I've gone and clipped my wings

I've gone and clipped my wings
Never again to soar in flight
The view from there - the larger view
Did not coincide with Life

Though I know of greater things
Vast and varied worlds from here
I will not fly - and for every sky
There's some land to clear

So I've gone and clipped my wings
With feathers faulting in air
I've seen the view - the larger sight
So ask me if I care

I am a tree among the flowers

I am a tree among the flowers
Not so glorious in view
Nor so brief and exquisite
To attract the glancing you

Let me retrace my footsteps

Let me retrace my footsteps
Imprinted on the snow
They went to your front door
Though you didn't know

Let me turn around
And go back where I came
I cannot go on further
I do not feel the same

Let me go back home
And enter through my door
And shut it, bolt it, lock it
And think of you no more

Someday you'll find a better me

Someday you'll find a better me
But for now I will do
I haven't years beneath my belt
And won't let go of youth

Someday you'll find a wiser me
But for now all I know
Are questions left unanswered
And yet I ask them so

Someday you'll find an older me
But for now I am young
I haven't found my voice yet
Nor has my song been sung

And someday you'll find a clearer me
But for now I will do
I haven't passed through clouds yet
To find a clearer blue

I could feel your arm

I could feel your arm
Locked inside my own
Pressed between ourselves
To the world it was not shown

And for that moment briefly
All the noise surrendered
And silence in its victory
Paused to remember

And I could feel your arm
Loosely then fall under
For we had stolen time
Now noise beats on like thunder

I used to climb a tree

I used to climb a tree
I now stay on the ground
I sit beneath the limbs
Looking up instead of down

I never knew that I would sit
Beneath a climbing tree
I once swore to not come down
But how could I know this me

How came I to this resting place

How came I to this resting place
To step aside, to quit my pace
To slowly watch all things go by
Intently stare as you bid bye

That your existence ceased for me
To have you robbed, to have you free
To wonder why and in such haste
How came I to this resting place

And no one else is here

And no one else is here
No one near or by
Are you me, I ask
Like clouds might ask the sky

To separate and part
No one heart is whole
Are you me, I ask
Like hell might ask a hole

To feel me watching me
No one see the bone
Are you me, I ask
Like sand might ask of stone

So you've come to this

So you've come to this
Sorting through the wreckage
Of our destructive kiss
Searching for a message

So much time has lapsed
And yet you still continue
To live among collapsed
And shattered dreams within you

It's sad to be ending

It's sad to be ending
On a sixteenth note
Not much to be said
Nor anything to be wrote

Cease this side of the equation

Cease this side of the equation
All is jumbled from birth
Caught in a spirograph of travel
On the landscape of Earth

We face pain too much
Until a natural end
I repent my past poetry
Screwed to paper by a pen

There is no greatness in this moment

There is no greatness in this moment
No brilliant idea
Nor a pure state of grace
A true peace is not here

It's just shuffling of words
Small sentences to utter
Consonants and vowels
And the arrangement of letters

In need of more energy

In need of more energy
E should equal m c squared, plus one
And time just might be still
But all we do is run

In a canvas painted green

In a canvas painted green
We planted like Pissaro
In a silver misted air
We planted a tomorrow

Letters spelling out
What a kite could see
Look to the beginning
And the curves in the D

Here I am waiting

Here I am waiting
With the rain outside
Caught in my own storm
That doesn't subside

The Universe is dark

The Universe is dark
I know nothing of its place
Why only spheres for planets
Why do they spin in space

Are there squares just fixed
Like building blocks about
Or pyramids with power
To travel all throughout

When I visit the ocean

When I visit the ocean
I come to know your sea
And in your eyes, waves
Tidal or tame they be

But you never cross the land
To come and visit me
Or see the Earth in my eyes
Or the weathered oak tree

Our years gone in seconds

Our years gone in seconds
The center of my world
The whirlpool of daily life
Has unraveled and uncurled

Time only heals small wounds
Sometimes, it is a wedge
The apple of my eye
Fell over the edge

