Hello to skyscrapers

Hello to skyscrapers
And the sky they can't reach
Greetings to the oceans
And their long stretch of beach

Welcome to farmlands patched
By roads going nowhere
Their houses on corners
Thinking I could live there

Barricade or bouquet

Barricade or bouquet
My unfinished story
Both self-restrained and self
Congratulatory

With walls protecting I
Build with fragility
Unchecked by weather and
The World's hostility

Strange to find myself like

Strange to find myself like
An invisible oak
Present in a World that
Can't penetrate some cloak

Separating me from
The far larger design
Outside of the forest
An oak, they cannot find

Each of us a snowflake

Each of us a snowflake
That's if you catch my drift
A lonely drop of rain
Yet smaller, almost mist

Rarely a polished stone
A life more like gravel
No time to smooth edges
Before the last gavel

Learning how to sunbathe

Learning how to sunbathe
Beneath a cloudless sky
Like the open wings of
A Monarch butterfly

With no road to travel
The stars will be out soon
Next I will learn to bathe
Under the light of moon

Depression go to sleep

Depression go to sleep
The night belongs to dance
Open armed and spinning
An Isadora prance

An explosion of joy
An unbounding frolic
No purpose or meaning
Defying all logic

If I had only known

I I had only known
This is how it would be
The two of us in love
Surrounded by beauty

I would not have worried
And wasted all those years
Fretting and fighting back
Consumed by youthful fears

Let's throw all of our rocks

Let's throw all of our rocks
As far as they will go
Like young children on the
First heavy day of snow

Our carrier pigeons
Must devise a new course
And messages coded
In a new form of Morse

Complete devastation

Complete devastation
A category five
In wreckage and rubble
Immobile but alive

Blue nicotine clouds are
Taunting and foreboding
No chances for peace and
All hopes are eroding

Using the Big Dipper

Using the Big Dipper
I pan my night for gold
Words like stardust sprinkled
In the galaxy folds

Higgs particles sifted
Out only to behold
Poem nuggets before
The smelting and the mold

When will celebration

When will celebration
Overshadow this grief
This fixed solar eclipse
Relentless pin oak leaf

A chorus of black notes
Too lamenting to sing
In a cave upside down
Underneath a bat's wing

A sigh that is months long

A sigh that is months long
Exhaling until lungs
Are dried grapes on a vine
The last stage, lowest rungs

To have ripened early
Future seasons untouched
The realization
It doesn't matter much

I must continue as the

I must continue as the
First sun rises about
Create the next brick for
The next layer of grout

Your story residing
In chambers of my heart
A song to the beats of
The rhythm of my art

Too inarticulate

Too inarticulate
The detail explosion
Beauty and light meeting
The two biggest oceans

No matter the sentence
Or wordsmithing this gaze
These random and fleeting
Moments are without phrase

Question the directions

Question the directions
Determined by the past
When emotions ran high
And decisions were fast

Calculations based on
Fervor, fury or fear
Need calm confirmation
If they are sound to steer

Shake the night until each

Shake the night until each
Star falls like a snowflake
Leaving the moon alone
All pockmarked and opaque

Old souls are never young
They've already been sieved
Sure, steadfast and weathered
A thousand winters lived

Into the forgotten

Into the forgotten
The gift you loved so much
That story, how you laughed
And how little we touched

I can't recall that name
You always remembered!
I've lost it again and
Can't stoke a cold ember

No evidence of cool

No evidence of cool
Not spiffed up or elite
No bent up rhymes or words
Too common on the street

Just because an answer
Is honest doesn't mean
It's logic is right - no
If, and, or buts between

Sun setting through the trees

Sun setting through the trees
Like nature's picket fence
Drifting from the present
To past and future tense

Living life fuels sadness
Like a hollow tree trunk
Successes and failures
Branches high and roots sunk

The swell of Overwhelm

The swell of Overwhelm
In total amazement
A minuscule, a small
In such a large placement

No mysteries, no gods
The landscape just a leaf
No planning futures with
A sense of disbelief

October offers a

October offers a
Cold mirror reflection
An almost clinical
Complete introspection

Austerely looking back
There's little standing out
Some trees on a prairie
Small tufts of grass about

This is about our love

This is about our love
I rarely write the word
That can make every noun
Turn into every verb

Imagine your absence
The stillness this would bring
The world without you just
A person, place or thing

No longer decided

No longer decided
Everything in flux
Opinions scattered far
From the root and the crux

Why vote on civil rights
What is due must be done
Even the smallest of
Fractions round up to one

Waltzing in the yellow

Waltzing in the yellow
Swaying calm and serene
Lifting my feet over
Blue making shades of green

