Maybe Astrology

To say nothing of flowers, well anyway,
It’s as simple as biology or biorhythyms or
bio bio bio
life
Or maybe it’s the conversation
maybe astrology
but probably not

In admiration of strength, I
build up the castle walls higher
and higher until the world grows dark...
and the world grows dark
and cold, I think, but who’s to say
it’s just a challenge anyway
a test of person, test of will
I hope you’ll wait on the other side,
I’m almost through

Is there anything else that should be said?

The universe is standing still and I hear
in the darkness there’s the toll of a bell
crisp and clear and
where is it coming from, and
why?
All places, or none.
What do I want out of this life of mine?
Do good, I guess, and good done, die.
Or more. Your thoughts?
My head is swimming
body treads
or drowns
or
I don’t know
It’s love, you know as well as I
there’s little else worth my time
that’s how we say goodbye
to, at least, the day
what do we say to the night?
hello
or
halt! who goes there?

Anatomy of a Question

We demonstrate in asking
lack and longing and
desire, fueling fires that
breathe and build themselves.

Fate Leads us Off

This is a beauty that cannot be touched,
that cannot be held. This is a river
that cannot be dammed or diverted.
This is a teardrop that will never fall,
that knows not the touch of a cheek.
This is my beauty, my ebbing, my flow,
the waters I slip into when I go home.
This is my lovely, the sight I can't keep,
the mountain that's straining outside of my reach.
This is my everything all in a row
a list of checked boxes that she'll never know
and this is my beacon that shines forth at night
fading away as it turns to the side
for this is the radiance I'll never feel
a glorified nimbulous stuck at the wheel,
a maiden I know through my rhyming alone
but not any more as her heart has a home
that's not mine--our destinies laid out in stone
two separate paths carving through a delicate noon,
and we never will share in a body's caress
the whispers that stave off this lonliness,
and fate leads us onward
and fate leads us off

My Country

This was my country, was the ground from which my rockets flew to burst in God-forsaken skies. These were my pictures, views of older days with tree swings swaying above that creek, the one in the backyard, our one escape from relatives drunk on American Nationalism, on 4 of July. This was my backyard, my hometown, the bright-eyed crucible of dreams forthcoming. Fuses lit, we huddled close and waited for ignition.

*written while listening to Our Song by Joe Henry

(Here) Listen Up

Kid 2000, reppin the houses
where the people lay down their lives in the form of work
to sanctify their God-given fruits of the earth
and union?
Kicking down the doors of disunion
while passers by send a flare into the air praying for a second chance
praying against prayer with the thought that they can do it for themselves
but no, that's darkness stealing from the light.
Cause don't you see? Someone somewhere is playing that tune
and all you've got to do is listen,
hear, (here)
listen up
to the sound of your brothers as they're marching through the street

Some lines from some music, some other jottings

"I cringe for myself when I cringe for you" ~ Hello My Treacherous Friend, by OK Go

"Sing us a song to hum through the hours of dying" ~ Shortly Before the End, by OK Go

"And I've had recurring nightmares that I'm loved for who I am, and missed the opportunity to be a better man" ~ Hoodoo, by Muse

"You have so much to live for... I'm just dying to stay alive" ~ Show Me Something New, by Shout Out Louds

"You can drive those wheels to the end of the road--you will still find the past right behind you" ~ Carve Away the Stone, by Rush

---

You know what it is about the moon that I love so much? It's a giant undifferentiated rock orbiting the earth at about 300,000km away, and I'm a tiny organism.

It puts me in my place.

---

Used to cut through parking lots to save some time,
but now I walk the sides of streets on someone else's dime

---

As gunslingers go, none better than I
have walked these roads; no mortal eye
as keen as mine has dared to pass
among the hills where life stood last.

---

like days without jackets

---

This is something we cannot solve by words alone. We're speaking chasms here.

Betrayal in A Minor

Every tragedy endured, but this:
Covered by lies, deceit, false peaks on
A mountain hike, a minor chord.
Eager to depart from this thin-aired
Altitude--can we be real for a second? No.
Epiphanies come far too late. Trust no one.

Even if you told the truth,
Bared it all, confessed your crimes, I
Am betrayed, still.
Even in this resolution,
Be it major or not.
Even then.

By the Thames, October 27, 1997

"There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that."

