Traffic Lights

Foot on the gas
who stayed forever?
shoulder to shoulder.

Let me be sick with your heat,
arriving in the fumes.
Let me end that river

Once more fog
winding all day
he picks up his disguise.

Fading out like an old movie
pulls down the shade
as you are gone.

His heart already pushing over the red routes of other's road map

With blue eyes to the thread
neither bird
nor stone

Let me flutter and drop
Let me cluster and arrange
Let me flow through the same ruined scene

It was a long trip with little days in it
and no new places

Foot on the gas
Who stayed forever?
shoulder to shoulder.

Reverb

I carried my bones to;
Who’s she?
I built a life
And in the end,
there was no place.

I made up a song
that wasn’t true
There was no other yet
I would rather think of
Not now.

I could hardly name her,
A man of many hearts?
I robbed the stones of the river,
I have tied her down

I have tied this knot in my dreams.
A man of many hearts does not need me.
There was no other chamber for it,
Only the knot.

I made up a song
that wasn’t true
There was no other yet
I would rather think of
Not now.

You see,
the song is life.
But she was ten colors,
the life I can’t live.

For years
Season after season,
but by time
I will have tied these other knots

I stamped her out with a song
You tie your own bedded down knot.

Just once, just once
the song is life.
But she was ten colors,
the life I can’t live.

There is no law for this
and the clover has grown thorns
as he passes;
Discord

stay with me

fingers tangled in my tangles

in my heart stings


like the surf envelops the shore

unties the knot


the elevator in the fire

melted wax dripping like desire


nature is full of teeth

and the stones write this silence


the furnace of your chest

the lullaby of your skin


i migrate toward the fog

the blackness is murderous


tied down time with a rope

threw out the wrinkled map


faces in a parade

a thin tangled poison


your fingerprints

metallic rains tracing


sweet honeysuckle and red wine

your eyes in mine

inside

waiting
wanting
to see you in my eyes
finding feelings
I thought had died

Julia Who

Julia who laughs like crisp Autumn
and talks like boiling water
who is books and shoes
who is a shard of glass and a cotton ball
whose eyes are framed with raven feathers
is home today
who tells me of the city
who tells me of the train
whose purple paper cranes
can't unfold today
sleeps in her heart-wallpaper childhood room
who used to be there every day
is home
is a sponge on a kitchen sink
is a light bulb tossed away
doesn't stay here anymore
is hiding behind the curtains
who giggles and sways on her flag pole
is chestnut cabinets and radio songs
who comes and leaves and comes and leaves again
is the orange sweater tucked away
asking why don't you visit me
why don't you come why?

Clarity

The leaf moves
just the amount of breeze
The body swoons
just the greatest turmoil

Building after building
from one to the next
house by house

When it tears
there can be a clarity
it is enough
Arrow fit exactly
into the wound it makes

And when the heart
knows truth
the precision
is a tornado -
with just the amount of breeze

beauty.

slight breeze
sunshine
reality, not skewed
building, breathing, blinking
shifting, movement
slow motion
laughter