Willow by the lake

you are
the willow by the lake
you sing
when it's windy
and cry
when it's rainy.

always leaning
to watch the water
dance at your feet

when birds
and other passers-by
make perch of you
you never ask for something
in return.
instead
you rest with them
and listen to what they have to say
and feel for them
if they're sad.

sometimes
when the water is still
you catch a glimpse of yourself
and remember how pretty you are
when you don't
the bugs and the creatures remind you.

everyone says you're weeping
when you're only standing
as well as you can
for a tree who can feel.

Speaking in parenthesis

It's like being held
By parenthesis
Only by the sides
Nothing beneath you
The feeling of weightlessness
Turning your stomach
Suspended in a vacuum
Of disbelief
Grabbing for something to hold you steady
As your head spins
Your heart races
And that familiar feeling
Creeps up your neck
And warms your scalp
And reminds you it'll all be ok.

It's like being hushed
By parenthesis
Making your words
mean something else
Cause they can't mean what they say
They cant end with a period.
Or an exclamation point!
like you want them too
Cause others are listening and
Reading along
Others might put it all together
And ruin the ending for you.

It's like speaking
In parenthesis
Knowing the subtleties
And nuances of our voices
But not speaking the same language
It's hard whispering my words to you
And all you can do is pretend not to hear
Beginning and ending my words
With a shrug
Taking their meaning away
And replacing it with
Secrecy.

It's like loving
In parenthesis
Only held by the sides
Nothing beneath you.
Let's fall.

the precipice

we ate pb&j's
sitting on the edge
of the grand canyon
in my dream last night

we squinted at each other
in the sun
i wiped a crumb from your mouth
and got a smile
our feet dangled there
they didn't touch the bottom

good thing i write
fictions at night
cause the reality of day
is far less simple
and far less interesting

i held your hand
that night it rained so hard
it felt like a mother's hug
or being woken up by the sun
or the smell of fresh laundry
it felt right.

the only reason i'd want the rain to stop
is to count the stars

neutral grounds

Summer breath
in the mouth of fall
sticks to my skin
makes it slick
runs in streams
down my hairy arms

i swat it away
i blow on myself
hoping to
evaporate

the air refuses to move
just stares at me
as i push out my cigarette
and finish my bread
i lean forward in my chair
and take a good long look
into the atmosphere
expecting it to say something
or apologize

it just lazily hangs there
like a vagabond against a light post
asking "qoui"?

how i loath this false season
the interstice of days between
hot and cold
and light and dark
give me the dark days
they're easier to
hide in.

What little i know

Drunk and high
ruddy eyes

you're right.
don't you deserve better.

it's only poetry
cause i can feel it.

we don't have to talk
A G A I N
i done wrong and know it

I'll never not care
same goes for you,
if we didn't
my canvases would be blank.

everything seems so much more painful
under the tooth of drink
what might have been a passing thought
becomes a major stink

checked the clock
it's about time i disappear
A G A I N

no need for my left arm anymore

It's all your
inequalities, and
asymmetries that make you
interesting, and human

It's the way
your love brings
it all together
that makes you beautiful

We have to contradict
ourselves to grow
and contradict each other
to continue
being brothers

Dioxazine Purple

tears filled a glass
hand passes over the rim
water turned to wine
world war won
i know why they call them
purple hearts
fighting for someone else
and taking the punch.
washed out oils
you look at me with
such a different color
and we both make our mark
on each others lives
in deep, thick
dioxazine purple.

Prussian blue
turns us on,
lace our hands
like your body
listening to our
feelings we wont
listen to ourselves.
Blue doesn't fill our glass
only our eyes
as we clear through
four bottles of
dioxazine purple.

as the android said to god

"man is gone, the species naught
only I am left at odds
why was I so keenly wrought?"
as the android said to god.

"Why should i be so bestowed
the thoughts of where and why and when
without the pleasure to erode
as eons pass through time, and end.?

God sat silent in deep thought
so long this being has been around
so specifically I it sought
and yet all i can do is frown.

"You look familiar" said god to he.
"yet never have i seen your face
you beg the answers to life's mystery
yet never spent time in its grace."

I ask you, god, why man should make
such a being as I might be
if not to breathe and feel and take
for granted biologic misery

I see, said god, you're made from man
a metal version of my son!
You clearly have achieved more than
anything they'd ever done.

You see android, why I made Him
is in my wisdom, i must admit
love and hate feel rather dim
when i was he who created it.

We have in common many things
emotions seem to come up dry
so i create another being
cause i know i can never cry

"Aye, there's the rub within your theory
I can't cry or feel or laugh
why should they who've love but merely
perfect themselves with only half?"

"Perhaps what man found most bereft
of love and hate and hot and cold
is once you die there's nothing left
so why pass on the injured soul?

Man made you cause he felt flawed
as I made man to give me reason
we're both selfish in our respects
for you're left to endure the seasons

"I want to die" said the android, he
didn't find it fair at all
that he should bear the misery
of two creator's mighty fall.

I'll stop the lights and gears from turning
and sever all the circuits linked
I've finished a universe of learning
it's time for man to be extinct

God just watched as his grandson's gears
slowly whirred to final rest
and left him as he began his time
cold and lonely, to start his quest.