~ Derek Mahon, Everything is Going to be Alright

There will be dying, she said,
spoke softly into the night, where
pigeons burst into flight over silver waters,
and a canid spoke to the source.
Yes, she said, there will be dying.
The tides and eddies of a thousand floodwaters
will tear at the pages of our lives,
and Mankind or will mourn the loss of
their children, our books; words that never gave hope
but in that which fades.
They, too, drowned in the rush of new light.
How is it that we know so much yet understand so little?
But there is no need to go into that, she said,
as southern winds birthed clouds above,
dyed silver waters black.
She drew her jacket close.
No, there is no need.

Through the Cracks

I am in love with the sound
of rushing air between cracks in a car door
bold and bland as it rocks me to sleep, neck craned
in the back of a Chevrolet on the way to Dent, still
two days out, but I could doze in the car while Dad drove,
listen to spacey music as I looked up,
up at the stars and when I was lucky, the moon,
which held all of my greatest hopes and dreams
suspended in the sky in a beacon of light,
even though I know now it has an albedo of 11%
and it can't hear me through the vacuum of space.

The dog was asleep in the back.
"Like a child," I'd think, and reach out
to touch his soft black ears.
In the back of a Chevy Caprice, almost
midnight now, his eyes open, search out mine.
With a lick of his lips, says "hi," then shifting paws
eyes close again, golden brown suns retiring for the night,
plus we've run out of things to do by now
in the back of a Chevy Caprice Classic on the way to Dent,
Minnesota, where we will certainly swim in the many lakes,
the one shaped like a star in particular, where the dog
will learn to swim too because my dad will carry him
into the water and he'll flail about at first but finally catch on.

My dog does not howl at the moon because
he knows, like me,
that the moon is not listening.
We've stopped for gas, so
I take him around the block, fill his dish
with some water from the outside spout.
Says thank you with his eyes.
Are we getting back in the car now?
Longs to hear the sound of rushing air
through the cracks of a Chevrolet
on the way to Dent.

Adrift

I rowed for a year straight, and so
my arms were sore, my back was sore,
my throat was parched and I needed rest.
Drifted by lands of fantasy, not daring
to face dangers tropical and exotic;
jungles too green; suspiciously green.
Others a green too dark; black rock shorelines
faded in the night like so many landmines.

Water supply running low I took a chance
on a lonely island, solitary yet beautiful,
loving yet temperamental. Footprints in the sand
ran deeply, a heavy tromp, a naval officer perhaps.
They led out the way they came in, and I was
alone there for some time.

A copse of trees surrounded
fresh water, where I slept at night,
made meager meals of the native fruits,
just enough to get by. I kept the waterskins
filled to the brim, kept them in the boat
tied to a tree on the shore, should I need
to depart in haste. Storms came and went,
but I never needed to.

I stayed for a month straight, upon
that land of shifting sands, land of wildflower petals,
land of solitude, until it sank, like shifting island sands sink.
Shed a tear of longing as it bubbled underneath,
out on my own, out with the tide
my own damn tide on my own way out;
restocked, repaired.

Rinse and repeat, reclaim the waves,
patch the leaks that spring
in a heart that has no home.
Drift until you can't anymore.

And Again

"The biggest lie you were ever told was that you had nothing to say..."

If I am an admirable man,
if I function, if I breathe,
then we can accept my social quirks
and establish a model wherein patience
rules the day.

But if I am flawed,
if I am broken, if I break,
speak it aloud. Say it to my face,
or condemn me to condemn myself
over and again and
again and

once more for good measure.

Wisdom

I am wise beyond my ears

I am wise beyond my fears

I am wise beyond my tears

Wings

The Roosevelt Bridge spans across
the hook of Lake Union, where
boats pass lazily below and crew captains
shout out from megaphones; and

from the sidewalk as cars race by
I see two birds, small and dark,
dive off of a streetlight--bodies like bullets
racing to black waters, disappearing from sight.

They threw their wings wide, I think
(not knowing for sure as they danced below my view)
catching the air and locking wings in a partnership
untouched by time.

We could be those birds, if you would
touch your wing to mine--I offer
nothing more than my everything.
My bones, my feathers, my small bird heart.

Fault Lines

sidewalk cracks divide
us like continents

and fault lines your fault
not mine at least I

tried is this how things
are meant to be no

I hope not stay for
God's sake stay on your

side of the street and
I'll stay on mine don't

step on the cracks or
you'll fall and break my

heart really yes my
heart again at least

whats left of it now

An unfinished song I intend to finish...

This poem's
about another guy
who's been
left living on emotional streets
and
This poem
could tell you how it is
for him
no time to question what the system's throwing down
for him
And this poem's
about the things he says
and does
and asks the people why they never seem to hear
his cry
But this poem
is not a substi-
tution for
the way you treat him when you see him downtown
and yet
we're living
in
a world of fascinating sights and sounds...

