Unspoken
You’ve a calm about you
Perhaps a storm
A gentle and curious tilt
You listen with your eyes
And your voice
Speaks to my soul
I should run
From watermarks
Not to them
Please be gone
No longer disturb
The soil of my heart
Let perfection fade
Before inevitable end
The time would come
And I’d miss the tending
To escape the tow
Is hard enough
My want mustn’t matter
It’s not always best
And will therefore remain
Unspoken
A3001-2004
Storm
I’ve come through
This storm of you
Out four years
Back nearly one
I’m torn
Weathered and sleepy
My bearing’s tossed
A thousand times
With one safe harbor
That welcomes
I Lost sight of a dream
That called me
A dream reborn
Losing sight of itself
And its past
Past that fills graveyards
With bittersweet memory
Ghosts of hopes live there
I used to see what others do
But I don’t anymore
Anxiety pulses
My veins disturbed
I taste life
With each breath
I hope you do
So fly to the sun little bird
Never look back
I hope you find
What you want
And want
What you find there
I’m still afloat
Better for the task
Scattered moorings
And distance heals
That I hate and love you
Is understatement
Distance holds secret
My day’s final number
Bright cloud filled skies
Are before me
A3002-2004
Gravity
In abstract space
If two points
Are farther from each other
Than any other points
It’s reasonable to assume
They’re at opposite ends
Of infinity
Even so
I feel your gravity
A3003-2004
Innocent rain
Came by again today
You weren’t there
Again
Hope sunk
Shallow breath
Heavy on my soul
Absence pulled inside
Thoughts and actions fade
As if taking place near by
Just out of view
Sometimes you want to
But you can’t leave
People spoke to me
My voice responded
I couldn’t hear it inside
And from clear sky fell rain
I wanted to hate the rain
But couldn’t
It was innocent
So I picked up my guitar
And laid the loss
On its strings
A3004-2004
Live for rainbows
Some become familiar
With self-pity
They prefer it to life
In other words
Stare at a knife all day long
It can’t turn into a fork
Slashing
It cuts
Out of resentment
A safe lonely suicide
Eventually abandoned
By those who live for rainbows
Life contrasts dream and tragedy
Uncertainty is inevitable
Warranty is foolishness
A playground for bold hearts
With magic and jagged glass
One must live to be charmed
And love to be cut
A3005-2004
Junkyard
Hope dismissed
You can’t just pick it up
Sweep it away
Loose metal screws
Barely hold tin
It drags away
Distorted and sharp
Crumpled and rattling
Toward some place to die
They don’t look like hopes
They don’t look like anything
Not anymore
Just a rusty junkyard
Of discarded emotions
It’s not what I wanted
A3006-2004
Just a bit longer
Your words play to my vanity
But it feels nice
And I can’t see the harm
In believing you
Just a bit longer
A3007-2004
Just off
You don’t have to smile
For me anymore
It no longer masks your pain
And I know you do it for me
So I won’t feel bad for you
You watched me from just off
Lit up on my arrival
Protested my leaving
Gave me your heart
I’d be selfish
To ask more
I hear your pain
It’s your turn to go
My turn to smile
Disguise my hurt
I’ll be there
As the vet inserts a needle
That’ll take you home
And end your agony
And I know
You’ll be there
Watching me still
From just off
A3008-2004
Up
I’m feeling down tonight
Let my hopes out on holiday
Against the advice of time
Who says to keep them in check
So they won’t crash so hard
I callus my heart
To protect it
Wonder if I am as strong
As love is
Pain’s beautiful
Embracing it’s tough
It takes time
Some can’t see it
I do
I’ll open my heart
Again and again
Pick myself up
Let my hopes fly
Someday they won’t fall
A3009-2004
Both
Some poetry is beautiful
Some people are poetry
You’re both
A3010-2004
Beware of dog
Don’t worry
The dog doesn’t bite
As long as she’s barking
Oh and did I mention
The cat’s a ventriloquist
With prankster tendencies
And a mean streak?
