sing

Consider
the fires here on Earth
all around us,
much closer, much warmer
much prettier than stars out there.

It's all just science really
and fire and light
and gravity

all things we have
right here
between us

willows

In golden valley turns the leaf
on winding roads through autumn's spree
though the sojourn may be brief
I'll let the willows weep for me

O'er mountains to the forest end
far away from southern sea
as wintered trunks will twist and bend
I'll let the willows weep for me

our path will end on bitter grounds
and split the distance, we'll agree.
lost in nature, we'll be around
I'll let the willows weep for me.

We're solid

Ahhhh
there it is
that familiar warm-and-fuzz
that solid confidence in us
and knowing what we're doing is something right

we have questions
and certainly uncertainties
but we transcend those pointless human matters
and focus on the exalted roles we play
in counterpoint to our individual lives

Hey, i'm not going anywhere
and you better not be either.

I trust i wont be left alone
to hold up the things we made
and the things we expect of ourselves and each other
You're better than that
I mean more than that

Here's to us
let our wine glasses clink through the night
with silly toasts and headaches
cause babe,
we're solid

How can I complain
When the random chaotic meanness
Of the universe I so "believe" in
Fulfills itself by
Patting my aching back
With its cold indifferent hand.

In Schroedinger's voice
Simultaneously saying
"I'm sorry" and
"I told you so"

going into that good night

When change presents herself
Unfurling her fangy
Multi-colored horror
Cowering sharpens those fangs
Intensifies those colors
Flashing in the dark closet of
The unforseeable,
Embracing her makes
Her seem smaller-
Indeed those fangs are
Nothing more than
Teeth chipped
By misunderstood words
Those colors only glow in the dark
Because she too is
Alone in this chaos.

As long as your change
Takes place in the company
Of someone as strong as you.
The new-
unforseeable
Darkness
Will be illuminated.
So take a hand,
look under the bed
And jump into this
World of fluorescent
Change!

I'm not afraid if you're not.

bottom bitch

Ahhhhh
My favorite time of every other year!
When prostitution is legal because
The gap legged whores take votes instead of dollars.
They line the street corners
Made up faces
Calling their own names louder than traffic.
Standing up on their wire legs dancing as your car goes by.
The only difference between all of these hookers
Is the color of their thongs and bras and heels
Blue or red, the only choices we have these days.

One vote will get you a blow job
But don't come cause they'll tax it or
Write it off or
Deduct it!

And if your skin is dark or your English is bad or brand new
One vote gets you a reach around
And you can come all you want
You'll get it back in wellfare anyway.

And if you're rich or poor
Oh boy, you can do anything you want to them
Kiss them on the mouth, fuck them no rubber
You could even beat em up and leave them for dead
They wont care. Your demograph is the most precious!

Oh I love this time of every other year
Patriotism humping everyone
Flags waving as we excercise our democratic rights
Get out and pay your local hookers to fuck you out of your liberty
Pay them your one vote and watch them give you nothing in return.

salvation is created

I've fought
this fight for years
my whole life
that life without you
before you

Have you ever won
you asked me before
i ran my knife through your heart
you asked that question in your own blood
and still expected me to answer it

yes i have
i told you following it with
every time
for some reason you smiled and kissed me
you filled my mouth
with your bloody words and
sucked the air from my lungs before
you choked on death

do i win by losing you
i asked your corpse as it fell to the ground following it with
i ask that every time too

my salvation is
what i make it is
what i believe it to be
my salvation will be
a dark lifeless sleep
without movement
without my thoughts or theirs
without dark butterflies of dreams
without you

and for the first time
in this life
it scared me
even in death
to be without

to be without
you

the knife rusted by
hearts before
in self defense
doesn't work anymore

my new weapon is
understanding
which is hard to control
sometimes


but so am i


and so are you


lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil
we're supposed to commit
upon each other
my only weapon now is
understanding
and it will never abuse you
and I will never abuse you

we wont lie
to each other or
to ourselves

i love you
love is the salvation
i've sought after
my whole life
that life without you
and before you

the dream i never had

You look
familiar
Like we
Met before.
You look like
Someone I knew in
Maybe a past life
But your smile is so fresh
Pure, hasn't
Been stained with lies.
Your eyes are so clear
Surely if we've met-
They hold secrets.
Are these things
True?
It's just a feeling
I know, but
You look
So familiar.

At any rate
It's nice to meet you

Again.

maximum warp

consider us lost
in the most familiar surroundings
lost in each other flying through this life.
We watch our good captain
Janeway guide her crew home
Are we too not trying to find
our way home?
We left the home we grew up in
making temporary ones along the way
until we have one of our own
of permanence.
Flung across the galaxy
isn't so far fetched when you consider
how long it takes to meet
in the same place
open the same door and
look at the same eyes every day
for the end of our time.
Our time warp is set to maximum.
Slow to impulse, Ensign Kim.
Following morals and keeping principles
making sure we are just in our quest
our journey home.
We spent twenty two
and nineteen years
being destroyed here
repairing there
learning as much as we could
about races and cultures
and then we meet
this instant shifted our paradigm
Like Janeway and her crew-
there's a universe to explore
there's always a path towards home
and once we get there
we can start making it
calling it
home.

Voyager is more than
a show we share
it's a metaphor
for where we're headed
as long as your hand
is in mine
and my heart
is in yours.
Lieutenant Paris-
Lay in a course
for home.

evening kitchen

i never watched you in the kitchen before. usually i was right by your side, doing whatever. i wish i had taken a step back, like working on a painting, and seen you there- the big picture. What i would give

Calvin came home from school, you watched him get off the bus.He wasn't happy with himself, he had a pout on his face. He came in and threw a stack of papers on the kitchen island while you washed an apple for him. Before he could run off too far you called him back, and looked through the papers. He got a D on an a paper he wrote for class. It was weird, him writing papers in second grade- well, they were cute and he loved reading them to us. This one was different.

You pulled him up on to the stool by the island- god, when did he get so heavy- his blond hair caught your cheek, it was warm. You wrapped your arms around him and looked over his paper, you asked him to read it out loud. After he pouted, he obliged. As you sliced his apple he read the title "daddy's pictures". You chuckled, cause Calvin never called them "paintings"- why is that? He read his paper about how daddy likes to paint pictures of people and things and use lots of color and puts them all over the house. But he gets sad when they go away. If only he knew it was to pay for what he had- one day he'll know. The note from the teacher was mostly about Cal being off topic- and he was- but you couldn't scold him. Like always, you told him to do better next time.

