March 10, 2015
Late

Four AM
awake
I follow the light
into the bathroom
a new day, a new me
today I will not be late
not today, I will have my book
and my papers
and preparations
plans.  I read the
ear marked chapter
In the garage I find a stick
and measuring tape
I lean against the wall
the stick
and put my preparation in a box
not today
I will not be late
In the dark I turn
on the shower
and let the hot water wash
me away
out to a grey sweater
and cords
on the stairs
Maggie is waiting
we cook eggs and toast
and drink raw apple juice
I cover my eggs in hot sauce
on the last bite
Sara walks in with Emma
the egg slips and rolls
down my shirt
not a button up
asleep on the bed
I kiss Henry
Not today
Where is my box?
I lean forward
Against the wall
the stick
Outside I set it in the trunk
Inside one kiss for Maggie
Emma and Sara
Goodbye
Today I will not be late
7AM
I am late

August 8, 2009
Our Cottage

I took the large wedding deposit
and carefully buried it beneath
a large flat stone

I know most people would put it
into a money market or IRA
certainly they would not water it

but something is growing
down there, I can feel it
I placed my reading chair on it

my daydreams are now more vivid
I can feel vines lifting
and shifting me

some changes
have already occurred
others are yet

for one,
the baby’s room
has oversized pink stripes

and the furniture
in our house
is being re-arranged

the new closet shelves
are breaking
into small secret gardens

our house is changing
the outside is creeping
breathing in our desert

but unlike other homes that
seal between outside in
our home is becoming a splendid blend

I confess
I am planting
your small daily deposits also

the note you left me on the computer
will someday be a delicate drooping snapdragon
planted in our east garden

the sticky notes carefully placed in my lunch
will someday spring
into purple geraniums

the sleep you put away for my hour nap
exploding daffodils near the reflecting pool
filled with blooming weightless waterlilies

the laundry folded
a thousand pedal mums
along the south wall

the funny jokes and hospital gossip
spidery cleomes in the alcoves
at the passage

the clean bathroom sinks
serpentine fuchsia
below the window

the camping trips
sweet lavender and clusters of oregano
breaking through the stone pavers

the time you drove straight four hours
a pink prey of evening-primrose
at the entrance gate

meals you cooked on my days off
bunches of tall yellow yarrow
beside our outside bathing tub

the apologies you gave before mine
potted tall slender coccinea and
white spokes of jasmine

the hours of scrubbing dishes
balancing honeysuckle
from the garden tree

the overlooked imperfections
recoiling hyacinth
next to the small water fountain

the sincere compliments
a queen spathiphyllum
at our dining table

August 6, 2009
Sunrise

in the shadows of my vertical blinds
red rises into crisp blues
Earth is darkened by her waking
the air is mustard and jelly
my windows frosts over
staring over the vast
gravestones of apartments
plantation rows, jail cell columns
the symphony of humming birds begins
cool air support to my desert
One and then two, three
glued to the wall, sucking in air
breathing out my warm insides
one last breath of midnight
before she lifts her head
above my silhouette

Sometime 1998
Personal Note

Like the painting drawn by the hands of a child, even when the reality is different, these poems contain the best, the brightest colors a child finds, the straightest lines ever drawn, the greatest moments ever captured and given with the deepest love a child knows. I turn these things over to God and give him the best that I can.

August 1998
Standing

I heard my teacher say "travel"
stand in that space which you occupy
observe and then travel
how might a Caucasian write for the African American
or the Woman
a typewriter in the street carved out
like a skin standing at the narrow intersection
sitting in a house, windowless
imagine.
not to be afraid
but to stand, face the fire and breath.