Too tired for conquest

Too tired for conquest
I'll just sit beneath the trees
Stars between branches
Make smaller of me

Bats in the clearing
Above the firefly glows
What is the answer
No one here knows

Hurry - we're racing

Hurry - we're racing
Against time and night
The sun is ours for hours
Until we spin out of sight

I wanted to have this day
Two trespassers on Earth
Someday we'll not be living
Today we seize our birth

There were no painted clouds

There were no painted clouds
In our painted sky
The trees in brushstokes
Above the passerby

In the woods, the deer
Motionless as we hushed
A picture without a frame
Two artists without a brush

I never mentioned the important

I never mentioned the important
The one thought foremost to you
I chattered not one letter
To form a word or two

I am not your validation
Though I forever see your whole
I never once spoke importance
To step in to touch your soul

I too have a dream

I too have a dream
Let me respond
I appear like a mirror
But I am a pond

Beneath reflections
Of white clouds and sky
My depth holds my dreams
One day, fish will fly

With just one hand

With just one hand
I want to sweep away the hill
I want to push my palm
On top of mountains, until

Within seconds
I've reversed the work of glaciers
Returned the land to flatness
With my fingers like erasers

So much of Earth towers

So much of Earth towers
Or has the depth of sea
That flat land makes equal
And is eye to eye with me

Let the world be big
But mine is plain to see
One continuous note
And not the do re mi

I love your silence

I love your silence
Your language of eyes
The attention you're giving
Each time I arrive

Your touching and greeting
To meet with my hand
I shout out I love you
And you understand

I had a break somewhere

I had a break somewhere
A mental break or tear
My heart only knew of this
When my mind would not let it kiss

And my soul overheard
When my heart sent the word
To my body to give in
There's a break somewhere within

Again, I'm in this minute

Again, I'm in this minute
These few moments that make
All Life and my living
A mere drop in the wake

Of time, that is winning
It's a tide with a tow
That pulls you out further
And then never lets you go

Who could fathom

Who could fathom
This north and south
A divided Switzerland
This house against house

Not sad for the past
But what might have been
Grow up or grow out
Unite Switzerland

I leaned as the fireworks bloomed

I leaned as the fireworks bloomed
Against you, I could see the night
In your eyes the colors streaking
And the fading of their light

No issues, no journals

No issues, no journals
Just conversation spent
On passing air and time
The rivers and currents

No danger, no sensation
Self erasing without evidence
Living without maintaining
Finding present tense

Another winter without you

Another winter without you
I no longer wonder at stars
Here I am alive on Earth
Looking up at Mars

There are no such things as ghosts
Our love would surely know
And no such things as angels
Just arms waving in the snow

There are no such things as ghosts
Our love would surely prove
And no such things as angels
Just arms waiting here for you

Carl's fog is here

Carl's fog is here
I only think of you
I ask myself the why's
Beauty graces us then dies

Photographs from space
Bring awe of everything, and not
How small we are, like fog
Here, and then forgot

How hard I held you

How hard I held you
Too tight for a tender bird
And I let go and stepped back
From the wreckage I unfurled

Like Dr. Frankenstein or God
I ran from my creation
I abandoned it without hope
Of correction or explanation

I push off from the shore

I push off from the shore
Mesmerized by dark water
Fearful of capsizing
And unable to charter

So I stay close
To the safety of shore
No realization or discovery
Of something less or more

On the edge of my front steps

On the edge of my front steps
I'm hanging on by toes
Infinite numbers add up to one
Yet I am never whole

Every birthday, I feel landlocked

Every birthday, I feel landlocked
Somewhere, not here, I could sail
And every day I'd set off
Out on the twelve month trail

And the winter snow bleaches
All that summer and autumn roars
Landlocked on winter beaches
Of snow that has no shores

JFK, Jr

Rushing to make up time
America's son
To only lose all of time
For three and not just one

A haze on the moon and sun
Did you mistake the shoreline
For the horizon, and
Into the ocean plunge

Why all this rope?