While Cal was reading, the phone rang- your hands were sticky from the apple and didn't want to cut off Cal. So it went to voice mail. By the time Cal was done eating and kicking off his shoes everywhere you forgot about it. That's how it happens sometimes. You checked your cell to see if i had texted- i hadn't.

You took Cal for a walk down the street to a park. We usually do this together, but i wasn't home. Cal was calling for you to walk faster, but you were distracted- looking around- worried. You heard sirens in the distance- naturally you texted to see if i was coming home soon.

When i didn't respond for a little bit you took Cal home. He was so angry, he wanted to swing on the swingset and go down the slide at least once. You told him not today- and he hung his head, near tears all the way home. Something didn't feel right, so you picked up pace. by the time you were at the yard you were practically running. You came in and slammed the door- Cal went up to his room and you went to the kitchen. You poured yourself some water and leaned against the cabinet. Our home was so warm. You could tell real people with real lives and real love lived here. You were happy this morning, i woke you up early to tell you i love you, before i went to work. I usually let you sleep.

The phone rang. You picked it up and it was your sister. You two talked, caught up- she's coming to visit for a week- when you saw the message light flash. You forgot all about the call earlier. You wrapped up with her and pressed the check voice mail button when Cal screamed from up stairs. You don't even remember how you got up there, or how fast- it was a blur and then you were hovering over Cal in the bathroom with blood on his cheek. He cut himself with my razor. He wanted to shave like daddy. How do you punish him for such a cute thing? You cleaned him up and put a band aid on it. You two went down stairs and he turned on the tv. The sun was setting.

You tried calling me as you checked the messages on the phone. I didn't pick up- straight to voice mail. The monotone voice on the message machine droned through the date and time and then-

This is Officer Williams with the Rhode Island Police Department. We are at on the scene of major collision on the interstate. Your husbands driver's license was found in the car- he is still being extricated from the vehicle and unrecognizable. We are sending an officer to your address for further assistance. Please be in contact as soon as possible. Thank you.

Nothing went on for five minutes as the message buzzed out. The sun set and you still stared at the phone. Cal came behind you and asked where I was. You fell to the ground and held your chest to breath. It came sporadically and it scared Cal. He started crying, calling for you- mommy. Tears flooded your eyes- you tried whiping them away, to no avail. I wasn't coming home tonight, ever. Your face gaped- the air just wouldn't fill your lungs. you leaned forward, your face touched the floor as you gasped for the air, the wood was cool on your cheek. The hot tears puddled around you. Cal ran to the front door, trying to open it. You got to your knees and crawled to the living room- reaching for your cell to call someone. anyone. to beg for this not to happen. The front door clicked. Cal fell backward.

I came in, confused by Cal on the floor and you draped over the sofa, hysterical. I dropped my things and ran to you. I held you tight and asked what the matter was. You were speechless- just as confused as I. You finally reached around me and grabbed me. As you felt the heat beneath my clothes, the stubble of my cheek on your neck, you clutched me harder. A loud scream came from you as you realized i actually was here- not unrecognizable on the interstate. Cal got up and ran over to grab our legs. I held your head and rocked us all, soothing you. We stayed there untill you could talk.

I thought you were dead- you said. I had no response. I had no idea what that meant. I went and picked up the flowers i had gotten you for being home so late. You laid on the couch- lifeless- staring at me, disbelieving. Cal came and cuddled up beside you. I checked the messages and heard Office Williams explain. I turned to look at you and realized what had happened. I teared up, choked them back with little success and ran to you. We layed on the couch till the next morning.

My friend from work took me out for lunch and i left my wallet in his car. I'm always forgetting my wallet. On his way home he was involved in a multi-vehicle wreck on the interstate eastbound. This happened while i was finishing a project at the studio. As i came up the yard i picked flowers from the garden to present to you- for forgiveness. If only i had known.

Our lives changed that day. We never looked at each other the same. The petty love we felt before, the cute day-to-day stuff was gone. We realized first hand we couldn't live without each other. That love is the deepest we knew. deeper than self preservation. Our family grew and didn't stop. I only wish i could tell you at the end of every breath i love you. In case an Officer has to tell us it's over one day.

skin

I am where I said I would never be—no, not on the crest of Everest or the top floor of the Empire State Building—but on the edge of her bed. On the edge of her bed, staring out at the pool. The morning sun is reflecting off a diamond surface; the pool boy she hired for the summer keeps it looking like glass. Across my eyes—light dances across my eyes energetically, undulating to the rhythm of the water’s surface. A waltz. I am on a beach, a beach not with sand but a pink sheet overlooking a small ocean. A cell of an ocean. Its perimeter is so small for an ocean. The pink sheet is taught under me, another pink sheet is ruffled over my lap as I daze confused into this small, pristine ocean. I am where I said I would never be—on the edge of her bed.

It’s ten in the morning. Twelve hours ago I was free. Ten hours ago I was living my life to its fullest. Eight hours ago I fucked up. Big time. As I sit here, on this pink beach watching the small ocean I’m wondering where I am. I know that I’m at Sixty-Four Sundial drive. But where am I? As I sit here and ask where I am, I can tell you where I’ll be. I can look you straight in those ocean eyes and tell you where I will be. The sun rests on the ruffled pink sheet that so passively paralyzes me. I can feel the warmth seeping to my bare thighs. I haven’t moved since I sat up. I’ve been entranced by the ocean outside her window. Her window. I can tell you where I will be. I will be in happy. Or a suburb of happy. I will be in the glazed-over look of happiness. I will be by her. By her. By her side every step of the way, past moving in together, past marriage, past childbirth. I will walk with her to our divorce, then remarriage because we couldn’t find anyone else who would put up with our shit. I will walk right beside her while we bury a kid, marry a kid, and see our grandchildren at their graduation. I will walk by her through life and still on to death. For what? For what? To say I have lived. To say I have lived? Sixty-Four Sundial drive is where I will be, twenty, thirty, sixty-four years from now. For what? To say I have lived.

Eight hours ago I saw her. I saw her. My friend introduced us. Eric did. Hey, meet my friend from college he said. I met her. I met her. We hit it off. It was amazing. Nothing but laughs. I laugh. I’m laughing even now. Even now as I dent the side of her mattress. Her mattress. I sit wedged between pink sheets that I despise. I hated them the first time I saw them, five hours ago. I wanted to rip them to shreds. Fuck me. I want to rip them to shreds. I can do nothing but sit and think. Can I call this thinking? I just had the best sex with the funniest chick I’ve met in years. In twenty-three years. In my life. She’s a fling. A thing. A stranger with whom I’ve laughed. Yet I am here. That’s where I am. Here, in the last place I thought I’d be. Beside her.

