Roulette

It’s like darts when you’re single.
A blindfolded javelin throw
hoping to land on sincerity and heart.

It’s Angry Birds launched from their slingshot
into a chaos of baggage and fears.
You look for a tote or a carry on
and the slightest whiff of steamer trunk.

It’s a wonder we get through the maze,
of IEDs and the STDs
the EXs and the sexists,
the users and the thieves.

But most of us do,
to one bliss or another,
temporary, complicated or otherwise.
We manage a good ten years
or most of a lifetime together.

Was it the javelin?
The slingshot?
Did you settle?
Did you find your bliss?
Or did the steamer trunk take you down?

 

Right with the Lord

She rose like pink on Sundays
when we danced on Saturday night.
She spilled a puddle of Mondays
if I left before her heart was right with the Lord.

She stumbled into Luby’s Grill,
then stumbled into me.
Luby’s was her first mistake
I, her fait accompli.

She could smile like a daffodil sundae,
then go off like the 4th of July.
She could balance sanity
like Bill Clinton could a lie.

We changed the sheets on Tuesday,
before SportsCenter,
always after TMZ.
How her calories could dance
before Oh MY GOD!… 
before her heart was right with the Lord.

She could smile like a daffodil sundae,
then go off like the 4th of July.
She could balance sanity
like Bill Clinton could a lie.

Consumption

Come through the sieve with me,
let me live you,
ten Annes of a Thousand Days and nights.

Let us sip the starlight
the dance club sprites
Let us share the finest wine
that they have on Mars.

Let us run the track in Sebring
I’ll rent a Segway,
you bring the Cayman,
I’ll bring the ‘vette.

Let us see the Southern Lights
from a lodge in Patagonia,
I’ll race you to the center
of a Bern’s Chateaubriand.

Let us watch the sun rise
on a dream that no one’s thought of.
Come through the sieve,
live me, consume us,
our ten thousand days of wonder and light.

Celtic Dawn

These are isles of verdancy,
malachite shadows,
sun speckled tremors
on spinach and jade.

Sun-swords with butter
spreading the bread of the mist.
A thousand shafts slicing
on the shamrock forest floor.

One Indigo Waltz

Snared in the sparkle-dark,
caught up in those skies.
It was that dress…
blue-black satin and chiffon
a blue called Midnight Dreams

That sunset is closed
like the tumble of your paprika hair
falling over and over
these curried boulders,
the pearl cream shoulders
I kissed when last we danced.

Confetti Sky

Oak shiver and shimmer,
A botanic vine of chlorophyl coins
Gilt with copper and ethereal light.
Auric and bronze
as an autumnal evening,
a last fire for the shadows
to warm their black hands.
A last dance of clatter
in this sweetest of breeze.
A confetti sky of amber and blood.
Last call before the killing freeze.

The Sheering

Have I the belly for this
the violent absence
this sheering
the severance of me

from you

have I the current for this,
this plugging in
then pulling it all out at once

from you

have I the volume for this
a capacity to hold it
when the sips become floods
when that one word removed
takes a village down?

Along the Miles of Their Skin

It was a kiss of forever
a kiss for ten thousand days.
it might have slipped through its moments,
12 seconds that barely happened.

their first kiss was like that
so important, so real
happening and present,
fleeting, then gone.

yet the memory locked
Quik-set into their cells
a caravan of sensations,
ever traveling phantoms,
nomads
along the miles of their skin.

Nota Bene

Listen sometimes
to the church bells
to the children laughing
to the ocean swells cresting
slamming down
relentlessly reshaping.

Listen sometimes
for the mating cries around you
the Nightjar’s calls,
the loon’s cry,
Herons cackling “Nice tie!”
“New cologne?”

Listen sometimes
for the words between the lines,
how her breath falls on your lips,
to the heartbeat of your waiting child.

Listen for the day to sing
for the pressure of the light.
Listen to the planet speak
with all of your actions and might.

Nota bene. note it well.