Why all this rope?
I only need a thread
I found my grain of sand
In my ocean bed

Off the island of Staten

Off the island of Staten
Past the Statue of Liberty
Ride into Manhattan
The ferry boat and me

Walk from Sourth Ferry towards Center
To catch the green subway
To Union Square I enter
I'm at 17th off Broadway

Walking on ancient soil

Walking on ancient soil
With Orion in my view
Searching for my people
Seeking Life's haiku

But stars are so unstrung
Can I see, I to I
My shoulders are getting older
My third eye a stye

You are unique, common snowflake

You are unique, common snowflake
How much of us was we
I gave you everything but forever
You gave me everything that's me

How kind we were together
Nothing more now can be said
For all the years behind us
And all my years ahead

This is my peace with you

This is my peace with you
Unfold your arms and rest
I ask no more for your defeat
And my winnings less

There is a wide

There is a wide
That can fit inside
All of your heart
And not fall apart

There is a length
For all of your strength
That does not bend
Or seem to end

There is a depth
For each deep breath
That touches the soul
In its furthest knoll

We can go kiting

We can go kiting
Just the two of us
And never get caught
In a gale or gust

So close our tails fly
With never a tangle
The two of us kiting
From so different an angle

My anchor is not set

My anchor is not set
I'm a pirate on the sea
Don't ask me if I'm home
No latitude is me

I have the frequent port
Where I know to leave
I pull my anchor in
Like the heart on my sleeve

Gone is the fire (July 26, 2001)

Gone is the fire
That kept me warm
The rest of the story
On pages torn

All of our days
Written in code
In our DNA
The spiral, our road

Is preaching the word

Is preaching the word
Setting you free
Are you closer to heaven
By trespassing me

Sad for the cardinal
As Red as its state
The chickadees are leaving
To wrestle with fate

Here I am shouting

Here I am shouting
I know I will be hushed
I love you in this day
That time will surely crush

Arguing for sanity
Against the wild and the weed
I am one flower in time
That will never go to seed

Academics cannot help write this work

Academics cannot help write this work
Absurd to think a book can help me
No book can give me my next word
Not even academics can make a pea

It's time to forget

It's time to forget
Foolish to harbor regret
Kiss the black crow
And let it go

It's too harsh to live
With any kind of weights
Keep them too long
They become your traits

As the sun descends red

As the sun descends red
The evening has an hour of glow
As the cardinal chirps to its wed
Off to bed, we must go

Lost pennies

Lost pennies
Are a beggar's find
I lose them often
I don't mind

When I think
That one shall find
My shiny pennies
I don't mind

I live from dream to dream

I live from dream to dream
Each within a shell
Sometimes I find a pearl of white
Sometimes I just can't tell

Some are in the deepest ocean
Some are in a shallow sea
Some are either lost or drowning
Bringing down the waves on me

So if your shell is hollow
And your dream is gone
Put your ear against the watershell
And listen for a song

And if this song calls out to you
And winds your body around
Crawl in and make a perfect pearl
Within the water's sound

Rescue me and I feel unsafe

Rescue me and I feel unsafe
Give me directions and I'm lost or late
My heart breaks on gentle things
I know I'm free but I must migrate

I have my own summer and winter
I'm either explosion or black hole
Racing between failure and success
And I'm failing to succeed on the whole

Broken with all the pieces

Broken with all the pieces
Like a sidewalk or a rose
Quilt me with your needle
Four chambers and two hose

Somewhere Orion hides

Somewhere Orion hides
Behind the winter skies
Against a winter night
Beyond the clouds, he lies

The North Star brings us home
Behind our separate doors
And there, our separate lives
Continue there once more

I guess this is a story

I guess this is a story
Maybe one you've heard
Just another story
Like all sparrows, just a bird

I guess this is my story
Nothing new, just old
Just the same story
By someone else told

After the surrender

After the surrender
When all the noise has died
And those who've chosen sleep
And nothing makes them rise