Sun pours into the bedroom. The vertical blinds chop it up into bright beams of light—barring me in. Keeping me. The interstices of incandescence ignite innocent flecks of dust as they so lazily pass through the air. I can see them. They burn so brightly, then become dull again, and through another beam of light they become alive. As if the light lets them show who they really are, not lifeless bits of hair or skin, but fireworks of spectral wonder. I am a piece of dust, people I meet are the beams of light. I do my show for them, and move on. Again for the next, and so on and so forth until I find myself here. Wherever here is. This floating piece of dust has found a light stronger than others. A light that keeps me shining and doesn’t let go. A light that keeps me the next morning. Where the fuck am I? In the place I thought I’d never be. Be side her.

I am where I said I would never be. On the edge of her bed. What scares me is that I see myself here tomorrow morning. At this very hour, twenty-four from now. I see myself drawing taught a hideous pink sheet while ruffling the other over me. I want to let the sun seep through the ugly pink sheet to my thighs. I want to turn around right now and see her face. I want to see her face again tomorrow. I want to see her face again in ten years. I look out to the pool. The waves of azure crumple against the walls. The stupid pink sheets crumple across my crotch, between my thighs. They still smell like amazing sex with the funniest chick I’ve met in years. I finally find the strength, internal and external, to lift myself from the beach. I stand there. I stare out at the pool. The sun and reflection dance across my body. Every curve and edge is illuminated. The sun reaches her face. Her eyes open. As I turn around to look at her—At home—I see the very same blue I respected from her pool. I see the deepest blues. I see her. She scans my naked body. I hide nothing. As if waking from a coma, she smiles at the only face she recognizes. I run my hand across my beard. I speak to her. Don’t ask what I said because I don’t remember.

In an instant as short as my realization, I sprint. I sprint to the sliding door that framed my blue ocean. I ran from those hideous pink sheets, I ran from every light that shone on my dusty, incandescent tap dance. I ran from Sixty-Four Sundial drive. I ran for the pool. The perfect leaf-free pool that lit my body that morning. I jumped. I jumped high and I landed hard on the cool surface. Water broke. Water went everywhere. Water almost reached the sliding glass door that separated house from home. The slender, nude body of that chick I met last night. That chick that Eric introduced me too. That chick. That her joined me for a swim. Two naked people swimming in the sky. Nothing covered, nothing to hide. Just skin. Two naked people. Together.

I am where I said I would never be. Home.

the sound the sound

the music the music
doesn't describe
the sounds the sounds
pulsing through my head
beating through my heart
pouring out my mouth
falling to the ground the ground
dripping like paint
a painting a painting
of you and of me and of us
dancing across this world
this world dancing across your cheek
lacy like your hair your hair
caught in a breeze coming from
the clouds the clouds
clapping for us as we run down the aisles
and rows of people throwing rice
painting memories with
the sounds the sounds
we haven't yet made
we haven't yet heard
only coming close in
those dreams those dreams
that became our realities
words that sound like violins
laughs that sound like cymbals
kisses that sound like flutes climbing
scaling soaring high above
the din the din
of this life this life
as we know it
the silence the silence
is all we'll hear in the end
so we make all
the sound the sound
we possibly can

i once told the sky how i felt

When we've got
Something as good
As this
Oneeightymiles
Don't mean shit
There may be a lot
Of miles
Of minutes
Of people
And places
And things
Between us
But the universe buckles that
Space time continuum
Or
God punches that
Distance and
Wrinkles that's time
So that
We're nose to nose
Again

In reality
We're apart
But not for one second
Am I a p a r t from you
Cause
I'm a part of you

Those moments
When your face goes flush
And you warm up
For no reason
I've got my hand
Cupped to the sky's ear
And I'm whispering to it
How much I love you
And the sky and I giggle
As you smile
Again

morgan's prayer

for jennifer

I don't know you
By choice
I've listened before
But only the humming
Random chaos
Of the universe responded
I don't thank you
For the trees
Or this food I eat
But I do thank you
For the people you made
Not out of dust
Or rib
But people who
Are good people
cause you
Inspired them
Youre a good guy
Whether or not
You're there
Just take care
Of those brave to believe
And respect us
Who are brave not to
The doubt
I have
On both sides now
Is greater
Fire and brimstone
Don't mean much to me
Nor does eternal glory
All respect to you
Mr. God
But I like it here.
I'm child of earth
And will always love
his mothers
I'm child of man
And will love
Anyone around
To be loved
I'm child of you
Who ever can hear this
And I will forever thank you
And the Moon and stars
And sun
For her
She who will forever change me

rapping paper

go ahead!
ask me!
ONE MORE TIME
why are you majoring in art?

Please, may i have a second?
adjust the soap box a little closer
to your ear.

quite lamely
i'll plainly start
a part from the
question at hand
that reprimands
all my plans
to stay happy
in this sappy
melodramatic
soap operatic
best of all possible
dumps
and remind all you chumps
it ain't what'll rake in
the dough you'll be makin'
that keeps you alive
to survive
don't deprive
but revive
your soul would agree
its decree
you should be
you and not me
despite a degree!

So stop all your hating
and commiserating
cause frankly
my deary
i don't give a damn
who the man
thinks i am
cause i know
who i am not!
and that's a doctor
a lawer a fast food employer
an engineer a mouskateer
nuclear physi-losopher
a waiter a grader of plagiarized papers
a nurse or a clerk or a mathmatic jerk

you get it?
i'm done
and don't ask again
or i'll cut yo' ass.

writer's block

it's lifting
like a foggy San Francisco morning
i can make out people
and buildings
and trees and birds
and hills in the distance
and mountains beyond those

will you hold my hand
i asked
but you can see clearly forever
you said
i know, but i like how it feels
i whispered
ok then. here we go

the pasture looks so green
from this side

it's as beautiful as
i had hoped

i've already forgotten how
the other side feels

the pieces

at first i
saw the pieces
individually
i learned and memorized
their faces
their colors
their wants and needs

i got to know those pieces
pieces of you
and fell in love with them
as i met them
afraid this might be so real
yet hoping it was

i told each of those
colorful pieces
playful pieces
serious pieces of you
how much i loved them
and they giggled, holding their smiles
with hands i can't draw

then one by one
i put those pieces together
those fun-in-the-sun
take-me-seriously pieces
and i did
I took you seriously and found
how beautiful you truly are
how clear you make things in me
and first as a whole
i told you i love you.
did you feel it?

