I’m waking,

And the blankets

Shuffle off of me

Like soldiers

Just following orders.

I’m lifting my head from the pillow

And shaking the dust

From my hair.

I’m level with

The ground,

Breathing in hardwood,

The splinters in my lungs,

The rest of the world

Is out having fun.

I’m watching

Through a window

With frosted glass.

Stood upon a wobbling bedside

Table, I’m not able

To make out their faces,

Except for the smiles.

But I’ve closed myself in,

I frosted the glass

With my breath,

And all I have to do

Is go out there.

A college coed with shoulders that made me shudder on my first week in Belfast sat next to me in the booth. The pub we were drinking in had smoke crying from the walls, and the televisions were blaring what became a stirred up static of the news of recent bombings.

Twenty dead. I am extremely excited about the Church Leadership and Administration major in the past I let my heart beat fast It’s hard to explain the ice the cold that’s in my eyes I’m still in love They tell me to move on Please don’t write another song But how can I forget what I felt before the guilt I think about those times And I think about those times And I think about those times.

Do rocks harden up
Only when you touch them
In fear of being crushed
Because of stories
Told by ancestors
Of dynamite and immigrants
With broken backs?
Or do they fear at all?
Screaming because of God,
Who gave them voices
When the sky opened up.
Are they in pain
Or is it the newness
Of their vocal chords
That terrifies them?

On trips to outer space,

When I leave my body

Behind and exit through the window,

I take with me an empty lunchbox.

I wrestle the stars

Into submission thanks to

Near-nightly practice,

Then stuff them into my

Slowly filling pail.

The hinges creak and strain

As I try for just one more.

But as I sit on the lid

To close it tight

Before returning home,

I am thrown off

And the light escapes.

I open my eyes in bed

And try again tomorrow.

We are just tabby cats hiding

In the hanging gardens of Ancient Times,

Watching as empires clash

And crash

And break apart under the weight

Of hubris and sponsored smiles.

We refuse to smell the smoke

While we leap from plant to flower

And cover the scent with the pollen

Of pruned and kept glory,

Only alive in memory now.

But what do cats know of

Steel and blood?

Of words and governments

In a war of fear?

We will soon collapse,

But the clock will lie

And stay still

For those still enjoying the flowers.

And until it all is rubble,

I will refuse

To look past the tulips.

Do you remember
How we used to be
With diamonds in our eyes
And no kind of disguise?
We hadn’t the time
To create elaborate back
Stories with arcs and drama.
We named sticks and grasped
At the clouds
Like they were flowers, dangling
Just beyond our pale, thin fingers.
Our teeth were candy coated
And filled with holes that
We sucked the air through.
Fresher than it ever will be,
We fed our lungs with the breeze
Of our youth.

(An excerpt from a new song)

Maybe if we thought

Of our lives as afterthoughts,

My heart would stop its racing

And my mind would stop its pacing.

And maybe if we knew

That our thoughts aren’t always true

We’d build ourselves a rocket ship

And fly up to the moon.

_____

Don’t you know

I’ve been on my own

For too long?

Don’t you know

Just to feel you close

I wrote a song?

Eating snow like cardinals

Pecking at the ground beneath.

---

I see sound waves

Rippling through the light

of the golden hour.

I know that it is the end of my dream,

Because it is the end of my dream.

On topics of being overworked,

My feet know the pull

Of lady physics in the sand.

Reaching for tables and trays

To right yourself and

Write yourself in a daily dose

Of American something or other.

Poetry is the dance you do between tables

When everyone is angry at you,

Or the time spent out back

Avoiding their stares.

There’s beauty in being worked

Raw to the bone,

But it all exists in how you choose

To wake up to the next day’s dawn.

A coffee shop glass

Breaks in two within my hand.

I see the two shards.