What We Don't Want

The lantern spun into the night sky.
This one is faded like his hair, greasy and thin, and his face, a geyser with no way to explode.
Just bubbling, bubbling and then nothing...
He was in his chair: Perhaps with beer, perhaps with potato chips...
Perhaps with just a watch on his hairy not yet old man hands.
He is an old friend sinking into the upholstery.
The living room is bright, and  then it gets dark, so very dark.

Swinging

Ghost swing: 

You will be there: 

Uniformed...

Perhaps mismatched...

Sometimes he turns it on, and you can't hear yourself for some moments. 

Will you chip at the already cracked paint on my roomy vessel?

It was too colorful, anyway,

or maybe it was just how I wanted it. 

Too bad now...

 I am not sure it's going to float.

The ocean salt tore the interior and exterior, swinging its Poseidon arms.

But I thought you were wrapped up: a soft blanket around

new skin.

But instead you are red.

And I am red.

And I don't have a boat anymore.

Who Are You?

Tell me: What is your timbre? Is it an animal call in

the woods? The type that startles the smallest slug...

Or are you more the car's tires hitting 

the rain puddles? You can't really hear it below the cab driver shouting and the pans crashing in a street side restaurant.

I long to know the pattern of the composer's composition. 

And when the woman in the shiny dress emerges from the red curtain, I will follow along with my bow, poised

for the movements.

Doll Keeper

Black eyes...
The jangle of ankle bracelets
Find your place on the wooden shelf.
Where your mother put you and fed
your pink lips nuggets...
The doll breaks, falling
past the third level and the second and the first.
The shards are of a life
Ruined by
the doll keeper.

As She Is

The ships sail their own path to the lighthouse; she is the one with the white and gray patches standing in the tall grass.
She is enough for them to keep plugging along.
Look closely at her physique, and you can see the etchings of those who have come, insistent, that she was more than what she was: a light for the lost.
Humanity's strikes against her surface are
all over this flare in the morning and night.
They don't know what she sees when the ships come:
How she fills up enough to stay as she is.

Priorities

She thought she could be carried by letters and numbers: the caricatures march: one by one, hurrah:

carrying her into the hole

where she will stay.

Unless the light is shone: in the living room where the furniture is in blacks and browns and grays: you could sink into that couch and never leave: the material devouring every bit of you.

Follow the light

from which no darkness could extinguish.

Grab those plastic grocery bags and give them

to him.

He knows what to do.

Closing In

Thunder like it's not close.
He was here in the morning with a hot touch
then that man with the shiny suit sprung up the symphony, and that was it.
Then I feel the patters on the wall inside of me; And it's closer.
It's in my house, spilling out of my forgotten closets that aren't an afterthought anymore.
The storm is inside.
Where it always was...

Enough

Skeletal hand...

Waving at me...

Already you know me: the caffeinated

and the one

who likes walks where only the trees and God sees…

Thinking of the blue jeans He chose for you: faded acid wash or really crisp like a business woman on Fridays…

What if I forget your raincoat on

days when the sky so fills?

So then I have to rest you under

the grooves of my flesh hands?

A tumble onto the concrete, but perhaps

in the cracks there are flowers there…

Smoke and Mirrors

Never knew what it would do to you:
The golden crown
and the throne.
And then you stick your fingers in the air and
like a magician,
you make that rabbit appear again.
Look closely, and you see its bleeding gums and rotting teeth.
You're careful, though, and won't let the audience see the decay.
You live for the audience-- can't disappoint the paying customers.
Their clapping hands feed the beast inside.
But it's no secret: The beast comes out sometimes, looking for easy prey.
These are the ones who have seen
the
real one.
And they are quiet, knowing quiet is better.

The Work

If only I could see the head:

Its black soft hairs: the first glimpse of life.

I push some more.

Slow delivery: Needing that deep sigh of finished.

Then rocking you under the sunset, eyelids flickering

and seeing the miracle flash in those tiny eyes: a balm for my lonely toil.

Heron

Oh, Heron
flying with a neck
turned inward toward the uniform
of the clean and white pressed feathers,
and the elegant way you swoop
down and pierce the fish that is yours.
Oh, Heron to be pricked from the water
and placed in the folds of the elephant's skin: molded
into the wrinkly gray: an odd place to be, where we all
will be:
Navigating between the dark
and the light.

The Truth

Sharp knife is next to the body.

Shiny silver, shiny blood...

It was an easy movement into the chest.

There was nothing to it.

Really…

We thought the divide was so great: shaky, worn body near the top

of a rocky summit.

But the truth stays

steady like the Ground Zero

American flag:

We are closer to

the red than we think.

How then do we keep the promise

bigger than wisps of good luck dandelion flowers?

Bleed from the vine.

A Job To Do

A glass cleaner is dangling

outside the windows

that are his today.

His reflection is misty.

At any moment,

this flying soldier

could go down, down

past the typing and the clicking and the calling

He still cleans.

Do or do not.

That’s it.

A wipe and another wipe...

Still dirty...