as pieces put together
are by nature
you are very fragile
and i hold you with care
though never fearing to play

your big picture
is what i hoped for
in my life
someone who knows
how to love me
how to treat me

cause if we break
either of us
we will pick up
the pieces
and know exactly where
they go

the pieces in my life
i'm not good with
or don't like
or am missing all together
you give me

and for that i give you
love

irreplaceable
undeniable
unconditional



love

Julius Ceasar

Why is it
When the waves stop crashing
On white shore sands
The clouds start clapping and

Why is it
When heat gets too hot
Too white hot too quick
To extinguish with the rains

Why is it
Months are actually days
And days are jokes of time
And seconds of glances
Just wont do

Why is it
Every question has no answer
And answers hang dry
In white hot clapping skies

Why is it
When I thought I lost,
I’d won for once.
Until the jokes of days
Tap their watches
And drag me off your shores

Why is it
No matter where these days take me
I’ll know exactly how to find you
By mapping the stars in the sky at night,
And the stars in the sand by day

Why is it
I forget seconds and glances
Turn to jokes of days
Who meet at night to form months
And months form years
And years form lifetimes of
Possibilities and unfinished endings-
But most important of all importants-
unfinished beginnings.

One question remains,
Who’s answer is held secret
By those days we’ve passed--
But I’m not willing to ask-





Why is it July?

We Will

a vow

She will look up to me
--I will look up to her
She will bring out in me the best
--I will find in her my best
She will trust me with reason
--I will trust her in reason
She will love my strengths and know my faults
--My faults will be her strengths
She will love without condition
--I will love with conviction
She will always have an answer
--I will always have the answer
She will always take the chance
--I will never keep her down
She will always take me there
--I will open doors till the end
She will say yes
--I will never say no
She will love me
--I will love her

We will want no other
--We will have no other

listening for beginners

i've been listening
so long
to so many
i've forgotten
how to be
listened to

they tell me
i'm not a good friend
when i tell them
the truth.

the truth is no one's friend
the wind once told me
as it blew a kiss.

the truth is no one's friend?
then why do so many ally themselves to it?
why do so many stand up for it?
why are people hurt when they don't get it?
why are people hurt when they get it?
why do they fear it and hope for it at the same time?

I've been listening
so long
my mouth has made a permanent smile
sealed by years of dust and rest.
when i'm asked
for the truth
it doesn't get a chance
to ruin your day,
but by nature,
it is truth after all,
it finds you
and ruins it anyway.

apathy is a brilliant color
and i've painted every wall with it.
and it's very hard to paint over.

what was i saying again?

don't think your work is done, chile

Miss. Height,

Is it true you could see
over the top our heads?
over our Sunday hats?
What did you see up there?
Ain't nothing special
down here.

Could you see the hundred years
of change in your country?
The century of your work
paying off?

Don't stop now chile,
just cause you kick the bucket
don't mean your done now, chile.

Is it true you gave advice
to Elenore Roosevelt
and told Eisenhower to let your brothers and sisters
go to school with whitey?
Is it true
you get black women in high up places
for Johnson?

Well I'll be...
You done so much already
why don't you take a rest
your coffin will be cushioned
and comfy with memories.
And all those freed hands you made
will brush your hair till
you fast asleep.

Dorothy,
click them ruby slippers,
cause you callin' home now.
But don't think your work is done, chile.

Your biggest fan,
Momma

The Path Tomorrow

I am a new woman of this world
born at thirteen years old
in a world of shame
of a woman's face
i might as well be bare flesh.
they treat me as though
I'm naked.

I am fortunate in this life
to attend an all girls school
in a world of shame
of a woman's education
I might never leave the house
to tend to my husband
and flock of children.

I was walking to school
on a very hot sunny day
my friend and i were talking
about tulips.
We learned about tulips just yesterday.
They are beautiful, so fair and tropical.
Where only pale, small flowers grow
they might as well be alien.

The thunder of motorcycles
grew closer behind us.
Boys sometimes raced on our
long flat roads.
But just as they sped up,
they slowed down.
I shouldn't have looked.
I shouldn't have turned to face them.
Not everybody believes in this new world
where i can look at a man.
As i turned and looked,
men threw acid on my face
it dripped to my clothes
my friend caught some too
under the sun,
to the sound of thunder fading
we melted
in this new world.

Our parent's were hurt
and as scared as I was.
I wore the face unrecognized
by family I've known my entire life.
some stared,
I'm glad i could not see myself.
After several weeks of curing,
My friend and I returned to school.
My parent's demanded we take a different path
every day to school.
Do not let anyone know which way you will go.
The path today, wont be the path tomorrow.

The yard around the school
is unbeaten ground.
Every path in this new world
is the path less traveled by.

Marmalade Flies

Slate blue clean and cloudless skies
leafy shadows flickering sunshine
here and there grass lapping at my toes
A caterpillar inches over my knee
going far out of its way to pay visit.
I crane my neck upward, to the white hot
spot in the sky, drying out the sweat on my brow.
My hair is picked up by a finger breeze
and placed on my other cheek, gently.

I look out over the waving field
of grass being swept up with the winds.
I feel my shirt sleeve pinch
and what do you know
a butter fly made perch of my arm
It stretched its yellow wings,
open close
open close
Looked up at me
unfurled its proboscis
And kissed me
to thank me for lending it my shoulder.
In two flaps it was airborne
that yellow flutter by
that marmalade fly.
I watched it glide off
floating like a bubble in the open
yellow blue air that was so active that day.

My hair tossed about my head
as if I were in a warm tidal pool
shrunk to the size of a sea shell
floating helplessly in the living
earth around me
wet with beauty, dripping with happiness.
As I sunk to the bottom of this arid grotto,
my clothes became as alive as the rest of Earth.
Tens of butterflies matching my companion
came tumbling along in the gripping wind.
Then hundreds of orange and yellow buddies
filled the air with the perfection of life.
I lost count when they started chopping
up sun light like the waving tree branch above me.


I looked around me and it wasn't the breeze
shuffling about my clothes and hair
but the hundreds of feelers these bugs had.
I was covered in their tickling feet,
each grabbing for me as respite.
They looked just like my first friend,
the first butterfly, my marmalade fly,
yet I still missed him.

The storm of butterflies
carried on over head, filling the air with
golden streams of fall leaves
migrating for the spring.
I watched the field turn back to normal
with the last few
flitting into the distance, seeking their new home.
The air was once again empty,
the sun leaning its heavy head ever so slightly
looking at me all alone in his empty field,
he smiled and winked, I could have sworn,
just as something pinched the sleeve of my shirt.
I looked over and met a matching butterfly
staring up to me.
I knew it wasn't my friend from before
but it was just as yellow, and just as good.