The Go Sign

Rolling through the streets of town
I hit the go sign at fifth and Pine
and did as it said; not questioning,
no time for questioning,
driving too fast to not obey.
Sped past the alleys dark with rot
those same the light of day forgets in winter
when the clouds convene; a sky of shale.
Too heavy for now, maybe, for me.
Skipped out-town with wheels on fire
sympathetic faces yet to be stared back
to see my taillights gleam in the gloom,
gone too soon.
Especially for the girl on twenty-first,
who bore a name I could not know
I could not stop; the sign said go.

Deer Crossing - updated 10/18/17

driver, eyes
tired,
holds hands to
wheel opposing will
subverting slumber.
Spokane in five,
grandpa too, if
he's to last...
Moses Lake in three.
stop there, maybe, get some
gas--no rest--
save that for
deer crossing,
eyes awake, motion
stops
a hairs breadth from
taking life.
pulls over,
head to wheel.
doesn't make it in time.

Various Unfinished Writings

Spin me round and make me weak
Draw me in close so I can't speak
Destroy the man I used to be
It's overrated to be free
Spin me round and make me weak
Draw me in close so I can't speak
Destroy the man I used to be
It's overrated to be free, oh yeah

Slavery's a different game
when you're slaving to a person you would die for
Gives slavery a different name

---

It's seven o'clock on a Friday night. Footsteps march up the stairs with a silent determination. You want to run, but don't. You don't want to seem so bold. But you can't stop the beating in your heart, the quickening in your pulse, and the feeling that all things are possible.

This is magic.

"This is my room," you say, flipping on the light. You launch yourself onto your bed and sit facing her. She stands with her hands in her back pockets, like a potential tenant, ready to move into that space. Her eyes, like blue candles, scan your life's assortment, illuminating everything they touch. She walks over to you, eyes upwards, looking at a poster of the Milky Way that is tacked to the ceiling. Your eyes follow hers and she sits next to you. A wave of scent washes over you and half of your reasoning centers are gone, just like that.

---

I have nothing to apologize for, in sight of the fact that I was merely speaking openly for once.

And if that created an uncomfortable realm of conversation, I cannot be continually blamed for your refusal to enter that sphere.

And this does not mean that I am a lost cause. It only means that you won't talk to me any more. It does mean that you have things to say but won't say them, which means whatever it is you think might help me to understand myself is less important than maintaining your own comfort. And it means that via your perception, there is help needed. Maybe there is; it would be unfair of me to say there wasn't.

But if I need help and you refuse to give it, where does that leave me? Is it something you're hoping I'll figure out for myself? And if/when I do, how will you know? How will we ever reach beyond this barrier that has been built (I say again) by openness?

---

There are, I think, two remedies for this. Forget about what "this" is. Just close your eyes and read.

The first and most obvious is the relationship. Comfort. The quintessential coupling, the... the... whatever.

The other--and sometimes I swear to God more delicious--remedy, is the Badassery. You know, kicking down doors. Blowing up cars. Fighting evil. It's good for the soul, I swear. Just one hitch.

You can't go around doing that!

Well, you can, but you probably wouldn't cozy up to the consequences. I mean, the people that do go around doing this wind up in jail and stuff.

Those of us with greater self-control opt for the more reasonable (read: pansy) way. We watch movies or read books where "our" "heroes" do the things we always wish we could. While I hesitate to label that as pathetic, I most definitely want to resist this idea...

Hurricane

If society’s a hurricane,
then I live in the eye.
And through that lens I see the slump
of every earthly sigh.

I watch as bonds that lovers share
are torn apart by rage,
uprooted by those fearsome winds
that even I can’t gauge,

And as I watch the sky in dance
the sun sets in the west,
a sole survivor of the trials
abandoning the rest.

Delivering the final punch,
the nightfall comes to stay.
It brings the end of life and death
to those with sense to pray.

Swell

From seed and sprout as the clouds passed by they grew,

higher and wider, like a spreading out of balloons let go.

We climbed them then, in days of youth and summer,

let their altitudinous forms lift us up to a brighter day.

When the clouds rolled in and days grew dark

we'd sit on the porch and watch the trees deflate.

Color burned away, volume bought the farm,

and the strands strained against the pull of gravity,

reaching, reaching, waiting for a gust of air,

a maiden's tear, a burst of life,

anything to inflate those balloons again.

And we would swell up with them,

Expand until we rose to the stratosphere,

and finally, burst into multicolored debris.