Here in the Overwhelm
Bee in a tulip cup
Storm clouds gathering but
Choosing not to look up

Walking up Madison

Walking up Madison
A woman in gold waits
Adler's rabbits leaping
Before the city wakes

While soap bubbles of pure
Adolescence just float
Above the leaping youth like
A solitary note

Gray smudges of storm clouds

Gray smudges of storm clouds
Making blurry puddles
Reflecting a life that's
Fumbled and befuddled

Fighting back the season
That reads old passages
Discussions alongside
Unanswered messages

I bruised a perfect peach

I bruised a perfect peach
Can the tree forgive me
In the shade of its limbs
I beg on bended knee

Remorse is in my  heart
I take back what I said
Can we reverse the flow
Put back the blood that's bled

Best to be parallel

Best to be parallel
Than our lives intersect
For one perfect moment
Collision then deflect

Two paths propelled by
The same understanding
Travelling side by side
And forward expanding

In the September light

In the September light
A field of sunflowers
A procession of monks
Seeking higher powers

The crows criss-cross the fields
Searching for the cob crumbs
Anemones blooming
With asters and the mums

In this vast open space

In this vast open space
My problems become small
The weather is as wide
As the sky is as tall

Smaller than the cornstalks
But prouder than an oak
Facing the challenges
Before the final cloak

Let this gray sky hold me

Let this gray sky hold me
Like two gray pigeon wings
No honor in boasting
Of melancholy things

Or for surrendering
Dicing up principles
Find reward in coping
And counting syllables

Effortless and profuse

Effortless and profuse

From beginning to end

Our primary colors

Mixing a perfect blend

We are painting futures

By jumping into frames

And creating a splash

And signing both our names

Kicking the dirt around

Kicking the dirt around

From full moon to full moon

Garlands of days strung out

All tangled, tossed and strewn

Running into darkness

Not a pinhole of light

A graveyard for ideas

Kites that never took flight

Reflections on a bridge

Reflections on a bridge
That we crossed together
Immigrants to ideas
Our minds in a tether

Passing through the pupil
The needle's eye center
An exodus duet
A new realm to enter

Searching the eternal

Searching the eternal
Always coming up short
These notches of thin years
Of nothing to report

Will internet fossils
Be uncovered and found
In the sediment of
Social media's mound

A hole in life's pocket

A hole in life's pocket
First youth has fallen out
Followed by innocence
Then hopes scattered about

And sadly I lost you
Not clear on when or where
But when I went to find you
You were no longer there

An oil in water life

An oil in water life
Standing out from the rest
Floating, self-contained, an
Individual nest

No matter if an earthquake
Disrupts the world and shakes
The essence of being
The oil just recreates

Emotions disconnect

Emotions disconnect
A heart amputation
Hurt fills the emptiness
Total saturation

Paper boats of dashed hopes
Fold fast on the front wave
The wreckage washes up
Without cargo to save

Will this ever subside

Will this ever subside
Someday just disappear
This blemish now a wound
A splinter now a spear

A static electric
Shock turned lightning bolt
An earthquake shaking
What was only a jolt

Argument with a ghost

Argument with a ghost
That will never exist
Is it mere exercise
Or something I insist

No matter the outcome
I cannot change their mind
It isn't in their makeup
A lime in a lime rind

What is it that we lost

What is it that we lost
A child's finger painting
A soap bubble bursting
A false image tainting

A love without echo
The emptiness of heart
In the arms that held us
Right from the very start

This is my purest voice

This is my purest voice
It holds all the meaning
Each word, every sentence
A truth without leaning

Wanting to be better
I practice what I preach
Not a derivative
A Life you cannot teach

Breathe and then the senses

Breathe and then the senses

Followed by unknown years

Brief innocence blinking

Then wide-eyed learning steers

Trying to get ahead

At some point looking back

Satisfied, unfulfilled

Irregardless, then black

Treading water in the

Treading water in the
Sea of melancholy
No continent between
Hopelessness and jolly

Carefully cupping a
Wilting four leaf clover
While memories float off
To the line and over

I didn't take the time

I didn't take the time
To watch a setting moon
Too caught up in my thoughts
The transient typhoon

When all of a sudden
The war within found peace
The slow trajectory
Earth's satellite of peace

Bold questions and answers

Bold questions and answers
And yet I still don't know
Clouds coming and going
With sunshine, rain and snow

Left searching the pieces
A childhood in tatters
The years and people gone
Now, no longer matters

Canvas without edges

Canvas without edges
No sense of night and day
Or today's date or month
October, June, no May