We flocked into the future together
fluttering in the wind, as helpless as the rest.

Cicada Nights

As sun flickers
blown out by the moon
Afternoon pulls
covers up over its head
hiding from the monsters.
Like candelabrum lit
in a dark and distant hall
stars snap on.

When the cool night
chills the flakes of wings
clipped to the
Cicada's back
they chime in
the sound of heat
like the pang of
a shower too hot.

Brass streams
cut through
the hanging air
to my window
airing out my
muddled mind.

Then it stops.
The sound cuts off
as if some merciful
passer by shoved his thumb
in the piercing thing.
Momentary bliss washes over me
though prematurely
interrupted because
It will continue again
as if nothing ever happened

Cicada nights
storm my memory
of jarring lightning bugs
and netting flutters by
with my brother.
Gathering like medals
scrapes and bruises
on every joint.
By the end of
those summer days
we were well decorated
admirals of makeshift adventures.
All the while
the cicadas cadenced
our afternoon marches
into marmalade evening skies
and florid fuchsia sunsets.
When the moon complained
we're out too late
we dismounted our
tree limbs we rode like
cowboy-horses
landing on our knees
staining them green and brown.
We declined dinner
having sustained
our savage marooned
appetites on mud pies and worms,
we recounted our
backyard triumphs
and playground conquests.

Cicada nights
played throughout
our reluctant baths washing away
the proof of where we went
and what we saw that day.
As we laid for bed
the cicada chimed on
pausing for a cool breeze
and continuing again
as if nothing ever happened.

April Showers

When in April
the showers fall,
soaking the red Earth,
they remember.

Sky rockets fly
Habyarimana falls
scattering hope
like stars across
the red universe.

Those dark skins
Hutu in truer African glory
Oppressed embarrassed
by pale skins to
their Tutsi family.

Like the sky falling
raining stars across
the red universe
The night concealed
family murdering
family murdering
family mur-

“Hide Tutsi scum
hide and we will find you
cowering under rocks
under cabinets
We will destroy your
homes that were our homes

Your whiter faces
once favored by pale races
are now the dregs of
our species.
Filth that must be cleaned
from our slate!”

One hundred days
times eight thousand lives
amounts to the loss
our human race suffered.

Fetid swamps were
muddy destroyed streets
within forests of the dead.
They say to never walk over graves
How can one avoid them now?

Identification cards required
If they do not read Hutu
if they do not look real
you know what to expect

Expect the sky to fall
in an April shower
of bullet casings
reminding you
and your family
how worthless you are.

When in April
the showers fall
soaking the red Earth.
The blood spills
and soaks deeper
than rain ever could
staining tracts
in memory.

The April storm
broke late June.
Eighthundredthousand
souls joined God
who chose every night
to sleep over his beautiful
Rwanda.

When in April,
the showers fall,
soaking the red Earth
they remember.

Farmers of the Amarillo

Sun yellow sun-flower
button blossoms neck-to-neck
bumble bee, legs full of pollen
resting on my potted garden

fuzzy jacket with
cellophane wing
keeping afloat antennae
keeping aloft nature

forest of happy-faced
yellow faces, pettals lining
future nectar. Butter
creatures cream this
happy crop

pick this bouquet
but wait till they're done
soon, these farmers of the Amarillo
wont farm.

Mistaken Identity

Mistaken Identity
For Quincy

Because you are black
you are not who you think you are
you are every scary unpredictable planned problem
in America.
Because you are black
a hand hovers like vibrant tension in the room
keeping you in place servicing the rest of us who
might not deserve it.
Because you are black
You write your words small in your tiny booth
letting children cross your heart- hope to die- take this message only I
can hear.
Why are you here?
Zobona bayabaleka!
What can you expect?
Ninga dinwa!
Make the wind hear your voice
fuck work and the rest of the noise
you're forced to hear!
Siya ba bona!
Walk down your sidewalk
strip your uniform
Ibala lami
wear only what God gave you to wear
Elimnyama
your skin dark as night is warm
Ndiya zidla ngalo
They will shoot to kill
a matched description
Bebe fun' ukusi xeda
and you will die
Ngeke ba lunge
a mistaken identity.
And you will die!
Sizo nqoba!
A mistaken identity.

Out of the jungle

Aung sang for what I was born with
--United colors of democracy
Her song still echoes through
the canopy of lofty inalienable rights.
--Rangoon understory absorbs blood
rich with vibrant young revolution.
Goddamn bitter.
The jungle throbs with throaty pulse
hiding lives abandoned by their own.
--I fought for nothing and am awarded
heaped on my lap, piles of freedom,
comfort in knowing martial law wont
apply to me, as other laws do not.
--How can I seal in an envelope
freedom, the excess, the surplus
at the end of the month i never used.
can i not pass it on? i must throw it
away unused, abused, refused.

I'm waiting for those millions
those souls to come out of the jungle
to light of day and comfort
with pride in their beautiful country.
Hold those hands of those children
who watched humans become animal,
sing them to sleep with sweet words.
Continue to seek their future,
continue to seek your past.

Scream your strife at the top of your lungs
until others around you know of your present.

spring break

I miss spring break
taking only one class
and that class is
-in my head.
Type type type
to pass this class
internet necessary.

spring break is next
-week
i wont even feel it
pass me by.
it will be just another
unproductive week
oh spring break
what will i break from?

not this monotony.
i need something new
something brand spanking new.

show yourself
and lets break spring

That Country

I am a soldier for love.
Love, the all engulfing continent spread north to south and east to west, floating just above subconscious. That country whom all call home. That country whose flags wave day in, day out, in tact or battered, striped, checkered, sometimes surrendered. Pride and shame and patriotic idiotic chagrin blame their claim to fame namelessly on this coast to coast motherland fatherland brother sister Loverland.

The army the armed forces going up against all those who hate who cannot love. Most volunteer, most scribble their drunken mark dotted across contracts, drunk from such pheromones and hormones or love and lust. They don such feeble tin hats and helmets and guns loaded with kindness not bullets that make ribbons of flesh and shreds of hope; these do not protect them as confidently they- the army- those soldiers for love- make their haggard way through rejections and unforeseen breakups and worse of all worse than death loves unrequited. Though unprotected and as naked to the world as their birth they- the army- vulnerable as ever forge through swamps and quagmires to graveyards whose cup hath runneth over of broken souls and tents pitched by shards of bones. Dismal and dismaying as it can be those sunny-side-up soldiers for love trudge through to promise lands known and unknown painted for them by Optimism.