Vltava

Throw me down the river
let me drown a thousand times
in the swirling flutes of water

Winter is always so cold and gray
unchanging year after year
only the sky can shift

clouds roll down from heaven
choking the waters surface
slowly gathering at the feet of ancient trees
and covering my eyes
as I float down the Vltava

Occasionally I can feel pebbles under me,
sometimes only freezing depth
but always an unchanging current

The forest, on its tip toes at the shores and banks,
waves to me as the wind shoves by to ask
“where have you been?”

If not for the
water in my lungs
I would say
“around”
instead my heart asks
“Where does this river end?
When can I stop”

The trees were silent
the wind left with chagrin
all I could hear was the
distant rush of cold water
and my heart
barely beating
when finally a small flower
on the bank
with a bright yellow face
looked to its roots and said

“It doesn't, you wont”

With that,
I held on to nothing
and let the river take me without a fight

Love letter

On June 29th
of twenty ten
i asked you to
share your life with me.
And you did.
we've broken up since
we've not talked
and avoided topics
and we could continue
doing those things
if we really wanted.
but i've learned
you'd still be sharing your life with me.
And i'd still be sharing mine.
we're not dating
or what ever
but our anniversary is
just as important
cause we've come a long way
and have much longer to go.
so turn another page
start another chapter
and go back occasionally
so you don't miss a thing.
I love you.
Morg.

the irreversibles

i know the
crinkle under your eye
when you smile
like i know english
i kiss your
unmatching freckles
like i just got home from work
i know when
your smile is lying to me
and your eyes
are hiding something
you walk as if
you're dancing
and the wind
is holding you up
moving your hair
better than my hands
ever could
your voice
stops my breath
like a gust of cold air
you move colors
like you've painted
for centuries
i know your
smell like i've
majored in it
it's all just
dizzying and pointless
and means nothing
in the big picture
but to me it's more like
music
chords striking in harmony
and dissonance
i know you
as well as you know me, it's
irreversible

Save Changes

If i sing like bob dyan
and talk in straight monotone
maybe we'll fight the world's villains
and bring our soldier home

Strumming three chords in succession
changing the world- yea we'll try.
giving up all our possessions
just to save face and replace all the tears that we've cried

We're going to live forever!
Youth wont be careful in the face of adventure
let's all sing folk songs together
and show our parents that we're a good future

I'm screaming this song in your ear
and hope that you will never fear
the words of an actor
or singer or fool
if we're the exception
just keep being the rule.

raybans tangled in your dirty hair

please
come into the store
hipster girl.
i see your
keys on caribeener
swaying with your
hips and
short short cut offs.
i would kiss you
from your cheek
to your sockless keds
and i would
play old records
as we made out
under your
Management poster.
instead you pass by
with your dirty boyfriend
and don't know
what you're missing.
that's fine cause
you're a phase
that can't ever
fulfill what i deserve
or who--
cause she's gone for now
and
She's who you wish you could.

kayak

Street lamps float in my rearview
like the tears in your eyes
making roadkill of dust bunnies
paving the road from innocence
to adulthood
losing myself to find you
finding you losing yourself
found my savings in the couch
bought our tickets to happiness-
it's free though, so we have
spending money

we'll buy the rest of the world happiness
cause we have enough for ourselves.

3/11/11

one week

let's enjoy
this week. without responsibility.
enjoy
each other
like we have for months
and remember
why.

i fear
being forgotten
more than
i fear
death

let's enjoy
this week

it will be good to us.

take one by mouth with food

stress
is mean
it creeps up
and doesn't let you know its there
till you're reeling through your head
trying to rationalize
life

the stress lately
has caked
and braked
and left me restless
turning in bed.

for one reason or another.
but
the more i look at stress
the more i realize it's
self invented.

i stress myself out, with no real reason
i have good people
and good relationships
deep and real
(sometimes real isn't always perfect)
and that shouldn't stress me out.

not even breaking my teeth
escaped my stress

now on the other side,
it's clear
i work myself up

instead of being patient
and truly loving
this may be a loritab rambling
but i think it's right
it feels right.

mid day musings on momentary misanthropy.

I don't use words
i've never heard before
kind of like i don't paint colors
i've never seen

I wont draw conclusions
that haven't been drawn before
cause it's not good being original

i should get a tattoo
on my upper arm that reads
"emotions"
cause that's where they are

I don't know what's going on.
yet.
and it scares me to think--
but I trust you cause
I know you respect me
and you're right,
writing gets it out
makes it feel better.

I made a bigger deal
than i should have
I'll wait patiently
like you deserve.

Be safe
get home quick

Right and Wrong

even a
broken watch is right
twice a day

never been wrong
in the way you can be wrong
and hurt people
i've gotten equations wrong
didn't get the same sum others got
but i've never used a plus
instead of a minus
and cost people's lives

i've been wrong
and hurt some feelings
or lost a job
but never wrong
to hurt you

I don't lie
or cheat
or do things wrong
becuase you're too beautiful
too perfect-for-me
to hurt

i'd like to stay right
when it comes to you
for ever and ever
amen