An Early 2025 Draft

I think we loved each other then, each in our way.

Yours, newborn kitten soft,

Terrified & fragile.

Mine, fierce but silent,

A weight in my chest I could barely breathe beneath.

So many years ago, I moved you like a chess piece

From my heart to my past

Even then, I knew it wasn’t a winning play

But we both continued on, just 

Apart.

But you were the first person who 

Held too much of my heart

So much that when I walked away 

I wondered if there was enough

To pump my blood

To keep me alive

I traded feeling weak in the knees

For a different kind of weakness

When you were no longer there to prop me up.

I was lost without you, but determined 

To make my own way.

But perhaps we have always been tethered together

Loosely, drifting each in our own tide

Until you tugged the string, 

Pulling me towards you, 

Crashing into this beautiful disaster.

Older, wiser, sadder, but in each other’s orbit

Once again.

Now I want to crawl inside the library of your soul

Read every story that you’ve held onto

By candle light, undisturbed, 

Until I know you better than my own heart beat.

Because you are

A fountain forever recycling

Hope, clear and crisp and so refreshing after 

A long drought.

You meet me in the darkest corners of my mind

Armed with starlight and your bright eyes.

This world; it hasn’t treated either of us gently.

We compare scars, let each other peek behind the curtains

Hiding our dark parts. 

Slowly becoming again what we were always supposed to be;

Together.

We have both earned the right to choose our peace,

I just never expected mine to arrive wearing your smile.

I never expected these butterflies

To find their way back home 

To dance in my ribcage

Every time you cross my mind.

It’s been so long since I gave them their freedom.

Long Dry Season (August 2000)

 

Long Dry Season

 

It’s been a long dry season

Unmerciful and just too damn hot.

 

Crawling into August

All round-bellied and panting

Into air that’s empty, sharp and brittle

That scratches at skin already become reptilian

I realize I have nothing left to breathe but dust and irritation.

 

I am already forgetting the feel

Of rain on my skin

On my tongue heat and sand dance wild.

It has been a long dry season

And I am feeling this drought in my bones.

 

I have been thirsty for so long

Praying for hope, praying for mercy,

Praying for monsoons.

I am rewarded with nothing more than confusion

A dangerous mirage, and more sand to swallow.

 

I’ve been ready to lie down

And accept the loneliness of this dehydration.

 

But then there was you,

Vibrant precursor to a storm.

It’s been a long dry season, yes,

But now there is you

And the sky is alive with electric shock unnatural.

 

This is heat lightning,

The prickle of tender skin

Without so much as a drop of rain.

This is the quiver of an unexpected dawn

The jubilant promise of maybe

The spark of anticipation that

Fuels imagination and I swear

If I close my eyes tight enough

I can feel water, cool and fresh,

Covering over me like baptism.

 

Of course, this is nothing more than potent delusion

My tongue is still thick with bitterness and lack of rain

But the sky is on fire now

Blinding bright but hopeful…

 

I am remembering how to sweat in the sunshine

Remembering the feeling of something to look forward to

And the fear of disappointment

All this beauty terrifies me.

 

It’s been a long dry season

And I have finally found something worth suffering for:

Hope for better days.

 

Perhaps the seeds of clouds are sprouting in your eyes

There is always something new and under-appreciated to behold

The sky may still be unyielding but it is beautiful.

I must remember to throw my head back in gratitude

For this too-rare beauty,

To forgive its imperfections

To find the sheer joy in every moment,

And just to trust that the rain will follow.

LoveSong (July 2020)

 

Love Song

 

If this were a love song

Instead of just you and I

Two uncertain people

Just now learning to dance

Instead of just you and I

Stumbling over each other in half light

Instead of just you and I

Taking steps tenuous as a baby

Not knowing

Where

How

If

To begin

If this were a love song…

 

There would be no questions to answer

No answers to question

Just an immutable rhythm

Like the heartbeat of a new child

In the warmth of the womb

It would be instantly understood

And completely inexplicable.

 

This would be the music we hear

In our heads while dreaming.