July 21, 2002
Dark hair

Her hair is dark… very dark
Sometimes dyed darker
Soft strands of her hair orbit the sky
Wrapping her chickens in smiles
While her hair sings a lullaby
Lighter than a white gliding
Gallop across a desert stadium
Towards a wire tree who sits still
And listens to her hair
One million strands of thought
Each a question of succession
A braid of DNA,
An answer dividing in two
Both a storm and a calm sea
Her hair is the warmest sun
To wrap a friend in
The simplest concern or care
Her hair is a knot tied tight
To hold the world
And swing a child
Her hair is short or long
The motion of a ballerina
Dancing to the giggles
lying within her hair
Perpetuating and pulling up
laughs like carrots
Orange and smiling broad

July 21, 2002
Fairy Tale

I fall like the wind
and she is my lake
seven feet deep and waiting
her kisses bring me to the floor
where we wrestle
then she pulls me into the kitchen
where we share crackers
she drinks from my glass
handing me the newspaper
I browse the front page
while she sits at my feet
I stretch out
running my hand down her back
she burrows in
resting her head on my leg
I fall asleep on the couch
she falls asleep on the floor
Tomorrow we will hike to Bell Reservoir
and jump into its coolness
she will rescue me with her paws
I will float on my back
watching the clouds swim across
she will shiver
holding out a smile
lifting her ears out
waiting for my approval
I smile wide
holding her head in my hands
touching her nose with mine
we laugh on the way down
counting our steps
like summer days left
saying our good byes

February 27, 2001
Acrobat Jack

Jack was not a writer
of another love poem
and Jane had never been kissed
or least she didn’t claim
to have been smitten by love
or the words had never be spoken
Jane was tall and thin
and probably not in love with Jack
but they worked good together
Jack rest his chin on his palms
to hear her laugh and it seemed
familiar to him like childhood
or the first snow fall of year
and he remembered walking along
the top rail of white fences
that surround his home
Jack was an acrobat
Jane must have some reason for Jack
maybe Jack was another one of Jane’s friends
after all there was something right about Jane
Jack didn’t understand what it meant
to study it out in his mind
all he knew, it was right
Jack fell in love with Jane
the night Jane did not fall in love with Jack
he wanted to hold her hand
not to become her boyfriend
but to see inside her and to understand Jane.

August 3, 2004
Growing

Two streams are running through my head
which one do I feed, which one do I run away from?
I step down the riverbank to explore
stepping out of my shoes and into the water
midway sinking down, my phone rings
Jane is angry, and cataloging
have you forgotten me, have you?
my feet continue to sink into the muddy bank
and I walk nimbly across slipping my phone to off
and letting it drop
I should have called Jane back
I pull a small book of scriptures
from my right shirt pocket
I begin reading and drifting off
thinking about love, love I don’t have
about Grandfather and about visiting Grandmother
thinking with the feelings in a shoebox
near the rivers edge across other side
the sun is setting behind the hills
and the sky is darkening
I pick up a round purple stone
and roll it through my hands
keeping my head down
as I walk up and away
nothings scares me, only myself
my phone is ringing again,
I can hear it around the hills and over the river
I start to catalog my flaws numerically
then mid-sentence I realize one thought, I choose
walking on I listen to Jane
who is still in my head
I dart the emotions behind her words
the same ones I left behind in the shoebox
and I grow angry
I will not be walked on
at my feet is the second river
my eyes follow it up stream
to a tree where river flows from its base
and branches swaying in the wind
knelling down I cup my hands to drink
the water running deep and fast
and my lips soften into the air to listen
and I hear, I hear Jane
with all her emotions
and I weep

June 2, 2008
Petrified

Three years ago
I stood at the edge
my abyss was a silent book
filled with short conversations
I had had with myself
frustrations without tears
harboring and repeating
until I bored myself
and then the stories petrified
and then I stop talking
first I stopped complaining
then I started forgetting
to share my intimate
secrets with myself
I stopped praying inside
all along I kept talking
but stopped listening
my responses became
a rhythmic pendulum
soon I had my life memorized
and my eyes stopped focusing
and I couldn’t read
the next line or open my eyes
and my insides stood still
while the rest moved freely

March 6, 2008
The Red Wheelbarrow

William Carlos Williams
poem

I will not
forget

a beautiful paint
brush

it did not
rhyme

a simple sword
word

July 27, 2001
Me

I am a work of art.

Everyday I change my form.
My soul becomes more collected
like a canter over rolling fields.
Each day my muscles grow stronger,
my friendships taller.

I am my hands.

My form is like clay,
sweeping the sky, as a sunset–
weaving the clouds’ intricate pattern.
Everywhere I go,
the trees are more beautiful,
more brilliant and green.
My flesh grows tender,
into life’s beauty, into the leaf
which falls from its home.