And all the smoke is clouds
In skies, the deepest blue
After the surrender
I still have wars with you

Love is never seasonal

Love is never seasonal
It is not bound by weather
It is as strong as lightning
And as soft as a feather

Night is a visitor

Night is a visitor
Offers personal conversation
It bears a gift of sleep
But day is by invitation

I can choose my love

I can choose my love
So that it does not choose for me
And make me fall in love
With an impossibility

Sound was dead

Sound was dead
Dead as light
That I put out
To bring on night

Voices hushed
Not to wake
The dead still air
Like ice may break

All the world
Stays outside
And life and death
But once collide

In search for a lesser dream

In search for a lesser dream
Watching blurs slow down
My body turns to calm
My ears opening to sound

On impact with what is real
I protect my eyes and heart
From the flying pieces
Of dreams that smash apart

And so begins the search
For a lesser dream to have
A search among the pieces
That are halves of other halves

There is a silence that runs deep

There is a silence that runs deep
Between each noise and sound
It's louder than the waves above
That hit the waiting ground

There is a cry that is so silent
That will not let you tear
It's louder than the greatest cries
That one so often hears

The grass was blonde and blowing

The grass was blonde and blowing
The corn too high to see
How deep the field was growing
How far the distant tree

I would give up all my knowings
To know that you are free
Of all life's undertowings
But this, it cannot be

Autumn gives an early showing
The air with autumn breathes
And August is quickly going
And so too the summer leaves

There is a sentence

There is a sentence
That does not end
No period at all
To make amend

It runs on through life
It strongly goes
Escaping no one
Yet no one knows

And it is longer than life
So much longer than
But we'll never know
And its friend is and

My heart has a spring

My heart has a spring
Pull it and you'll see
The harder that you pull
The more it wants of me

My mind has a lock
Check it and believe
The more you say let in
The surer you have no key

I promise you three rooms

I promise you three rooms
Of the four that are my heart
But leave me the one
To tell myself apart

And all of this is yours
Do you gladly accept
Or am I dreaming love
A dream I just expect

I give you these three rooms
Of the four that I have
but leave for me just one
For you have more than half

I know you wait for me

I know you wait for me
And watch for when I come
Just before the night
Pushes out the sun

Tonight, you'll wait and wait
No footsteps at the door
You'll hear sounds like
My footsteps on the floor

Jumping to the window
Yet, no one there in sight
As the sun is pushed
Over by the night

There is an echo

There is an echo
That does not end
Between our lives
It comes back again

I know its words
And what caused this shout
It is back again
I can still make it out

I have but one regret

I have but one regret
That I did not say
What I said just once
A thousand times that day

Now that I can't repeat
Those words for you to hear
Though I say them often
Now that you're not near

My mind remembers all
So, too, this one regret
I did not say a thousand times
Should your mind forget

You never looked more you

You never looked more you
On top of that ball of snow
Like a mountain, there you viewed
A long flat world below

I could feel your yearning
Your belonging to the hills
Your eyes stared and journied
Your heart partially fulfilled

That ball of snow was small
Flatland widened your inside
You heard a mountain call
Be as tall as you are wide

I no longer love you

I no longer love you
No matter if you sway
I care nothing for you now
So do not bend my way

My love has found an out
This train of thought derailed
You cannot move me if
You're a storm and I'm a sail

Though when I love, I love
But mortality is real
I no longer love you
And towards you, no longer feel

I could swallow your world whole

I could swallow your world whole
And it would never touch my side
Your world's so very small
And not at all so wide

But if you choose to chew
My world, so very big
You could not eat it all
Even if you were a pig

I find you more upset

I find you more upset
Over failed manipulation
Than your doing something wrong
To someone in calculation

The anger from being caught
Will supersede your sorrow
For someone you hurt today
And again, will hurt tomorrow

It is amazingly funny

It is amazingly funny
That you think I do
I did this once, not again
Will I fall in love with you