My home all about me
The present and the past
Are there in a moment
The sails are on one mast

Like a glacier moving

Like a glacier moving
I can't see the effect
The pulling, the dredging
Nothing clearly reflects

The change that's occurring
The massive moment here
Mountains are mustard seeds
Say move and they adhere

No vocabulary

No vocabulary
Or language can express
This fullness of blossoms
The lack of emptiness

Exposure to sunlight
Bountiful, bleached and bright
No shadows or darkness
With wide width and high height

Most birds are not soaring

Most birds are not soaring
No need for altitude
High above the treetops
There is no multitude

Here I am on the ground
When given wings to fly
Choosing not to ascend
But questioning the why

From the World Trade Centers

From the World Trade Centers
Up to Central Park West
We walk through Manhattan
Without taking a rest

Through quiet TriBeCa
Then Soho and the Arch
The flatiron pointing
And so northward we march

A horizontal sleep

A horizontal sleep
On a hillside where sheep
Would find the landscape steep
Together there we laid

Beneath a sky blue dome
No urgency to roam
From this place we call home
And the life that we made

And now ten becomes nine

And now ten becomes nine
The unraveling twine
Standing here next in line
As generations purge

Only March to July
How fast our seasons fly
Echoes of lullaby
Are the bars of a dirge

What does it matter if

What does it matter if
There's one less drop of rain
It makes no difference
To the cloud or terrain

The flowers would notice
If all the rain should stop
But would not bow their heads
For just a missing drop

My wings are wide open

My wings are wide open
Colors basking beneath
An afternoon sun that's
A crowning laurel wreath

Achievement has been made
The pinnacle, the cap
One last look at the view
Before wings start to flap

Unremarkable day

Unremarkable day
The rotation complete
Nothing significant
No miraculous feat

The daisies are blooming
And at night their white heads
Are reflecting moonlight
That glances at their beds

I had forgotten this

I had forgotten this
A detail of the past
Just a simple nothing
Not intended to last

The shape of a house key
The worn treads of a shoe
The wood grain of a floor
A certain shade of blue

Darkness in good spirits

Darkness in good spirits
It twirls in a black cape
A dirge dancing polka
A celebrated rape

A punch glass of poison
Let the party commence
I'm the entertainment
Applaud at my expense

In the land of abstract

In the land of abstract
Finding words to explain
The randomness of life
All its pleasures and pain

Too tired for poetry
Measure, meter and rhyme
Seeking more clarity
The elusive sublime

Not easy to transplant

Not easy to transplant
When the ball of the root
Is wide as the branches
From the trunk to offshoot

But look at the landscape
And the color of soil
It is better to move
Than to struggle and toil

Hope and expectations

Hope and expectations
Not in it for the race
Not a competition
Or award for first place

The singularity
And accomplishments won
For attempting the course
Not the sound of the gun

Everything falling short

Everything falling short
Bridges failing to reach
Time not healing old wounds
Boats that never find beach

The distance to future
Although it once seemed long
Is here right before us
In an unfinished song

Where are the buttercups

Where are the buttercups
We held beneath our chins
To see our love of butter
With our two youthful grins

Offices and airports
With deadlines and spreadsheets
Unrealistic goals
And numbers we can't meet

A tree for a witness

A tree for a witness
Perhaps a passing bird
Sound as big as thunder
Or a traveling herd

An exclamation point
Celebration of sound
A loud echo between
The stratosphere and ground

Begin the unravel

Begin the unravel
Memories to forget
What was once a full sail
Is now a fisher's net

To have lost the markers
Birthdays, names, a date
Anniversaries missed
Without a celebrate

An unsolved mystery

An unsolved mystery
So much is left unknown
Quick air is escaping
Earth, crowded and alone

Need something to measure
A finite or a math
Formula or theorem
Or a last final draft

My soul is not indexed

My soul is not indexed
In the back of a book
No table of content
Is worth taking a look

And these minimal words
Are not definition
The essence of being
Or the first edition

Discovering the flaws

Discovering the flaws
The genetic design
Those of my parents that
Are inherently mine

Yet here are the faults that
Solely belong to me
Ingredients only
Part of the recipe

Not farming the pavement

Not farming the pavement
Dig where shovels go deep
No cities,  no mountains
No curb stones and no steep

A plentiful bounty
To preserve and to keep
Like bound bushels of hay
That were once just a heap

Wanting a forever

Wanting a forever
This day to never end
No movement of shadows
Right here, right now, not when

Cut the strings on the moon
Lifeless marionette
And tie them to the sun
So it can never set