The cat
Feeds the dog peanut butter
And then barks
This makes the dog angry
And dangerous
So if you hear a bark
And you don’t see
The cat’s lips moving
Run for your life
A3011-2004
Rogue lover
Let me be your rogue
And celebrate the you
Too often discarded
It slips through lines of age
Dismissed as leaves
Scattered on a quiet walk
By a careless breeze
On a vacant day
The loveliness
You scarcely grasp
Surrendered without protest
Seeps deep into cracks
Of cobblestone beneath
Can’t you see?
So much of you is missing
But it’s not missed by me
Let that be mine
A3012-2005
Suicide by Tylenol
She took two for pain
A thousand times before
It never caused harm
But now
The pain was in her soul
Would someone please
Notice me?
Days gray with hope
She tossed the cap
Across the room
On the stand
A weepy note
Beside the bed
An empty bottle
Next to the phone
A plea for help
She wanted so
But what she didn’t know
4000mg three times past
And three weeks post
With kidney dead
She’d never more
See home
A3013-2005
This is it
The last poem I’ll write
Though many will follow
Because if I stop
I’ll surely die
If not mortally, spiritually
Emotionally
I found a truth
That to love someone
Does not require they know
Or love you back
How often
Does something profound
Come from someone
Or something so pathetic
Only to find it’s not
I can’t tell you where
You’ll have to find
Your own adaptation
It’s a puzzle you see
When you do
It’ll make perfect sense
So it’s my turn to be pathetic
To encourage the same
I want to run through life
Vulnerable and stained
With those I love
A3014-2005
Trust
My path takes me places
Where spirits must mend
But I’m no healer
A calm in the storm perhaps
Safe cove now and then
I walk with assurance
Never needing to know
To find weathered hearts
In all age of children
Love desperately needed
Wherever I go
And I must agree
In what others might ask
That I’m not qualified
Unworthy of task
It’s not up to me
But every unknown
Is one God’s allowed
And placed in my path
As if God trusted me
A3015-2005
Disdain
I have disdain
For this time
That discards worth
Of young women
And one’s self
Society chained
Trained to accept
Negative as positive
Defeatists
Unwilling to grow
Re-define losing
As winning
Feeling weak and lame
Unable to face
Their own defeat
Dis you?
Please
How do we respect
Culture that eats it’s young
Starves its morality
Emotional anorexia
Temporal sickness
In the face of time
Your way’s not sustainable
Cancer kills the host
They die together
I know there’s hope
Just now I’m angry
A3016-2005
Ever
Ever have a day so great
You feel guilty
For feeling so good?
You don’t want
To think of sad times
They’ve no right
To bring rain
You want to tape time
To the wall
So it stays now forever
You resent the sun
For lying down
Because tomorrow
Holds no promise
The day is this time
That I’ve had
Since I found you
The guilt is
I want you so much
Sad’s a world
That won’t understand
And rain’s objection
And scorn
Tape’s the hope
That binds us together
Forever a place we can hide
Sunset’s the day
When we lay down our lives
Tomorrow’s heaven above
A3017-2005
Not afraid
I’m not afraid
To die
And
I’m not afraid
To live
A3018-2005
And then there’s you
I want to dance
Frantic and insane
A pirate thief
On violent seas
Promiscuous passions
Treasures
Buried sands
I’m lost
Without time’s compass
FM soul in an AM world
Waiting to be loved
Understood
Held
Safe
Find a phantom
Ghost of my meaning
Shadow of essence
Drift as illusion
Past infinity
Slide between
Colors of the rainbow
Where am I?
And then there’s you
Who I run to
Fears yield to tears
Trembling finds peace
My heart calms
Eyes closed
I smile
A3019-2005
Perpetually
I think of you perpetually
When I’m not telling you
I love you
Under my breath
I’m wondering
About your thoughts
How you feel
If you’re happy
Are you aware
I’m thinking of you?
Does it make you smile?
I imagine your hair
As it trespasses
The line of your eye
Close nights
Listening to you listen to me
As we hold each other
Candle’s heat
Dancing on our skin
Floating weightless
In timeless embrace
Snap conscious
Only to begin
Drifting again
Perpetually
A3020-2005