Into A Dream

In the dark hours
before dreams blossom into reality,
I draw a cold breath under a winter moon
and the haunting hoot of a distant barn owl,
crisp air gently numbs the warm sea
in my throat, then gently ebbs
upon exhale;

You are not here, but you are present
in my thoughts, I still feel you on
my fingers and between my toes,
I carry your heat under wraps – layers built
around the time you rolled into your dream;

This is us, here, under infinity forever, you and me,
distance cannot change anything except proximity;
and I remain attached even though my side of the bed
is cold and dry;

My ears ring, I know
I am in your thoughts – swirling in the soup
before the hard images hit and they
take you away from me,
Hoot
I am shaken
Hoot
I fall dark
Hoot
I roll onto my side

You coo and smile to no one and the wall,
I feel your hip next to mine
In the dark hours
before my dreams crash into reality.

Marriage

I leave
only to hear you breathe
an ocean of dreams

I awaken you
only to feel the heartbeat
holding me to Earth

I watch
as the drums of
the jungle reach my ears

I seethe
deep in my chest at
the turning of the world

I love what is not mine to give away

You shift on
an axis
curved with silk and rose

You sing
moisture like a newborn
in a pink blanket

You scream
nightmares into the
early morning sky

I hold fast
to clarity like a rope
tethered to a sinking ship


I have
no footing in these hills
yet
my eyes
anchor us as one
each morning
and my arms will cradle you
until the moon
wanes in half crescent

The Other Side

oft tangled leaves
crispy
like old licorice whips
in the pre-summer wind
cheer a wink
from the left eye
of a child wondering skyward
following a Spiderman
kite string drawing a
white line to shifting
percale clouds
rushed by the whistling
of a western crowd
gathered on the other side of the state

marshmallow crap from airborne seagulls
collect on the picnic tables
arranged in mahjong patterns
used only on weekends by
families rich enough
to afford coolers and ice

on the other side of the fence
broken glass
attempts to rip blood from
small ebony brothers and sisters
who run shoeless
like bees around a hive
trying to spy
the food emerging from
blue and white
polyurethane

moist exhales of exhaustion
blow back at the crowd to the west
before the rain falls and
scatters us all to our corners

Fear Anonymous

She shuffles her feet to kick a stone
of burnt umber into the street, sending
quick ripples across a pool of runoff barely
noticeable to most of us on a Monday, then
grins sheepishly up to the April sun sliding slowly
down the brownstone and cast iron gently
waiting above her head;

you wouldn’t know it look at her how
brilliant she is among all this concrete, yet
she copes with your ignorance by smelling a daisy
in the open market;
she can no sooner afford it or the
time it takes for you to summon the
courage to ask her for her number or coffee.

Guts run empty, and raging adrenalin flows like
the bent river cautiously floating its flotsum
in uniform politeness by your chair,
cold at the edges, and fearful of one curvasious torso
that would have the power to relive you of your income
tucked unsafely into your back pocket.

She crosses the street to the vacancy near your styrofoam cup,
pulled by a rope hidden to those who dismiss optimism and happiness,
and sits gracefully like a blue jay perching on a cable wire;

you have many chances, though you wouldn’t know it
if they licked your nose and sang a show tune.

Your fear of confrontation would shock most modern
scientists, even this moment of truth passes into oblivion;
what could or would become of this encounter becomes
a non-event in a life filled with missed chances, but
be comforted in knowing you are not alone with this malady:
misery is company at your level of self-respect.

The Birth Of The Unborn

It’s a beautiful spring day,
the kind that makes you breath deep
through your nose searching
for new odors which may have
arrived during the night

the Sun opens the pores
on one side of your face as
you squint happy to be alive
with all this fresh air now warm
enough to dry your runny nose.


So often we walk away from what
we should recognize and
appreciate, even if it only lasts long enough
to share a wink
or a heartbeat
or a smile

it passes with poetry and purpose,
a guile determined to be something more than
a fancy passing.

Life doesn’t schedule these things, it
merely lets them occur as children born
into a family too large to afford a place to sleep;
they are welcomed like the next, as joyous as the last,
yet their place in the world is only temporary
and sacred.


You let them flow over you and wash
your hands gently in reverence to their
departure and turn your face around to
open the pores cooled by the shaded northern breeze,
and you hope this is not the last time
you remember them.

Neopolitan

I.

I was
once
a slave

to the sentence
fragment.


II.

Hurt by your
selfishness and gluttony.


III.

Now,
I resolve
to finish
the vanilla
with a hum in the back
of my throat,
and take the strawberry
as a lover,
and dance
circles
with it on my tongue
like a melting hula-hoop.

I bargained for the chocolate -
begged for the spoon;
but your side of the bed remains cold
and empty.

Soon there will be no gaps, or
canyons,
or fragments left to melt within this heart;

only a dream of summer -
on this first day of winter.

Amoroso

gently with a stealth
layered in the calm of
hearts

floating aimlessly as
butterfly wings whispering

a melody of memories
roaming and weaving like
the drift of fog in the
early morning silence

a song plays saturated
in the solace of the forest
framed by the city lights
dimming to the rise of the sun

an undertow westward ebbs
to soak the setting half moon
then humbles itself at the foot
of Poseidon in the eastern sea

dawn tips our chins to God
trapped in awe
awaiting the next chorus