 

If this were a love song

Everything would be right with the world

Gardens would overflow

With lilacs and tigerlillies

Thunderstorms would come when called

Like obedient pets

The sky would be our canvas

And we would trail our art behind us like cigarette smoke.

 

If this were a love song

Summer days wouldn’t be quite so hot

They would be for picnics,

Staying in bed real, real late

Leisurely afternoons of drinking lemonade

Naked

It would always taste sweeter that way.

We would find the silent beauty

In the simplest things

We would dream impossibilities like children.

 

And somewhere, someday

On a back porch in the rain

We would dance barefoot to Nick Cave

We would be graceful

Even when we stumble

Your breath would be like bedtime stories

On the dampness of my skin

And we would dance

As if we had been born with

The knowledge of these steps

And of each other.

 

As we fall together,

Collapse into lovemaking

We would evolve into more than ourselves

Becoming this music.

 

O baby, imagine it.

If we were a love song…

            We would be soft melodies

            Intricate harmonies

            With just enough tension underneath

            To prickle the skin…

 

Yes, if somehow we

Were to become this love song

We would be wild

Ablaze with the ephipanies of ten thousand lovers

And we would be played at weddings

For thousands and thousands

Of years to come.

1998

 

i wrap smoke ribbons around my eyes

            . maybe i'll be blind for awhile .

wishing i could take a day off from breathing

'cause i don't wanna play this game today

instead, i would skip stones

across lonely lakes

dream of paperclips

braid my hair into a leash

and hand it to your heartbeat

            . maybe i'll be tied for awhile .

clothe myself only in starlight

and the warmth of your breath

the metal bands clamped tight

around my fingers and toes

give you something

to string me up by

            . maybe i'll be wild for awhile .

dance to rhythms that are not mine

for a time

i'll watch while you buy

designer kindling from street vendors

and weave silk scarves between my fingers

            . maybe i'll be a child for awhile .

close my eyes

and fade to sleep

you will be my lullaby

            . maybe .

Distance (2000)

 

If you take a pencil and hold it out at arm’s length

you can use the eraser to block out the entire moon:

all of it

even when it hangs low and pregnant in the sky

in all it’s orange gold magnificence

 

I tell you this because I need you to understand

how something so small

can obscure something so immense.

 

I was thinking of you

while I listened to the rhythm of the rain on my window

thinking of you

while I wrote out multiplication tables and broke pencils in frustration

 

you gotta realize that how you see things

changes depending on the lens you look through

that windows aren’t any less real because they’re transparent.

 

all that means is that you can see through them.

 

and the greater the distance between point A and point B

the more difficult the word problem becomes

the more distorted the images get.

 

I know now that we’re a product of this new math

simply the sum of imaginary numbers

 

because

 

now we have become

one too many “Kids in the Hall” reruns on a Sunday afternoon

the joke with the perpetually forgotten punchline.

 

didja ever stop
            didja ever stop to consider

that maybe it’s nothing more than air weighing us down

stooping our shoulders

bending our backs

 

nothing like a little atmospheric pressure

to keep us from vacuum induced delirium.

 

and didja ever stop

            didja ever stop to consider

that sometimes all something needs to grow

is a whole lot of empty space

a whole lot of nothing

 

and it’s just too easy to imagine that

when you have that pencil in your hand

and you can’t see the moon

it’s just too easy to believe

that maybe it was never really there

that there wasn’t anything at all here to see,

folks,

nothing to see here

 

if the glass isn’t ground thin enough

it’s easy to imagine

that all there is

is some canned laughter,

eraser dust,

and a so much air

you could never breathe it all.

