Rain Creek

Riding along

with my head on your shoulder

                          and feet out the window

the cotton woods rain white ashes

on the windshield of your Chrysler New Yorker

with the cigarette burns on the seats

We lose our selves on old country roads
that know each other so well not even
the locals really know where one ends
and the next begins

Out the passenger window

                      I can barely see

the green fields of next year's wheat

absorbing the last of this day's warmth

I watch you smoke with one hand,

the other draped around my bare shoulders

you steer with your left knee

and I wonder
where the ashes fall to

once they've escaped your fire

Uncertain

somedays it seems to me
 that everybody and everything is
 trying to pick apart
the ground of truth I've built
for myself
suddenly all sureness
seems dissolved to thin air
out of the blue I find myself
wobbling on stilts of uncertainty
crisp black and white piles
become sullen grey puddles
and nothing is anything
but muddled anymore

Nothin but Skittles

I know, I know, I know...
We just stopped talking about Trayvon Martin.
We just took a step toward moving on
by going a minute or two without thinking of him.

But I say, "Hey! It's about time somebody reminded us again."
Trayvon is a mother's Son. Trayvon is a father's Son.
Trayvon is lost.
Therefore, I remind you;
If "We Are Trayvon!" then surely,
We, too, are lost.

If I can shine a small light into the despair
of this darkness, let it be the light of empathy:

If it were your kid dead,
Clutching nothing but Skittles...
You wouldn't be done fighting for him.
If it were your child's chest blown open...
while Zimmerman took his gun home that night,
You'd not be done just yet.

You know it.  I know it.
Every parent who'll stop to check
their safe and sleeping child tonight - knows it.
Not one of us needs to know the others race to know this truth.

And so, I say,
"I am not done yet."
I am not ready to move on from Trayvon.
Because if he were my kid dead,
Clutching nothing but skittles...
I wouldn't ever be done fighting for him.
Not ever.

Insomnia

I'm haunted by it
since you left
actually always have been
just not as enjoyable
as it was
when you were here
and I used to watch you breath
rather than stare
at the wallow
you left behind in my mattress

Ocean Day

swirling
beating
almost rhyming
in and out the ocean waves

oh so salty cold

walking away from you
the sand squishes up over my feet
between my toes
into the heels of my blue jeans

follow me
into this sea - join me
this side of these crashing waves
let us splash
and be children and lovers in the same moment

let time flow on the other side of the tide
may it wash over us
and never move us from this instant

swirling
beating
almost rhyming
this side of love's crashing wave
it's oh so cold
walking away from you

Every word applies

words
on paper
in my head
from my heart
carved in stone
born of wind
made of clay
rhyming
rhythming
melodious
cruel
loving
sexy
 sultry
painful
true
any word
every word
 this;that; there; then
here; how their; now;
 yours; his; hers; theirs;mine;
all words apply
when I think of you
any word will do
and every word does
loving you
every word applies

Sexy

Sexy
is fluid and red
it glides
 it glows
it's in the hips and finger tips
it's a movement
a touch

Sexy
is mysterious
almost wild
it's hidden
and obvious both
in long eye lashes and
loose hair
and subtle words.

Sexy is
what I isn't.

Poetry to me

If I only had the words
you would see

that without you finds me
spelling your name in the sand
and seeing your face in grocer's windows
missing you like mad

that with you I'm in a black and white picture show
with painted backgrounds

that every part of loving you

with and without you
is poetry to me

Summer

We sat drowning
in the haze of an amber sun
 the salt of sweat
on our tank topped shoulders
with no way to temper the weather
 we let it pour over us
 like think maple syrup
suffocating
in the blunt humidity
struggling for oxygen
licking our chalk chapped lips
watching the smudge of sun
 slowly shrinking away
in the hot summer simmer

I love you because...

Because
to bask in you...
mmm
I've seen a lot of wondrous
Oh, but to be with you...
to let you saturate me and mine
my nooks and crannies
 my secret forgotten places

Oh to be with you!
To loose myself
and simply be
bluntly, grossly,
truly - me...
When I am lost in you
I find me.

Fool's Flower

foolishly
I
sit and pluck
and
sit and pluck
wishing on
he-loves-me petals
that
fall
from

he-loves-me-not flowers
picked from another woman's garden

Secret

 You whose voice haunts my soul's attic
 keeping the winds of darkness out
my guardian against alone
 my ghost in a sea of faces
in my mind...
I bring you purple lilac blossoms
and silent secrets

Where the wild things grow

There is a place where the wild things grow
where an old cowboy has built his home
where every mornigng (rain or shine)
work is done, cattle are fed, awe is inspired.

The cowboy labors his worn hands giving
life each day in this place God walks quietly
whispering secrets into a farmer's heart
secrets of living, secrets of life.

The cowboy works hard, and this work
(almost divine) makes the spirit whole
my daddy dreams of the place where you can smell rain before it falls
and you can watch corn grow from atop a buckskin mare.

A place where the wild things grow
and a man can build his own heaven.

Addiction

My head throbs
my muscles ache
my soul is sore
my shame is worn out
I want more
more powder
more power
more smoke
more flakes
more dust...
I want more anything that gets me less me

I'm falling in love with you.

I think I'm falling in love with you.

I think

I'm...

falling in love with you?

Oh!

To say it!

The words fall off of my tongue
like silver bells falling from grey clouds.


I think I'm falling in love with you!

Oh!

Let the lovedrops ring!

Poetry (4-26-01)

Poetry is a fun-house mirror
that bends and warbles and confuses
and yet affirms the realities of life's images

Poetry is a reflection on still waters
that blurs the horizon between
the touchable and the unattainable

Poetry is a window through which
one may view another's world
through their eyes and fingertips

Poetry is a sharp edged glass
that cuts through all ropes and boundaries
straight to the bloody trueness that lies in all things

Poetry is a rear-view mirror
looking back at the scattered leaves
and black birds along side the tire tracks of an old chevy

Struggle

to you students
of carefully presented
disillusionment
and worshipers
of false beauty
and fallen things
be reminded always
that the greatest grace
to which we can aspire
is  the struggle itself

Coward

in my mind
i will always be
the coward
the one who
watches
and never
touches
listens
and never sings