That you think I care
Oh, but I've been taught
This poem is very small
And still bigger than my thought

The fields are black and growing

The fields are black and growing
But, oh I cannot see
The ends are never showing
When land is flat and free

Trees like smoke, on edges
Of soil laid out in sun
No fences or long hedges
To break the distance run

The clouds are all scattered

The clouds are all scattered
The sunlight by chance falls
Making a bright window
White on my white walls

You're sitting in this window
That moves and grows more grey
As the minutes slip
In the hours of the day

And framed in the panes
Is a painting of a painter
With shadows that darken
As the sunlight grows fainter

Gone is the window!
That had held you there
The clouds pulled together
The painting in thin air

There will be a winter

There will be a Winter
For you it will arrive
Earlier than most
Before the leaves have died

I feel the air is cold
Yet there's budding roses
I cannot stop the chill
With perhapes or supposes

I can see you in November
With birds still in the north
For you, an early Winter
Though for me, July the fourth

Will you feel the same

Will you feel the same
As I feel complete
Seeing all the views
From the same window seat

Does the Earth feel round
As we take these looks
Out across the sky
Between the poplar crooks

If only there are words
That as we feel, they speak
Would you feel the same
As I feel complete

January 8th has fixed clouds

January 8th has fixed clouds
With a sun more grey than white
My future is a close tomorrow
Not a distant height

I walked as miles passed
The clouds unmoved and low
I dreamt tomorrow here
When today is all I know

Kindness is intelligence
That's how I feel today
And January 8th has fixed clouds
With a sun not white but grey

I thought of you

I thought of you
As the sunlight slanted
Over the Earth
As I stood planted

What is an ocean
Smaller than sky
Smaller than Earth
All bigger than I

If all of this is fate

If all of this is fate
We then have no control
Magnets north and south
The pulling at the poles

If all of this is chance
What do we really know
One of a million snowflakes
In all the winter snow

If all of this is luck
Do we then depend
On a lucky streak
And does the streak not end

If this is what we choose
Then we can create
Diamonds out of coal
From mere pressure of our weight

I am committing mental suicide

I am committing mental suicide
My thoughts can feel the gun
Against the cold steel hole
That lets the bullet run

It is only mental suicide
Surely, it is not death
But oh, to have asked for it
Here goes, take one deep breath

One idea shall live
The trigger pulled by this
Survival is its name
Who delivers my death wish

Just before the night is night

Just before the night is night
And the sun is growing fainter
Walls begin to bathe in light
With the windows as the painter

Old glass begins to brush
The room that's sitting still
Light moves without a rush
Above the window sill

When we no longer share

When we no longer share
Common space or common air
When you see the Earth rise
Beneath your feet, beneath your eyes

When you see a mountain top
Look out further, do not stop
Until you see etched out land
Like the lines in your palm hand

Remember that there was a place
Close to home, in outerspace
A place that we no longer share
What's common here, not common there

Two trees too close together

Two trees too close together
Uneven in our shape
Our limbs should be more rounded
And space as our landscape

Why are we not rivers
Joining forces as we meet
To widen out the land
And to grow deeper feet by feet

Already I stare out
And see a field more bare
I think that I'd be happier
If I were planted there

Two trees too close together
We should have been more round
Instead our limbs barely grew
We need more space we found

The first weekend in Spring

The first weekend in Spring
When March is just a lamb
I ask myself the question
Just who or what I am

Unable to express
My ideas cannot be wrote
Instrumental thoughts
A musical of notes

To Edward

An asparagus fern for you
You, who faces the sun
If not for the love I have for you
You'd be a forgotten one

And so rosebuds for you
You, who graced the living
Our hopes and dreams were ours
And so, too, the world's misgivings

And who is there who knows me
You answered questions never asked
You strolled and spoke of future strolls
You, who the sun will bask

Inside your world, inside this gate
Rosebuds will fade in time
But an asparagus fern will grow for you
In the sun that was yours and mine

