If you can slow dance
with your suicidal thoughts,
If you can finger paint
with the shades of your panic,
If you can buy your loneliness flowers
and fall in love with its sweet silences.
Well baby,
you can do anything.
Changes on Dunn Road
If I’d only known
the change and growth
of walking down
Dunn Road.
For first I’d see summer green
in fields of leaf
and quiet peace.
So came the colors of fall
a fool to follow
fool’s plan at all.
But then atop winter’s sheets
I got my head
above my feet.
Oh how, I’ve come to know
the love of family –
on Dunn Road.
Be
When blankets are heavy
and the air is cold
worry not
be wild, be bold.
Spit at neighbors
just stop caring
you’ll see
be new, be daring.
Kick the comfort
flush your food
yes you
be fiery, be rude.
you pulse
you blood
you sharpened teeth
let them build you up
or die.
Saturday Sun-Goddess
In ancient Egypt,
Mesopotamia, and Greece
men would travel miles upon miles
to make a sacrifice
(some crops or a first born)
all in the hopes
of seeing a sun goddess:
their silken skin glistening,
like it’s made of gold
and divinity.
me?
I just have to take a trip downtown,
make a more contemporary sacrifice
of chai latte
and wonderful conversation
then just like that,
I experience my own sun goddess
for just a few precious hours:
Shinning bright enough
to make the sun look dim.
A sweetness big enough
to make skyscrapers look small.
A brilliance so luminescent
that I wonder if the evening light
journeyed from her eyes
before pouring out
onto the city’s sacred streets.
then just as beautifully,
just as swiftly,
the sun sets
and my goddess leaves
but I’ll only smile …
because my world will be that much brighter
for the next few days.
Scars
I have a scar
under my nose
daring me
youthful me
took a flying swan dive
directly onto a pile of cans
(you see, no one told me not to)
daring me
youthful me
would leave high school
to visit the girl down the street
I would lay in her bed
under a pile of purring kittens
telling her she looked beautiful
in a messy hair bun and letterman jacket.
I would continue to do so
for five years
(no one told me not to)
I have a second scar
on my right index finger
playing with scissors
in 3rd grade art class
confusing ole’ pointy here
for construction paper
because, well, you guessed it
(no one told me not to)
older me
none-more-wiser me
would leave college
to visit an art gallery of a woman
I’d lay in her bed
watching her hair change colors
with the passing seasons
then I’d leave in the morning
(no one told me not to)
This last scar
small on my wrist
I don’t know how it got there,
how did we get so hurt
how did things go so wrong?
grown me
raised me
would run my fingers
along the many scars
of a third woman
a cheek down her forearm
my right index finger up her thigh,
she would tell me of the other men
who left their scars on her
and I’d listen and nod
then pull out a knife of my own.
(all the while screaming
pleading with myself:
not to)
Providence Sky
This sky is our innate righteous providence
this road our innate destiny
with no sweeter a wine
than the blood in our veins
the taste of summer air
and the quiet salvation
in evening musings.
These nights are such curiosities
these wonders such treasures
with no more a golden amber
that the honey of wild dreams
the glory of fantasies
and the little trips
they take us on.
So fret not beautiful stranger:
no pain need temper our hearts
no soul can steal our experience
our gift:
the providence of the sky
the endlessness of the road
the taste of our precious dreams.
The Bookstore
Bukowski had his bar stool
the last seat at the end,
Shakespeare had his room
in the back of the theatre,
Thoreau had his cozy pond estate
among rural Boston trees,
this egregious little amateur has his table
in the corner of a book store.
It has everything I could ever need:
bitter and sweet coffee,
the company of every great soul
to ever slow dance with a pen,
the graceful movements of strangers
with endless mysteries I’ll never know,
some woman in a red sweater
that I can fall in love with
while she flips through used poetry.
This is my castle,
my muse,
my blank canvas.
If I could instantly travel
through any breath of time,
any scene of space,
anywhere in the whole of existence:
I’d go
maybe half a foot to the left
for just a little more leg room.
Unexpected Lover
The sound of rain water
dripping off the roof,
The white lights of the west
dancing with porch-light orange,
The view from my balcony
with its majestic consistency:
This is not the woman I thought I’d love
This is not my expected muse –
But my god
she is gorgeous
and oh how she loves me.
Again the Dam Breaks
My soul is like paper
yours eyes, my love, the rain
and a rusty chain
bends just enough
until it breaks in pain.
My heart’s a closed window
your smile, my dear, a stone
and these weeds have grown
much too high now
for the tulip reeds to show.
These nights are cool waters
our ties, my sweet, a dam
and each efforts claims
these things won’t break again…
then again
and again
the Dam keeps breaking.
Yet late at night,
I still pray
those raging waters
took you somewhere softer.
Waiting on the Rain
I sat across from him
a decrepit old man breathing
into lungs of sawdust and glass.
I slowly slide over some tea
his hand shakes as he reaches for it ,
How did you do it? – I asked
“Well it may get dark
and there may be pain
but air tastes sweetest
right before the rain”
His face had these lines
these deep trenches. Like each
memory, was dragged across his face.
But the sea of lines
parted when he smiled.
“don’t you dare give in
these times won’t stay
my boy this sky,
will shortly rain”
His papery hand reached out
to grab my hand.
He squeezed with all his might.
I stood from my chair,
I kissed his forehead,
then got up to leave.
Of Poems and Places 