Dreams

Where do dreams come from? From whither ideas?

Like children, secret, bold, they seem
who in the dead of night escape
their father's stern and vigilant gaze,
then whispering walk the way denied
down to the writhing sea.

There they run haphazardly
and in my sleep, beneath
my eyelids closed, I catch
the motions of an untimed dance. I try
to learn the steps by
heart, but joy is not an art.

and then - the sea -
the tides move - the moon,
the heavens shift,
recede - back up the hidden way, they're gone
by dawn - they cannot stay.

In the sunlight, things are righted.
Indents on my mind's shore fade;
the sand is even once again,
but the earth remains forever changed.

Spring (a poem from a dream)

All the world has woken finally;
The sun is shining bright - hurray!
Fat clouds amble, smiling lazily;
The wind is soft and sweet today.
And oh, the children, all so beautiful,
running, laughing, off they go!
But here I am cold still and silent
For no friend calls my way "hello,"
and this is as it is, and so.

10212012

does the universe
feel the pain i feel
does someone somewhere
ache with me or maybe

i'm a dot of sand
watching a great sadness
rolling in waiting
to be taken and now i know
how pearls aren't made.

beauty, and inaccessibility

What does the wind feel like, I wonder, that doesn't stick
to my licked finger-
print. The lines
of my palms politely curled
darken daily, settle down. It troubles me:
somewhere leaves blush under the sun's affections but
I can never know to just what bright confused complexion
of red and gold. Yes, it troubles me, the limits
of the skin I'm in,
the bones that bind, the beauty unseen.
But here is some consolation at least: the wind I taste is sweet.

091712

You knew me
once, the once -
I. I
knew her
too -
her two eyes charged with
violent sunlight
were mine. I remember violence. I remember
breaking
lines but now I shatter words  -
I cling to thoughts wrung out I try to
climb the rungs up, out
I try to shout, but the hand slips.
I'm a tongue tripping up, I watch
the motion of lips
gibbergabbering.
My ears are
old. My fingerprint
decays. I delay.
I've got nothing else to say.

Boogars, A Poem.

I sit here and try to be this thing I was
once - A Poet
- back when i could think and dream and
love.
instead i'm a lonely slug meandering
thick gray head bent eyes swivelling
drivelling, a trail of formless infertile muck i slap a title to:
Boogars, A Poem.
i laugh a little to think of
you reading dried snot like
tea leaves. then I weep
because i crave the touch of a breathing beating world
but all I feel all I can 
feel is the weight
of this
shell as I sludge across the page
and maybe-I-don't-give-a-shit. that's what scares me most of all.

04092012

into your throat as you slept i
mouthed let
me be deliriously weak let me

be the broken-winged bird
i am so tired of flying
i would sing for you until i die
if i could rest

like the feeling of love
here stopping your breath

let me be
precious and never break
me please
tell me its ok