The bus is late again
and sleep's been short
a tooth on the tongue
sharpened,
but hi, the weather x,
you say, and yes
to chocolate from
a stranger -
too sweet fluttering
the heart with its
refined sugar,
same how caught
on a train track
it raced and emptied
of self, knowing
how sleep snatches
in the long night
and never wakes,
but arrives
repeatedly into being
like every day since
as if an eddy on a wave
could change course.
So you let the bus
leave, made cold
and troubled
like a cobra poised
above its own center
on thresholds of violence
and mercy, and find instead
the warmth of a sunny rock
to count the petals
on clovers
in the weedy grass
could a crown of stems
beyond the ordinary
be made -
a root of self
tethered to its own
shaping - would this
woken dream, depart.
Category: Poetry
Misfit
The man wants you easy,
knocking on the wall
for permission
but lightly, not in need
with that spark –
an anger of too fast words
better held without panic
of long eyes and
their fragile warning,
just like the moon, head
held bowed to the sun
is the owed, owned light
from a distance
hunted on every horizon;
those, back turned and running
are a reflection of another
until quiet,
looking upon the face
of one who demanded
what they will not:
a monster, a victim –
and upon the wall slam
the crumbling heart
knocking loudly on the long night
with dreams made vivid
too struck of love,
indelible by necessity:
the own, owned warmth of self
who once gathering flowers
within a cage grew rich
with seeds
now slipping, or falling,
between every crack
having found no door
to ask entrance
grown uncontainable.
strong sun
The sky was heavy the day
I decided I liked orange
and pink together, torn
down the gray, octopus curtain
and placed a flower-bombed
flag in its place
sprinkled bits of periwinkle
to calm the delight,
a shocked, blank edge
calling where the cacophony
of color concluded
and I would sink into the heat
of a long bath, another too
cold day - the sun has slept
for weeks in Seattle,
to float between the shattering
like when I was very small
like a torn hibiscus bleeds –
laying face-up in a kiddie pool
legs a tad too long and splayed
in the time-eating heat
I tried to rub the sun from my eyes
but it just sunk in more
until I could see it behind
closed lids
like a dream in focus:
my body a boat gone
adrift
and sought this halting heat
that pauses every thing,
this version of me –
just a little more time.