I am waiting

I am waiting
For your scrape with death
Perhaps it will promote
Peaceful, common rest

Perhaps an autumn chill
Will soon be in your path
And end your summer years
And put them in the past

A valid scrape with death
Could bring us common ground
And fill this canyon ours
And turn this all around

But, I have to wait
Cannot discard my knowings
When you are summer flower
And I am winter snowings

I asked the wishing well

I asked the wishing well
Why are you not true
For all the coins I spent
Tossing there for you

I wondered if perhaps
For others who had wished
If their dreams had found
Happiness and bliss

I looked into the well
And stared into the dark
I could not see my coins
I shot an echoed hark

I asked it doubtfully
Why are you not true
It answered repeatedly
Why are you, not true

As the waveless water wanders

As the waveless water wanders
Winding through the weeping trees
I'm not close to being home
And the stone that waits for me

They say the sands of time shift
The earth slowly moves throughout
You may know my stone is here
But I know I move about

Snow was residing everywhere

Snow was residing everywhere
Making a home on every limb
The frosted trees were etching lines
Like lace to break the wind

I intruded and slowly walked
Between the trees that stood
They stared and eyed and coldly cried
Dropping snow from their creaking wood

I watched you from three flights up

I watched you from three flights up
As you slowly made your way
Your leaving, leaves you in my past
Your future, yours to say

And you turned the corner sharply
The sun now in your view
I saw your shadow shrinking
Three flights up from you

Only a friend could know of this

Only a friend could know of this
As the grass spread wider from the added foot
As we stared down the hill and stood
And saw the path that we both took

The sun will pass and the wind will cross
And brush the blades back into air
Tossing their gentle and graceful tips
With not a trace that we were there

I had a hesitation in flight

I had a hesitation in flight
My wings no longer borne on air
No longer the long heavens in sight
As I fell from way up there

And yet I had this hesitation
You know what that implies
And so close to fall migration
And so near to winter skies

Please don't leave me

Please don't leave me
All alone and stranded
All haunting and hollow
All hopes and loves abandoned

Never could the soil
Mean a garden bed
Knowing its a pillow
For you to rest your head

And still the dead are aging
And how could I live
To know your slowing going
And that time shall not regive

Better that I leave you
All alone and stranded
If I should leave you first
Don't think it underhanded

Why am I dead again

Why am I dead again
With no birth in sight
My soul's eyes have closed again
Not letting in the light

If I could gather
The autumn leaves about
And thrust them on myself
A nature's grave throughout

A bird may only loose
So many of its feathers
Before it cannot fly
Regardless of good weather

And this is my last

And this is my last
My last verse that I shall sign
And this must be the next to last
For this is my last line

Slowly they went up

Slowly they went up
Against a summer night
Against a long grey cloud
Bursting into light

And slowly they went up
Against the long grey night
Rising, bursting, falling
In paling colored light

How happy I would have been

How happy I would have been
If I had only known
This, and only this
Not what the world has shown

And if I had grown up here
And knew nothing of the world
How happy I would have been
My grain of sand all pearled

Today you heard from me

Today you heard from me
In my clearest voice ever
My silence was broken
No more dropping feathers

I would have spoken sooner
Of the emotions and murder
But I seemed too far away
And life seemed so much further

How are we to know

How are we to know
Unless we ask ourselves
Into a pool of knowledge
We must dive and delve

If I were to say to you

If I were to say to you
What can't be said outloud
If it hit you like a lightning bolt
From the most electric cloud

Would you ask me why
Or still love me for it yet
Now, let me stand you here
So your feet can get all wet

I'd love to write that poem again

I'd love to write that poem again
That one that is all done
Oh, how sad it is
That there can only be just one

I was the fire

I was the fire
And you were wood
They tried to stop us
But never could

But soon the smoke
Had turned on us
Too little air
To bring combust

The long limbs of the tree spread

The long limbs of the tree spread
Beneath a blue sky with planes
Where looking down it could be said
There's the rivers, the roads, the trains