I was not as willing in my headlong foray into Love and her foreign bosom. Never detached nor ignorant of her pacifist presence only justifiably cautious when wading in such deep waters off her shallow shores. Though being born human with no permission requested I too at that exact moment was born in Love, always within her borders no matter how far around or from Earth I traveled, always a citizen a denizen a reluctant representative of Love. Some volunteer, some are drafted. I never had the luxury of drunken logic at my side to sign my mark for me with no cowardice no regret only false confidence.

Then one day saw her and in one instant my existence was explained to me in everything but words and as a grace note at the footnote of that instant she was gone forever invisible in the fuzzy static of this horrible nation. No I was drafted or dragged rather to be sized and measured for my own personal journey to the Promise Land that Elysium that paper mache meadow full of construction paper poppies. I fit a tin helmet and was wished well as Love at first sight pulled me sank me hand in lead-heavy hand to the depths of complete abyss filled to the brim of nothingness. Near me comrades of complicated destinies and dismantled concupiscence wait unbelieving tethered to the bottom of an empty ocean for the utterly unlikely. They too- those soldiers of love- clutching their kindness loaded guns all too trigger happy wait for their one instant to replay itself a glitch in a blip on a radar. Some old some very young and some like me neither old nor very young but evenly displaced in this time line.

I waited what could have been years or days for that ghostly figure to saunter down like star dust scraped from a meteor in a night sky, starkly contrasting. I was drafted to fight for Love- to soldier on though on leads no where or everywhere. I waded, I sloshed through morass after morass before I waited those cold years or days for my instant to come rushing back to me. Just when I thought it was over I was overwhelmed that my weightless waiting was fulfilled to fruition. As she sauntered from heaven or hell I clutched the hem of her sundress and all was illuminated as I was pulled north to Salvation to the Promise Land promised so long ago. As I looked below my dangling feet the sallow faces I neighbored grew dimmer as they looked not at me but past me to the heavens or to hell for their star dust star-crossed lover to settle on them. Promised land is barren without vehement passion and love so intense the grass grows itself. On closer inspection the paper mache hills flowed in the breeze covered in soft bristles of hair-like grass greener than green. The flowers wept sweet nectar scents and attracted the eye with arrogant efficiency.

Destiny has no home in the swirling chaos created by such a clever universe to confuse and capture logics and realities and most misunderstood of all- truths. Truths defined by other truths smaller or larger truths brick by brick backing the enormity of consciousness impenetrable. Truth is destined to be homeless if destiny were true blue. Eye there is the rub when I locked blue eye to green eye I knew my destiny and backed it up with those bricks of truths. My destiny was this singularity in the anomaly of truth the enigma of our chaotic cosmos swinging like an out of synch pendulum waiting to finally match everyone's ticks and tocks. This green eyed sun dressed nebula floating into my life unannounced and leaving it ripping every bone and muscle with her. Such swift segues enter stage right exit stage left must be written somewhere, they are truths can they too be destinies or are they mutually exclusive mutually elusive phenomena never to be explained? No- that truth spelled the destiny like two magnets ready to mate north to south and that destiny clarified the truth. My soul my promise lands promised so vaguely at the beginning the ends to my means awaits me across those barren battle fields splintered with lost causes and givings up. Hand in air-light hand we skipped from one day to the next like stepping stones to the doors of endless time infinity never registering through the filter of burning adoration immortal.

However you find yourself in the army- the armed forces for Love- you are soldiers defending That Undeserving Country; utterly without reproach. Yet millions of immigrants and emigrants and pilgrims on one-way sojourns find themselves drying on her shores.

A Parable of Proof

Man went to prove God one day.
That day, three changes occurred:
changes spiritual
changes mental and
changes physical.
He gathered his gadgets and instruments of science and
headed into natures bosom.
She welcomed him warmly at first; she didn't ind being poked and scanned.
She even waited patiently as he scraped samples for traces of God.
Knowing God wouldn't be too easy to find—he went deeper into her cradle,
the further he got, the colder her welcome.
Soon, as they say, he went native, his tools of science stopped working so
he had to rely on his bare mind. His senses became intense, on fire.
The world around him was illuminated, they became one.
More animal than man, he continued his search for his God, every day
growing closer. He started using more than his mind to search for proof,
he used his soul. Man's spiritual metamorphosis.
As he slept peacefully under the stars, above the insects, among the flora,
his dream invited him to a cliffs edge overlooking the vast ocean.
Another man, old as the cliff, beckoned him to join the view.
They two sat and admired the incredible vista before them, the old man
introduced himself as the architect of their current panorama.
I'm in the company of God, questioned Man.
You're in the company of everything, he said.
But you're he who created creation, Man interrogated.
So they say, I was merely there early enough to witness it, he said, most call me God.
Prove it, Man requested.
I can not prove faith, he muttered.
You're God you can do anything, Man demanded.
Very well, draw a map of the air, for me, and I will prove faith.
That's impossible, it's forever changing and incredibly difficult to see, said Man.
And faith is different, asked the old man.
I suppose you're right, however, I am sitting here speaking to you, Man mused.
Is that not proof enough, asked the old man.
Merely evidence, I am an atheist and a man of science, unless I have tangible proof, I will remain atheist.
It took me a while to believe in Man, honestly—For the longest time I truly didn't think he existed. Said the old man.
You created us, of course you knew-
I witnessed, remember, and so many things happened that day you got lost in the milieu.
Do you believe in Man now, asked Man.
I have evidence, the old man winked and was gone.
Man lay in his slumber till morning, he rose with the sun and marched back to civilization.
He was pleased to have found the proof he needed, he would be nominated for awards and be published world wide! Glory will forever fall on his name.
Upon leaving the woods, he found his tools of science and tried to get them working again.
As he was toying with a probe, he slipped on a rock, knocked his head hard, and forgot everything
that happened.

Zodiac

If I were the water
I’d go far away away
I’d go deep and deep
I’d go high high in the sky

But because I’m water
I come back back
In all forms to you

I will wash your shores
And bathe your hills and peaks
I will pour through your valleys
And seep deep into your surface

No matter how far far
I go deep deep
You know I will always return
And cycle once again.

Nightmare On Elm Street

While they tell us to look up
at the sixth floor's breezy open window
they frame our perception
of that much larger painting before us

No—we shout no!
Who framed whom that winter day
We will excuse our naivety
forever lost in perjury
Check the knoll and check the frame
for who framed whom that winter day

We framed ourselves!
Please, I beg you people, look up!
Forget what you think
you heard you saw you know, look up!

