An hour spent on the porch

Will bring more breath

To my soul than the

Shared look, knowing the

Deepest everythings, between friends,

More mind to my words

Than a hundred books that

Bleed out their makers’ deepest

Thought wrapped pretty in the page,

More self than the nights

I’ve spent hunched like an

Ancient hermit over God’s

Opaque intentions on top

The tallest mountains.

I spent the hours

To the rhythm of clocks

Kept in perfect, working order.

As they talked,

My heart stepped

Out to the concrete sidewalk

Where I measured

The cracks against

The shortening years of my life.

Count the thousand leaves
In the stillness of the morn
And let your breath out

A stone’s throw away

The feathered cardinal dives down

And finds his treasure.

ELECTRIC MAMA CONSIDERS HER BAD REPUTATION

___________

fevers a confession

like a snake remembering

its motion,

____________

like the distance between

lovers mediated

by a high moon.

_____________

While everyone was busy

Building their skeletons into homes we walked

through weeks and weeks of bending evergreens. Paused

and poisoned.  

____________

We are half holy when we forget to rest.

Goodnight baby. Amen. You were born to

be my camera.

The tide comes in

Violent and busy,

Pushing itself among the rocks.

Each attempts to crest their brother,

Crying out and reaching for the sun,

And all I am able to ask is for,

While the effort to crush

Is dominating others,

One to hear my story for an

Ounce of understanding like a

Flash in the pan, a drop in the ocean,

A glance between two people

In a crowded room, and then

Moving forward, alone,

Towards finding another.

And there, you were

Breathing down the neck

Of some uncomfortable stranger

With long brown hair,

A smirk by his side,

And too many friends.

The very secret to eternal

Youth, you kept it inside

Your teeth and your tongue

And spit it out freely like the sun,

But they don’t listen,

Some, not none.

So you’ll keep spilling

Your drinks and the Truth.

One will scare the group more

Than your splashing vermouth.

The lily-pads are pulling us closer.

The motor, half up, and going nowhere.

We should have seen them coming,

Bulletproof vests and a boat with an awning.

They caught us yawning

With our hearts in our throats

And hands all a-shaking.

Asked us our names while taking

Our pictures and calling it in.

I thought of my dreams from the morn

When we went to the wedding,

And I tore up the bedding

To sew a nice suit for the day.

I wish I could have just stayed.

Mossy green tranquility.

Snake swimming under the surface.

Tadpoles just getting their frog feet.

Tied a string to a stick for us.

Chop up the mud with a  paddle.

Find a worm half the size I need.

Held it on the saddle

Of my kayak between the knees.

Rocky bottom.

Web-strung trees.

A slice of eternity

For you and for me.

Peel apart a thousand years

And wash up in the Ganges

Before it fills up to the ears

With human waste and antifreeze.

Or maybe stop in Normandy

And sign up for the fight

To file down the Byzantines

With Melus’ righteous might.

Tap and temper the finest steel

On anvil and the back of time

To bring back home where things more real

Don’t fit themselves to rhymes.