The Universe wears a huge skirt
And somewhere in a fold
I love life though it passes me by
Days into weeks into months into years growing old

Applying complex thoughts

Applying complex thoughts
To all the simple things
Can be like adding weights
To the lightest wings

Too much concentration
On all the things I know
Can be like climbing mountains
When I'm on plateau

To finally find myself

To finally find myself
No longer in that condition
To have stumbled onto peace
Between agony and ambition

To finally give myself
A future without dreams
To have changed into calm
Between restlessness and screams

To finally show myself
That time can right a wrong
To have found monotone
Between stutterings and song

To finally free myself
To let my wings have flight
To have entered into shade
Between blackness and light

Paint Me In Monet

You see me as I am
Paint me in Monet
With the sky alight
And crowns of cut blue hay

Take the shirt off my back
Wave it in the air
Like a stringless kite
Fly free without a care

To see without your eyes
Never have to stare
With a soul with sight
It's inside what you wear

There's a sea way inside
A boat on your wave
Drifiting with the tide
The oarsman is so brave
I trust your ocean dream
I know I am saved
With you as my guide
In your boat I shall lay

You see me as I am
Paint me in Monet
With the sky a light
And crowns of cut blue hay

Mother bird forgive

Mother bird forgive
For I did not mean to stir
The peace you had created
Nor the love you had insured

My hands were full of love
The care that I had taken
I thought I was your helper
But I see I was mistaken

Come back with beating wings
I'll hold back all desire
I'll keep my love away from them
Do these promises inspire

Look what I have done
Because I only loved
Death to these young and nested ones
These wide eyed birds beloved

Here is my snowflake gift

Here is my snowflake gift
A few years for us to share
Lock with me though brief
Like two hands in prayer

In this moment touching
A universe has meaning
Though we know we're nothing
Just two snowflakes leaning

In search for words

In search for words
Or a different way of breathing
Always the same threads
In much the same weaving

Always panning for gold
When I should mine for a strike
My writing is dust
I must search the unlike

The pear blossoms break

The pear blossoms break
And the tulip cups break
The willow and the oak
Grow green about the lake

And the robins make nest
And the doves make nest
Remember years ago
Here we are, returning guest

I remember a time and I know

I remember a time and I know
That only I remember and understand
And I cannot translate it
To paper or play or music grand

I can call it up the ranks
And surface it in present tense
And it defines me and I know
When I go, it goes, no evidence

There is a line I must reach

There is a line I must reach
Can you push me along
The future must act
To keep me in song

If help can't be found
I will fall into hum
And slip into silence
In the shadows of crumb

I pulled a pencil from my eye

I pulled a pencil from my eye
The one I use to draw conclusions
I sharpened it and put it back
The day void of all delusions

There is no style here

There is no style here
Two words rhyme in a four line verse
It is common clover
From my life unrehearsed

It is the smell of sea
That fades with the visit
It is too simple for stlye
Too plain to be exquisite

I have tried a different voice

I have tried a different voice
And I have exhausted all my words
It's as if my mind loves
The same old nouns and verbs

A ghost in my soul

A ghost in my soul
Varying in shade
Like fog dipping down
That switch weather made

Hollow and breathing
A blanket of mist
That makes me sweat hard
And freeze in a twist

There is a small world of sadness

There is a small world of sadness
I'm in it as a mourner
And the flat sky meets the flat land
Corner to corner

No real sound or movement
Everything encased
And the distance is as near
As if the background were embraced

All the trees are timber

All the trees are timber
My head waits on my arms
All the columns have fallen
All the forests are farms

The mountains are plains rising
Waves break but are never broken
My head on my arm waits
Music is never spoken

Somehow out of winter

Somehow out of winter
We are blazed in spring
The known is behind us
Now somewhere in between

Life has such promises
But never a full suit
Out here on a limb
Pretty flower, ugly fruit

I never found a marker

I never found a marker
I never saw the road
I cannot map the stars
I travel this alone

In order to arrive
Depends on my leaving
Tomorrow is always closer
Than last evening