 

The Children of Einstein and Galileo (1999)

 

The Children of Einstein and Galileo

            (a love poem for poets)

 

I have finally realized that I am

looking for answers in the wrong places

that maybe we all have to get back to the basics

dream of constellations

find the pictures created by melting ice

 

maybe I’m asking the wrong questions

but, tonight

tonight there is something in the air between us

in our quiet conversation, contemplation

sunlight and shadows mix

blend into middle grey

there are clouds forming

between straw & swirling liquid

I am creating

mute music from glass

a soundtrack to set down behind

laughter and strange tensions

 

and maybe

maybe it is already raining somewhere

but stars could be falling

and we would never notice them

my fingers are distracted

occupying themselves folding corners of paper

into geometric shapes mindlessly

if I stop for too long

my thoughts will form unsolvable equations

physics and astronomy

will dance together in my head like fireflies

I will give Einstein a run for his money

 

maybe we should not be so eager

to take E=MC² as fact

why doesn’t anyone ever question

scientific legislators

ignorance of the laws of nature

is not a defense

still, there are so many cosmic questions

I need the answers to

if energy can neither be

created nor destroyed

how can it be that there are sparks forming

on every surface?

 

maybe it is time for us to hypothesize

I am conducting experiments

rolling emptiness between my fingers

creating candles out of nothing

I touch a wick to your lower lip

like a kiss

your words become light

and I realize that

yes

this is how stars are born

 

if we could stay here forever

if we never ran out of words

all of us,

we could give birth

to a new universe

 

 

Redemption (2001)

 

Redemption

 

We are all created by degrees now

Formed from smallest particles

Linked together like chain mail

Fine-tuned as nuclear reactors

And if there has ever been a hand

As we can comprehend the ideal hand

Inside of me, endlessly tinkering

Well, I have never seen it.

 

Then, am I to believe myself blind?

Gouge out my eyes

In hopes of improving reception to divine prophecy?

This is a far cry

From rabbit ears and satellite dishes.

We are searching for better technologies

In our heartbeats

In circadian rhythms of breathing

In a spiritual awareness of each other that

We have, until this moment, been unaware of.

 

And we draw breath

 

I have conjured you like voodoo

To sit here beside me

To speak to me of floods, and falls and

Armageddon

Like we will somehow return to simplicity

Understand the pregnancies of pauses

Prove things that will never have

Proof to stand behind their realities

Hold the ideal hand:

The hand of truth.

 

And in this meeting

Merging

Exchange of thoughts and the science of reason

We will discover a higher power

As neurons fire

And this perfectly imperfect flesh that contains us

Makes the desperately needed connection

Between God and Man.

 

But we are all created by degrees,

And even the best laid plans

Of the very best carpenters

Can go horribly wrong

As a nail punctures the flesh of palm.

You explain corruption as an inevitability.

These are not sugarplums dancing in my mind

But fruit without name.

 

Then, someone called it an apple.

And for a few seconds too long, we believed.

See the fruit I hold out to you?

An uncomfortable mix of familiar and foreign.

I wonder if the weaker man in you

Struggles to be passive

To refuse even a taste

Knowing that it will bring

A plague of regret and repentance

Down to cover us both.

 

Upon being exhumed

Yet another unenlightened universe

Will call us ancient.

They'll get the date wrong.

Will not understand the dichotomy

Of time and ages inexplicable.

We will have become yet another breath

Which is far less than the truth

To a brave new world which needs no more lies.

 

We are all created by degrees,

And perhaps, were this construction not so precise,

Perhaps if I had enough perspective

To shift myself like the formation of mountains,

I would be able to disregard doubt

And view you

As the first in a long line of things solidified and

Absolute.

 

An unintentional touch lights the spark

Of another unexpected connection

And we draw breath

 

 

In this life,

I have become far too heavy for enlightenment.

I've spent too long with my feet on the ground,

Making footprints.

Too busy looking forward to notice

The anachronism I have crushed beneath my heel.

 

Tonight,

We are the only thing that makes sense

In a world that has turned it's back on

Reason.

 

We are all created by degrees:

For the first time in my life

I am struggling to believe that I really do have free will.

If I were stronger, braver, freer

If I were more than just this girl

I would inhale you

Let you invade me wholly

Learn all of your hymns.

 

And when I finally step off of this cliff

Of doubt, indecision, confusion and fear

I will land softly

Feel the cool grass of Eden

Under my bare feet

And be as certain as breathing

That there is always a chance

For redemption.