No—we shout no!
You have only the sixth floor window story.
The witness's eyes twenty twenty
and certainly the eyes were plenty
And the viewers at home, we're sorry,
you have only the sixth floor window story.

Name after name with links and ties
to government departments relying on lies
FBI and CIA of course have nothing to say
when real questions are asked about that day.

Ask not what your country will do to you
Cause even if you asked you'd get no truth.
But what you can do for your country?
Accept the bread we're fed while watching the circus.

No—we shout no!
You heard three shots and echoes
He hit the road Jack
He wont come back.
Stop your crying and choke your woes
You heard three shots and echoes.

I Hate the Color Gray

Those tears roll down
cheeks still hot from crying;
washing my face like
rain on leaves in a
dusty July.
Rediscovering green

Tears that tear nothing
from nothing. Like fringe
from notebook paper.
Just fodder for a stop
motion blizzard
That comes eye level.

Paper hearts leave
paper trails that no one
will sweep for you
so make sure yours
is not origami
'Cause paper cuts hurt.

Imagine hating the color
Gray and no one asking why.
when such a passive
I-never-did-nothing-to-nobody
color creeped to the shit list.

Only coming close
still wont do and wont
satisfy my lackluster lust
for God doesn't even know
what.

I found myself yelling
at clouds emptier than
anything yet full enough
to pour in all the wrong places
at all the wrong times.

That trick of light keeping
things in the mirror may be
closer than they appear
dancing across cathedrals
in rainbow incandescent
sprees exploding
imploding coral reefs
of schools of fish
just out of college
to be out of reach with
what this world
expects of you
and of me.
Expect nothing...

Before The Gull

They ask when you die
-what happens-
answers only cover so much.
Answers barely scratch the surface.
The questions let you know
we understand
whats going on around us.
Its cosmic jeopardy answering
in questions
(as long as you question your answers)
What is life?
Yet no answer for five-hundred, Alex
(only more questions)
Trebec as my witness we all
go into that good night.
Time's up
pencil's down.
What have we learned?
Listen carefully:
What fog coats the seas
so thick you can't even see the good Lord.
Only instinct and good-old-fashioned know-how
will guide you home. As in Life.
You will always hear the caw
before the gull parts the foamy gray air.
Your home can't be too far from his,
and remember, he made it as far out as you.

Beach House

Remember the old house
on the beach?
Waves crashing
moon glowing
you showing
off to me.

The window was busted
we crawled in
sand dusted
and encrusted
artifacts lost by
memories.

It twinkled like moon light
does on snow.
You glimmered
I shimmered
we danced in
the galaxy.

I played the piano,
with my mittens on.
I smiled
you cried while
I played you your
lullaby.

We stayed in that old house
all night long
I kissed you
you kissed too
we didn't
want to leave.

Never leave.

Quarters For Dollars

Such change made
for poor unheard souls.
That hope exchanged
for faith and promise.

Such promise made
for promise lands
and working class hands
that pave our way to
the top.

Such hope made
hopeless by unchecked
power under our glass roof.
Don't throw stones.

We raised that dark face
to the highest place
to watch over and guide
us to nothing.

Change is made like
quarters for dollars
and pennies for dimes.
So little, so cheap
the couch would starve.

Do what you said you would
and ask not of us to follow
for black sheep is still a sheep
with no shepherd.

You Are the Tree

As given the tree,
I give you roots with which to hold ground;
to know where you stand;
to reach further than sediment and nutrient
to reach beyond bedrock and grasp those before you
to better know yourself.

As given the tree,
I give you limbs that stretch from those roots;
to shelter young and all;
to conquer the space around you with majesty
to conquer gravity and brevity in one fall swoop
to branch out and explore your world.

As given the tree,
I give you leaves to better hear the breeze;
to fill those lungs of leaves with sweet air
to share with millions around you
to share what sacred petals so explode in color
to pass the time till winter strips, humbles you.

As given the tree,
I give you life and knowledge unending;
to be that microcosm fluttering and crawling with life
to learn the names and ways of Animalea around you
to learn the answer to the most puzzling and dazzling of queries
to discover: why.

Mom Universal

Your love is like
the organic magnetism
with which cucumbers
cling to the knife.
Gentle like fridge
magnets.

Your love is complex
like the Rorschach
of a sliced tomato.
Different in every
life.

Your love asks no
questions with no
conditions but keeps
giving and giving
never to take.

Your love is worth
more than any currency
and cliché of worth
any cliché of a poem
could come up with.

Your love took us
and we skipped like
pebbles across puddles
of lakes and ponds of
Oceans.

Your love defined the
stars in turn giving me
the ground to walk
on never alone
and never with
an empty hand.

Your love filled my
head with dreams and
pockets with denim wishes
you knew would come
true.

Your love played
movies of memories
when the wind blew
too hard and rain fell
too fast.


Your love is and
always will be a
pillow and blanket
that cradles my aged
body no longer a babe's.

Your love is pure
unfaltering and the
strongest structure from
which one could build
his existence.

Your love is you
and me and everyone
that has happened to
pass too closely to
your inviting orbit
like a comet content
with its new path,
never to leave your
pull.

I Count!

I can count to ten in Japanese. I can count to one thousand in German. I can count to twenty in French… then it gets a little fuzzy. I think to thirty in Spanish. In English though… In English I can count until my voice evaporates under the cracks and yawns of the Universe coming to an end. I could count in English, number by number, past the end of the Universe, PLUS the 1,060 foreign numbers I know! With all this impressive counting I can do… I find it impossible to count how many times you make me laugh. I’ve tried counting how many smiles we’ve plastered on each other’s faces- on anybody’s face! It’s nauseating to consider the number it would take to describe all the things you do right. With all of this counting, I’m pretty pooped. Have you heard of those monks in the Himalayas that count to find God? I think I’ll let them count for me while I rest. They’ll probably count how many times I’ve thought of you since we met. In fact, I’m sure they’ll count how many times you’ve though of me! What else could they possibly count? Oh! They’ll be counting the times my heart says I Love You (and that’s a lot). They’ll count all the keys of the piano that I play for YOU. If they dare even try, they could count the ways you are beautiful, but I really don’t think they have enough time! As we both sleep, those nice bald monks will be counting for every star in the galaxy, for every galaxy in the Universe for every Universe in time. And unfortunately, once the last solar cluster is accounted for, the reasons why I want you will still need counting. So those poor guys up in the mountains will never see an end to their toils. Which is why during the day, I give them a break.