Life has such strange rhythms

Life has such strange rhythms
Still, may I have this dance
Though neither one of us can lead
We must take it then by chance

On this summer morning

On this summer morning
Surrendering to Fall
Although everything still green
But answering the Call

The day is full of poems
And pauses with you
And to tell time - impossible
Five is six, three is two

Arrive with me, converse

Arrive with me, converse
The gentle power of our words
Wings have crossed the oceans
On the gentle powered birds

Ask me not to speak
And I will kiss your lips
And converse to you by touch
Like tired birds that rest on ships

The trees look too tired

The trees look too tired
To be woken up for spring
Why not let them sleep
In their winter dreams

I, too, am looking tired
Here I am awake
Jealous of the trees
Asleep beneath the flakes

All the words I speak
Enter into air
And die in their flight
Buried way out there

So, I will not speak
Trees are fast asleep
Too tired for the spring
Buried snowflakes deep

I no longer speak

I no longer speak
My old language and word
I've become the whale
Not understood, just heard

My only world is breaking
Though it never worked, not once
It no longer serves at all
My own wisdom calls me dunce

It does not matter

It does not matter
That I love the stars
It's a cloudy night
Nowhere planet Mars

It does not matter
That I love the moon
As it gently laps
The waves against the dune

I don't raise my anchor

I don't raise my anchor
I'm a pirate who quit
I view the horizon line
And never chase it

Where the universe ends

Where the universe ends
Is the absence of light
No end and no beginning
No sense of depth or height

The universe expands
Like a breath exhaling
For millions of years
With light years of unveiling

Not flirting with perfection

Not flirting with perfection
I'm only skirting danger
Fueled not by excellence
But by anger

To be frank
I may exercise this speech
But death is perfection
That no one can teach

Rue de Vanue

The clapping of feet running
In a whisper of a storm
People dashing into postcards
That never leave home

Flower bundles on the street
Fruit, vegetables and wares
Buildings, shades of sliced apples,
Pineapples and pears

At the edge again

At the edge again
The glaring unknown
Staring at emptiness
Nothing here has shown

From my precipice
Do I take a step
Will the clouds hold me
Or are they inept

Again the Icarus flight

Again the Icarus flight
The sword goes in then out
The touch of the sunlight
The score of the silent shout

Life with suicide reeking
I never seem to quit
I'm out of breath but speaking
These words, this alphabet

When the magnet breaks (to Antarctica)

Somewhere in the East
Antarctica's at rest
Just as I, the Arctic
Have found my sleep out West

Gone from us the pull
Holding us together
Our icebergs are melting
In Equator weather

---

To the beautiful Antarctica
The southern pole of me
The Arctic is rising
In latitude's degree

I am worldly in the Universe
It is ours, yours and mine
Off of the Equator
Antarctica be mine

---

Antarctica, my love
Your only Arctic's here
In the Arctic Circle
In the northern hemisphere

Where are you, my polar
Alone, I can't be held
I will roll of this pole
And melt in Equator hell

---

Antarctica, now ocean
I will join you at sea
My ice is slowly melting
All liquid now is me

For we no longer have
A land mass to tether
We're currents in oceans
Waves in warm weather

Out on a limb, searching for words

Out on a limb, searching for words
Shall I dance what can't be spoken
Here is a joy, a small circumstance
So small it can't be broken

Out of the blue and into a yellow
This feeling flies on homing wings
Born on my heart and firmly residing
Amongst the tragedy of things

I am the miner

I am the miner
And you wear the jewels
You are covered in gemstones
I am handcuffed in tools

I left the crocus

I left the crocus
And met the aster
I know I'm not
One to bloom

I'm the nut
The squirrel forgot
My coordinates
Left to doom

The wind took our seeds

The wind took our seeds
Far away we sprout
And here grows a life tree
With no orchard about

There they yell timber

There they yell timber
Here we shout rain
You're a diamond among emeralds
We're sunflowers in grain