Erase the agony

Erase the agony
Triumph over regret
Stupidity of fear
Far better to forget

Into yellow and light
Out from the cavity
Like snow falling upwards
No sense of gravity

Every year I forget

Every year I forget
Until the snow in June
Falls from cottonwood trees
Once again in full bloom

Remember in late Spring
The years of tangled youth
They say it gets better
And I'm the living proof

Not like Halley's comet

Not like Halley's comet
Or longer than a year
And not just a summer
Something shorter, more near

Perhaps, it's now and then
We answer to the call
And dance our feet southward
To Gaia's gala ball

Expressing myself with

Expressing myself with
The same tonality
But the World spins in a
Constant reality

Gentle cows are grazing
Racial divides fighting
Apple orchards blooming
Differences igniting

A lost utopia

A lost utopia
Like a cloud's only fate
To form and float along
And then evaporate

So this is how it is
The stars do not decide
Or the god of worship
No prosper, just divide

Look at what I have lost

Look at what I have lost
Furthermore at the cost
All gains, I'd gladly toss
To hear your lullaby

The void and the vacuum
The darkest clouds that loom
This endless sense of doom
Our knot, we can't untie

Born on a white canvas

Born on a white canvas
Our fingerprints, the paint
And everything we touch
From the bold to the faint

Create pictures of lives
Real to the abstract
Indelible lasting
At each point of contact

The next turn of the page

The next turn of the page
And every page after
There are unfinished thoughts
No words or new chapter

Remembering the days
Before we fell apart
Singing the same song with
The same joy in our heart

Running for the yellow

Running for the yellow
Discarding the blue robe
Finding beauty waiting
Throughout our spinning globe

Waiting in quiet joy
An apple orchard row
Or a whisper as soft
As an ending echo

Clouds as thin as pencils

Clouds as thin as pencils
Hawks strewn across the sky
Stuck here in slow traffic
Again the question why

Again the empty net
The pan is void of gold
The questions are not new
And the answers untold

Passion or obsession

Passion or obsession
Unable to let go
Trapped in a cold winter
Beneath layers of snow

Trying to choose freedom
Picking locks on this cell
To have finally reached
A complete froze hell

Where are you in this world

Where are you in this world
An atlas of places
Random pushpins marking
Flipped stones with no traces

Spring crocuses are here
But this hope does not bloom
Do I still exist or
Am I sealed in a tomb

Winter inhaling Spring

Winter inhaling Spring
On a cold April day
Clouds shutting out sunlight
And not blowing away

How unremarkable
This perfect gift, today
Unwrapped, beheld and used
Until time throws it away

And Spring is here again

And Spring is here again
The cattle are grazing
White clouds are billowing
And tulip bulbs raising

Both seeds and body husks
Will be planted in dirt
The seeds will be rising
The body husks, inert

My soul is like sea glass

My soul is like sea glass
Days like waves washing me
Not far from the abyss
Of the bottomless sea

The first Spring without you
Many more will follow
Then I too will be gone
Into the great swallow

In this silent distress

In this silent distress
Like a cloud torn in two
Pronounced imperfection
Just like an untied shoe

No proof of innocence
Solely reputation
My words not enough to
Ease the situation

In the early part of

In the early part of
Spring when mornings are crisp
Before warm afternoons
Triumphantly eclipse

I dream of our shadows
Growing longer as day
Rises and then retreats
Like water in a bay

Not feeling anything

Not feeling anything
No sadness or remorse
Traveling day to day
On an unaltered course

Here in the month of March
Still unable to grieve
Perhaps in April or May
Let go, exhale, bereave

So many things ending

So many things ending
Rivers and fallen trees
Tulip cups breaking then
Summers and New Year eves

But possibilities
Are endless and untame
An unfinished painting
In an unfinished frame

Without a metaphor

Without a metaphor
And verbs as still as nouns
Time keeps but one rhythm
The heart beats out of bounds

A moment just exists
The past and future now
Sunlight passing through us
No why or when or how

Will this ever echo

Will this ever echo
Does a canyon exist
If it all means nothing
Then why should I persist

Were cave painters hopeful
Did Leonardo know
Or is it just passion
A feverish Van Gogh

The autumn leaves are like

The autumn leaves are like
Generations before
Basking in the sunlight
Disappearing no more

Season after season
The Earth silently spins
With only one ending
When the story begins

No need for clarity

No need for clarity
Something in the essence
Beyond definition
Or poetic sentence

Trying to capture light
That I see in your eye
There's something in the soul
That words cannot comply

Bored with pure ecstacy

Bored with pure ecstasy
With no depth perception
Unable to find flaws
Imprecise perfection

