Such things
Must mean nothing to you
If you are to survive
Do not speak
Do not walk
Do not hear
Do not choose
Do not trust
Do not love
Forget them.
They mean nothing
Untitled
So what do they hear?
The voice on your radio
Telling you to smile
Stop me when i’m done.
Walkin’ back now
I’m walkin’ back now
And all I hear is
The voice on the radio
screaming.
Learning to Speak
My voice is beautiful like the rain
That turns and falls silently
Onto the
Ground
My voice is the echoing canyons
That stand quiet, alone
Between the
Trees
My voice is strong like the wind
That leaps and flows proudly
Above the
Horizon
My voice is the deepened waters
That stroll wide and true
Beneath the
Tides
My voice is shadowed like the cliff side
That ducks and hides its face
Around the
Mist
My voice is the moon at midnight
That grins and steps
Up into the
My voice is like the summer sky
My voice is the winter sun
My voice is like the voice of every thing
My voice is the voice of no one.
Untitled
Boy meets girl
Or is it that she meets him?
Or perhaps they never meet at all
They’re just two people
Around
And they happen to see each other
Two wax paper flies clinging to the wall
Cling to each other
Lean on the shoulder
Chin forced up
Lifted
As they embrace
Cling, touching
Eyes and souls mingle
As the music fades below
Back down to earth
And they rise
Within the circle of their arms
They Rise
and fall.
after all
they’re just two people
around
Four Rants
the
food
in
aisle
nine
comes
wrapped
in
plastic
without
any
air
People are like rice krispies.
Sooner or later, everyone snaps.
orion is alone
and so am i.
Cradle her head in your arms
Your mother's been sent off to war
Up by the windowall night
Pray, pray.
Morning Sickness No. 1
I am tired of your clock radio
The way it tells me to get up off my ass
Walk down to the bathroom sink
Wipe the dreams off the bathroom mirror
I am tired of the way it wakes up at six
The way it talks to me until seven
State of the world and my kitchen counter
Seven hundred channels
$6.95
I am tired of its scratched off name
The way it aches to be known and loved
Maybe it’s the brand who cleans our babies’behind
More likely, the kindly robot-grandfather who cleans our septic
I am tired of your clock radio
It talks as if it has something to say.
Morning Sickness No. 2
if the alarm rings tomorrow, i will go back to sleep
i am tired of working to no end
i am tired of thinking that beauty is skin deep
i am tired of praying to a powerful diety
i am tired of knowing that people are dying
i am tired of hearing that he might love me
i am tired of listening to advice from strangers
i am tired of hoping that someone will rescue my mother, the earth
i am tired of speaking to valleys of dolls
i am tired of dancing and drinking that has eight steps
i am tired of waking up to this
if the alarm rings, i am going back to sleep.
St. George’s Eulogy
Well, what did he expect?
Someone might have told him
He can’t come in here like that
With his nose falling off and his red eyes damn near bled through
Cradling his head in his arms like some sick child
That was just like him
He couldn’t even die outside where it wouldn’t make a mess
Or at least wipe the mud off his feet.
Untitled
I watch my unborn daughter in the dusk
As she trudges through cut grass and leaves
She holds spiders and carpenter ants in her hands,
Too young to favor insects made from fire and butter
A gentleman, Bingo, struts in his top hat, a charmed smile
He offers her his arm and she circles the patio, eyes dancing easily
She holds a dandilion, not a rose, and spins faster, laughing under spores
I watch my unborn daughter in the dusk as the sun’s shadow strikes shingles
I watch my unborn daughter in the dusk as you, smiling, pull the stars from the sky
And walk away.
Untitled
When the stars all disappear
And the ocean crashes not
If to winters springs adhere
It will be as you have thought
When the birds refuse to sing
And the heather walks away
If death is all the day can bring
It will be just as you say
When the sunrise does not come
And tears are of body alone
If the music is an anthem
It will be as you bemoan
But though all this should come to pass
Still I'll love you to the last
Untitled
she will be different
she will not pretend for others
she will know where she belongs
she will not lose herself in four-letter words (u-g-l-y / l-o-v-e)
she will speak for herself
she will not save the world only to lose herself
she will tell someone
she will not be another small tragedy in another small town
she will hear someone
she will not watch another small tragedy in another small town
she will be different
she will not pretend
my daughter will not pretend, i say
my daughter will be different, my mother said
Untitled
i write, sing, and laugh adrenaline
anger, fear, despair
betrayals from friends
unexpected love and lovers’ words
stupid, unimportant s-h-i *censorship*
i pull people up from the bottom of wells
everybody falls
well, not everybody
i fall sometimes
i write, sing, and laugh adrenaline
but most of the time i just go
because there’s no where else to go.
i live on routine
l.
you can hear it in the lover’s voice,
as the throat tightens, the whiser lisps out,
i love you
i love you, and i always will
and behind that, something else,
something they never say, and always mean
i love you
i love you, and i always will,
for as long as i can, under the circumstances
i love you
i love you, but will you always love me?
i love you
i love you, and i might give you up
for the next one i love
i love you
i love you, but who should go first?
i love you
i love you, and might this last
i love you, and might this be the last
i love you
i love you, but how many times can i say this?
i love you
i love you, and you’re my life
and yet there is life in me
i love you
i love you, but what does that mean?
i love you
i love you, and i always will
i love you
i love you, but what does that mean?
other than the Goldfish
other than the goldfish,
god is the family pet
she greets the neighbors,
recommends us to our coworkers,
and forgives us for our friends.
other than the goldfish,
god is the family pet
she sees us in the dead of night
wakes us for a drink of water
and wonders at the guilt in our eyes
other than the goldfish
god is the family pet
she knows what we’re about
fixes us with a steady gaze
and bites off a flake of planktin.
at night, sometimes,
at night, sometimes,
i wonder if the greatest of poets and players didn’t burn up on stage
and the best weren’t hiding somewhere
behind some other name
(butcher, baker, candlestick maker)
hiding something worth hiding
away from voices
and pens
that mumble
and color
and put something down
where something else was.