I don’t believe in infinity anymore, it’s just not a big enough number to capture you.

Hey Aunt Jemima

[To be sung to the tune of "Hey there Delilah"]

Hey Aunt Jemima
what's it like up in the pantry?
Don't you know it's Sunday morning
oh i miss the taste of Country
Crock and you.
Pancakes don't shimmer without you
You know it's true.

Hey Aunt Jemima
you know you're the greatest condiment
bringing smiles to people young and old
from continent to continent
you're wise.
The mammy face is your disguise,
those big brown eyes!

Oh- you make my mouth sticky
Oh- my lips are sticky
Oh- my lips, they stick to me
Oh- so sticky sticky

Hey Aunt Jemima
I know times used to be hard
what with slavery and civil rights,
fate dealt you a new card.
You knew it would
Compared to what mammies should...
You have it good!

Hey Aunt Jemima
you make it hard to leave for work
but we're not seven watching cartoons.
responsibilities i can't shirk.
but God, i would.
seriously, you're that good!
I wish i could.

Overcoming slaver!
Making things taste maple-y
Overcome obesity,
Just don't use more than you need.

Absentee

You can’t just show up,
Say you have grown up
And leave without saying
Goodbye

If that were acceptable
I’m sure I’d be capable
Of denying you a
third try.

So fuck all your miracles
It’s fucking hysterical
When everyone shuts up
And leaves you lonely staring at
The sky

We’re all voting now
Its so gosh darn funny how
The candidate’s gone
Absent, she

Promised the sun and moon—
Had better deliver both really soon
Lest should I vote
Absentee.

Oh, riots and revolutions
Complicated evolutions,
All in the name of you
Lying and cheating, deceiving to campaign
For me

Tied: A Parable

Remember when we clung
to the same reef together?
Before I was flung
out into the deep blue ether.
I was anchored fast
to the bright life of Reef,
and if it had last
would I find relief?

Gust after gust shook my hand loose
and away, far away helpless, aloof,
I swayed and I groaned while moon mothered tide
and whispers of courage from fish passed me by.
“You've done the right thing, you've let it all go!”
said one fish who added “Believe me, I'd know!
Though you feel lost in this endless parade
the current will keep you from all the charades
that reef life and shore life deliver with haste.
While floating among us, time never wastes.”

His words found me well, before I made leave
of this wise caravan who delivered reprieve,
I called to the fish whose years he'd surpassed
“There's no one like me as far out as I'm cast,
only you fish who were built on the wave
can survive these conditions and never be stayed.
My arms and my legs are heavy as lead
as they do not respond to what's in my head.”
“You think we all woke in this school ready made?”
He said “I awoke with no cavalcade.
But swim did my fins and swim did my tail,
I trusted this scary invisible trail.
Then just as I thought all was lost, I awoke.
And what I saw then I figured a joke.
One after one a thousand times wide
I joined the slip-silver stream! Happy, I cried
'Here is my path, and why I was made
no longer am I a directionless cade'.
Here's where you find me along with my kind
it wont come so easy, your journey, you'll find,
will give you perspective on things big and small
just listen real hard and you'll make the right call.”

I thanked him and waved as I spun hither to
and trusted the waves and trusted the blue
I wiped my head clean of any bad thought
and flowed with the current to find what I'd sought.
What do you know that wise fish was right
A heavy limbed bobble head girl came in sight.

Cloud:burst

I

It starts with sweep

sweet cool air o'er

plains whispering

concrete crackling

trees creaking

all damp and bitter

scent sent senses

to childhood.

Gold valleys volley

distant dissonant din

o'er plains-concrete-trees.

Smell of pavement

puckers the nose, wet of

childhood flashbacks.

Skip rope

ride bike

climb tree.

Lightning flashbacks flash

back strobing in mauve

distance.

Why bright when sky

scrapes clouds raked

o'er plains-concrete-trees?

Inevitable, the

slues of torrents of rain

to come to wash today

from today.

Memories explode with strobe

and stroke of lucks pluck your mind

like legless limbless piano teeth loose and ready.

Dangling by dandelion stems from bubble gum stuck to your shoe.

FLASH

grumble

FLASH

rumble

Its starting without

permission. We need

no permission to

position our hearts

aligned with Pluto

or better yet Saturn

angelic by halo.

Those deep purple

hearts throbbing on the

horizon have gathered

in Indaba o'er plains-concrete-trees.

O'er houses like ours.

The supreme moment

awaits waiting because it can.

Knowing we wait for it

in Limbo

eyes piercing the swollen bellies

of cumulo

nimbo.

Churning sea mist

into amethyst bubbles for eyes

waiting, no cue, to cry

for nothing in particular;

but cry it must.

Open your soul like the umbrella

II

POP

Like a command from

The Controller (Cloud: burst)

the balloon

burst before us. Explosions

O'er plains-concrete-trees.

Snapping popping raindrops

plopping fizzing in the stream

making lakes

of yards and

rivers of

roads.

Returning our manufactured

way-of-things to primal

pretty natural landscapes.

Great thunderous applause

for no one in particular

send tears of joy

of self satisfaction

raining on our heads

soaking to the roots

Who is clapping for whom?

Who clears their throat so

heartily,

shaking the earth

scaring the cat.

Not for me.

Not to me.

Though on they clap miles above

hidden by gray bellied whales

floating sky high lumb'ring

to find the ocean they were

born from

Why do those

gray bellied whales beach themselves

so often?

Only to whet the

land, to feed the seed and eyes

dried from crying?

A sacrifice gone unsung-

-noticed- but unsung

This is our song to you

water-whales wail

O'er plains-concrete-trees.

III

Like all things Earthly bound

an end must become.

A whale can not forever be

it must return to mother sea.

Starving bellies now groan:

Earth mocking them

now sated and quenched.

On distance those quaking bellies

retreat,

shriveling

thinning

aging to wisps

of gray hair high high

in the sky.

Sunny Sundays

slip between strands of

silver-gray hair swaying

sky high streaking

stratospheres

tickled morning blue.

Horizon blushes

with discomfiture of being

caught peeking

so dawn early.

Air clears of bellowing balloons

lumb'ring whales

gray-bellied whales

now forgotten.

The cloud burst breaks

the day

washing shores

dusting off sleepy winter

leaves.

Eden glows under sky light

fresh baby-green

earth crinkles soaked

and unashamed

branches and leaves stretching

a good morning stretch

fold closed your

soul umbrella.

Take a deep breath

leap awake eyes agape

make no excuses nor reason

for rain claps for no one in particular.