How can differences
Not succumb to envy,
Admiration or wars
Or just being friendly

This morning a great moon

This morning a great moon
Fell quickly out of sight
These last days of winter
Are chasing off the night

Another sun comes up
A new calendar day
Life passing before us
As we go on our way

Once treetops but now roots

Once treetops but now roots

We will all disappear

Generations passing

Like a forest now clear

All these imperfections

Like a lesser Van Gogh

Wire my crooked bonsai

Ash dusting my white snow

Searching not finding love

Searching not finding love

My youth an empty cup

Wanting your acceptance

Without an interrupt

Crushing the ringing bell

Surrender to failure

Refuting bold colors

Pretending they’re paler

Where are you, gone gone gone

Where are you, gone gone gone

The sky is cloudless blue

Window frames of sunlight

Are empty without you

I call and call and call

My words only echo

The end of summer bloom

The start of winter snow

Start a partial day with

Start a partial day with

A walk across the park

Past the crepe myrtle that

Didn’t bloom on new bark

In the yard, a duck’s nest

Six eggs without a crack

A day without future

Now only looking back

Eleven becomes ten

Eleven becomes ten
No more wondering when
And so never again
One by one we will go

Looking back at the cost
At the years we have lost
Our lives bitten by frost
From the layers of snow

Trying to bloom wider

Trying to bloom wider
Spread like wild strawberry
Flower heads too heavy
The stem cannot carry

Yet the forget-me-nots
Forgotten, so it goes
Baby's breath to funeral
Flowers a dried blood rose

The woods are the color

The woods are the color
Of an unplanted field
The grass, the color of
A red apple just peeled

The sun has set into
Strong Atlas's shoulders
As the day slips into
A cloud unmarked folder

From years of make believe

From years of make believe
To present reality
From vanishing of dreams
To practicality

What happens to false hopes
The bridges never built
Canyons getting deeper
In sediment and silt

Another accident

Another accident
A random collision
Nothing is adding up
Always a division

Arrows never fly straight
And the World isn't round
Flaws and discrepancies
Abundant and abound

I am buried too deep

I am buried too deep
I can't come up to bloom
Even the hungry squirrel
Can't uncover my tomb

Above me the Spring sun
As I struggle and fight
The season will pass me
Yet I cannot find light

In this unique but brief

In this unique but brief
Rare form of existence
Our efforts are met with
Exhausting resistance

To find a plateau or
A long level of calm
A butterfly resting
In the World's open palm

Red barns and brick houses

Red barns and brick houses
Road exits far apart
But traffic grows thicker
The closer to the heart

Forests disappearing
The fields have met their fate
Parking lots and strip malls
Tress bound by a steel grate

To never have this day

To never have this day
Sunny window panes fall
On the floor at my feet
No answer when I call

An evening in comfort
Together we would spend
Finally off to bed
Another day to end

A walk across the park

A walk across the park

On a partial Thursday

To greet the morning sun

That will go on its way

But never see it set

A period, the end

A doorway into death

I cannot comprehend

All the water towers

All the water towers
Can be seen from up here
Distance may be farther
But never felt more near

Winter just beginning
Where did the autumn go
Its colored leaves now brown
Receptacles of snow

A noun and not a verb

A noun and not a verb
It never saw action
No arms reaching out far
My touch or reaction

Like a book never read
The binding not broken
Was it only a thought
With words never spoken

Verses getting shorter

Verses getting shorter

Christmas carols followed

By strains of Auld Lang Syne

Three sixty five swallowed

A western star still sleeps

While morning in the east

Rises with light blue sheets

To pull across this feast

Church spires reaching nothing

Church spires reaching nothing

Above forgotten graves

Mothers, fathers, children

And princes, paupers, knaves

And countless more to fall

The mighty and the weak

Stones to keep their spirits

Buried deep underneath

The darkness has loose threads

The darkness has loose threads

It’s underpinned in white

Linen peeking through like

Stars on a winter’s night

Rising to the top from

The bottom of the sea

The sun like broken plates

Dancing high above me

Hairline crack, no bell sound

Hairline crack, no bell sound

Limping close to the floor

Dropping loves and friendships

To fit the narrow door

Into a smaller room

Where the ceiling hangs low

With no movement of air

Yet a strong undertow

Wading in the future

Wading in the future

Trying it on for size

Even though it’s not here

Something to realize

Is it a trophy cup

Or second or third prize

Will it fail to medal

Exultations or sighs

I went looking for stars

I went looking for stars

As dirt rose from my feet

Wanting success, finding

Compromise and defeat

And when the dust settles

Will you see that I’ve tried

A lit match for a star

Good intentions implied