Untitled
Let the dolls in their soldiers' shoes have their fun
God knows, we'll have ours.
any given story
I want to write a story whose ending is still uncertain
A story that begins, uncertainly enough, with a smile
But not a broad, confident smile--
It's the look you have to see twice
And you still don't know, really, who it was for
The middle, of course, is the trickiest part
As time waltzes by, and old rhymes grow stale
The littlest things are just so . . . so . . .
Then, no doubt, it's over --
Thunder, lightening, perhaps a sigh
But, of couse, it's not
And I'm over this just as easily
The story that begins and ends with you
how new
New Year's Resolution
I'm going to rewrite the world
No more of this gender-thing
No more of this race-thing, either
I'm through with money, too
I'm even more through with beauty
And dancing little games of boring intrigue
I am taking away everything but the spark --
That look that hits an eye
And gives you away, what you are
Who you are
But it's been a long time without it,
And the true nature of this place isn't
Altogether beautiful, when you examine it
Well, if I can't make the truth true
I can at least stop lying.
The Festival's Fool
The minstrel was asked to tell
the queen her beauty in two stanzas or
less.
The troubador took his lover's hand,
kissed it once and said,
"Lady, you are near so fair."
The reprobate was chained in the
keep for his insolence portence until
time unnamed.
The player took a little bow, his hair
fell with the rain, and his lady
cried that night,
Not
In
Pain.
A Letter
Dear Anthony,
It never ceases to amaze me. You would think I would be used to the flowers in the yard but now. Ye they rise,e very day, a little taller, against a thusand tiny things you overlooked when you were gone.
Sara is much taller now, and Patrick's grown a beard. We had apples for the first time in many years. Remember when you said the tree would never bloom again? There are so many things you should see here, Anthony.
It is spring, and there are flowers in the garden. They're the most charming little creatures, so tender, and soft. There are doves, too, morning glories. There are a thousand tiny litle things you should see here, Anthony.
But . . . Anthony, you were only one little thing, after all.
Perhaps I'll put some of thes blossums on your grave, after tea.
the lady of a pretty town
vera ann lived down the street
next to a hundred thousand shining things,
that no shone so bright as she
and none so loved and grieved by me
i met her in the fall of our pretty town
when her laugh was not easy for men to ignore
but her hips, and her cheerless lips
these belonged to me
vera ann loved the forest
the lakes and the tiny houses on the hills
that all held dark and whispered things
and did not care to tell me
i held her hand, when she would let me
her eyes gave men a reason to breathe
her waist, i thought, was mine alone
but whens he died, she was her own
vera ann was laid to rest one dull morning
under the trees that she loved so
the men spoke, in voices low
and i walked home alone
i met vera ann in the fall
when her hair was prettier than the leaves
she lay with many pretty men
and, for a time, hapily, with me.
Untitled
and his name began with a j
he borrowed cufflinks, brass cups
waltzed on the first of may
painted, if it struck his fancy, (for he smelled of drawing room afternoons)
and drank wines older than the town
he took his tea on the terrace
and his steak in teh sunset
wore buttoned shirts, two sizes too small
he wasn't particularly wise, or groome
but he had his way, this and that way,
when he jumped
Rants
The lion lay down in the grass to die
He had done his great works
It might have been that others feared him
He made, once, a mighty call
He is silent, here, for all of time.
Untitled
There are those certain evenings
when I lie dead under the stars and breathe the night
where the grass pricks through my fingers like a field mouse in the vanguard
while in the distance fending off
a voice that rasps justice on the unholy impure is the only reason
why they can still stand on two feet
with the haze in between their lashes and tiny toes
who never seem to realize there’s a mist covering everything the darknesses touches
under what conditions the midnight man doesn’t want to hear about anymore which is
how i come to understand i am coming alive here under the stars breathing the night.
tomorrow, my happiness will return to me,
i will laugh, reach out my hands
and it will laugh
and reach.
but never long (and never far) enough.
Nothing. For 25 years, "I love you" and silence.
Nothing.
Lyric For St. Bastillion's Day
Praise by to the God, most high
And to myself, lowly,
As i partake of communion bread
For a penniless taste of spirit.
Untitled
I want to tell you everything
instead, i take your hand
and smile graciously
i walk away, blithe
to dance with another
Untitled
he coudl live forever, in his dreams. He would have, had he had his way. Instead, he watched young men bleed to death in front of him. ah, but his dreams. Those were something else. she was there. Beautiful. Beautiful beyond the words he knew. He he the means, he might have studied all the words of the world to do her justice. But he was poor. And she had died.
So, of course, had he.
[Love]-[Marriage]
There's a clap of dry wood by the door
The piercing moan of winter,
A wink of tea floats through the air
The lamps are lit, the curtains drawn
Our dishes have been washed, dried
The sheets are folded, blankets gone
Bootprints -- not boots -- by the bedstand, grey
There's a man who doesn't live here anymore
By the clap of dry wood by the door.
Untitled
musicians dance their troubles away
lovers laugh
children play
neighbors lend
sheep bleet
stars fall
and poets drink themselves to death.