Scraa-chisss!

Let’s go!
Pin back your sheaf of wayward wheat,
rinse yourself with sun,
the sweet stink of this rich earth,
embrace these arms of endless stars.

Let your sky dogs run,
bounding through cumulus meadows,
racing through the thickets of rain.
Let’s go!
I’ve two tickets and a fuse
a match and so little time.

 

Just Like You

I was 24 just yesterday.
You can ask anybody.
They’ll tell you!
They saw me in the crowd.
They’ll vouch that I was there,
a waistline,
a sprinkling of vigor and flair,
an engaging smile,
a headful of walnut hair,

Just yesterday I tell you.
You can ask anybody.
No, not him, die died in 09.
Not not her. She’s in a home.
Yes, YES, ask her.
She’ll tell you how our jeans fit,
how the night’s lasted forever,
how the dance floor never stopped.
She’ll tell you how it is
for us… just like you
forever young.

Our Larcenies

We stood here one day.
The tide was out
the onshore wind a steady gale.

We laughed here one day
when the sky was dancing
a mischievous blue
just as the light in your eyes.

No grain of sand remains
where we walked along that sea,
no heart,
no words,
no dreams,
nor essence of our larcenies.

We touched here one day
when the sun ran bloody
and our hearts were runaways trains.

We loved here one day
falling shattered, breathless
onto sheets wet with our brains.

No cell on my skin remains
where my hand held your hand,
no words have reply in this room,
no heartbeat,
no remains of your smile
as you lay your weary head upon my knee.

Its Echo and Dying Smiles

 

How many of us
have fought the riptides
have gone down raging,
fighting for mental breath,
for relevance
to be seen… to turn an eye
to turn a life guard’s head.

The cafe is quiet
as we set here sipping.
Ghosts of the table
our phones silent,
our laps and coffees cold,
our eyes still hungry
our minds still full of laughter,
its echo and dying smiles.

In Those Violet Hours

In those violet hours
our skin wavered
an envelope shattered
our voices changed
in those violet hours

In those violet hours
our eyelids were tattooed
promises ran clotting from our eyes
faith fell from the air
in those violet hours

In those violet hours
a fault slipped beneath us
tomorrows cracked
like mud curling on a desert floor
in those violet hours

In those violet hours
years of words and dream
withered from whence they came
tears rans from the clocks
in those violet hours.

That One Season's Tattoo

We played under that tree,
a buckeye, next to a pin oak
that shed blood red leaves each autumn.

We played under that tree,
a great umbrella
an ocean of roots
a lawn no mower could tame.

We played every child’s game
every brought up
except spin the candle,
the one that Sanjay brought.
That was stupido… yuk.

We played that one summer
that one fall.
It seemed like three
like it lasted a childhood
that one season’s tattoo.

Our time was like that for me.
Ephemeral, an endless summer,
timeless sets of moments,
aloft on the the wing span of a dream.
Gold dust left upon my eyelids
for all these years that remain.

Lithium

On the verge of collapse
my heart
like the sky, metallic,
a tarnished white,
muted now that you’ve leaving.

A little tablet,
innocuous… WW 277
It should glow somehow,
luminesce a pale green,
a Marvel substance
coursing my capillaries with Hulk light.

Our life blood for data,
for mobility, for current.
Little slabs of black goo.
Unsexy, the lifeblood of sanity
for hackers, for lovers,
for Twitter’s inanity,
for the compost pile on the nearest star.

Edna


She put on her leg
to a ritual of cotton,
long sox of a sort rolled over her stub,
it seems like there were four, likely less.

The leg was a mannequin calf,
a stodgy back shoe,
a silver hinge and leather socket.
The sox were for the socket,
a buffer to ease the strafing and stress,
a barrier to absorb the pain.

The pain was evident by noon’s grimace,
the acerbic retorts, the grim apologies by two.
Her cane was always in a corner,
or hooked on a chair,
a hickory shaft, etched but simple,
its rubber cap changed out every too months.

Today it would have had LEDS and an App,
a GPS, and three taps would turn off the lights.
But today there would not be sox and sores,
no chrome hinges, no pain.
Today there would not be stains on her cheeks
or the bitterness in her eyes
as she ascended the last stairs to church.

Debris

My tongue arrived after you’d gone,
full of quick retorts,
of notes in the useless margins
thoughts that mattered then,
neutered now,
heart scraps,
film cut from the print
mute on the floor.

I heard the writhing scream of bees,
the hum of the paddles… “Clear!”
I was word blind
deaf to each concussion of our tears,

I watched as we grieved
heaving pixels and digital angst.
I tasted the ozone,
the iris ripping,
the cleaving,
the whoomph
as your words took me apart.