I am a photograph un-taken–

A song unsung,
a river un-banked by fear,
a shout which echoes everywhere,
a seed too small to be planted,
a universe too great to be found.

I am a God unnamed to His glory,

A birth prophesied by none–
I am no prophet or Joan of Arc
my uniqueness passes unobserved.
a smile stretching people out.

I am a pathway with many dark valleys,
and summits deep and blue,
undistinguishable in gradient
a subtle sojourn from yellow
transpiring.

I am without self.

I am me,
with no words
I am circular.
I am complete.

June 20, 2004
Over-Weight

Approximately 127 million adults in the U.S. (65%) of all Americans are over-weight

Americans are over-weight
I am over-weight
The Hummer turning radius is over-weight
meals are over-weight
stuff is over-weight
time is over-weight
credit card debt is over-weight
dream women in swimsuits are over-weight
neglected children are over-weight
muscle men are over-weight
media coverage is over-weight
Hollywood is over-weight
political promises are over-weight
the national budget is over-weight
disasters are over-weight
my brain is over-weight
wars are over-weight
pornographic sex is over-weight
the American-dream is over-weight
health cost are over-weight
poverty is over over-weight
deep pockets are over-weight
the latest diet is over-weight
McDonalds and Walmarts are over-weight
movie budgets are over-weight
my tongue is over-weight
breast and penises are over-weight
tattoos and jewelry are over-weight
divorce is over-weight

August 14, 2007
Train Station

I have a place where I sit
its not full of incense or
long drowning hums
its busy and moving
with footsteps undressing
I have heard the whispers
and conversations before
a lyrical flowing
which pulls from my bones
the worry and anger
I have hibernated there

I have a place where I sit
and look deeply into the eyes
of men who have lived
whose eyes have miles
fields of gray hair
love stories and tragedies
resting in their glacier eyes
melting into long rivers of kindness

I have place where I sit
in the weathered sun
where the world moves around
and I can see each detail behind me
I see entire lives born before me
the rising sun, the falling moon
I see your name there
and I drink up the river entirely

February 18, 2007
Father

I still have your voice on my answering machine
you left it as a good bye, give me a call
I love everyone a little more now,
yet I dislike dialing more than ever.

I am getting married soon.
I will not have you to harass me any more.
How could anyone miss that?
but I do miss it.

I am sure you will be there,
just as you were the night you past away
everything is going to be alright, I am okay.
I repeat your words to myself.

I want to give back more than ever
on Father’s day I wrote you
I thought it was amply kind
but now I realize we are never too kind to each other

I think of my shortness, temper and frustration
my words are not my long stretched out feelings
I want to give back, I never want to steal kindness
but I do and I apologize.

I want to embark on that long journey
and take you with me,
but sometimes I hear myself in a cage screaming
what are you saying?

I can’t say I love you
I find myself saying not what I am thinking
it comes out facetious
in blocks and bowdlerized

I want to take you to my garden where you grow
into a long vine with twisting velvet flowers
I want to clip your buds and give them away
I know you would enjoy that.

I want to sit down at your shore
and sing you a lullaby
before you slip away, before I find
myself no longer talking to you.

February 28, 2008
Grandfather

I remember my Grandfather’s eyes
clear blue with a long single
cirro-stratus cloud swimming in them
with a kind and gentle breeze
that made me into a red balloon

I wanted to climb above the fog
above the nimbo-stratus,
cumulus and cumulo-nimbus
where air is so thin
that my skin turns into a beautiful pale

I want my eyes to be translucent
like my Grandfather’s eyes
a straight rolling county road
sinking into the silence and
disappearing along the horizon

I close my eyes to see my Grandfather
his broad smile stretching
a warm blanket tent between two chairs
crawling in to close my eyes
walking the trapeze line

My Grandfather’s eyes
a hundred year string
with earphones pulled tight between
the buggy and canal
galloping along the pony express

I want to climb above the cirro-stratus
where my eyes can see his eyes again
where I can unravel and know a life
I want to live and wash away
the way my grandfather’s eye did