Skirts not pants

decided to wrap the cool
air around my legs.
freed them from denim
and opened the windows of the skin.

Bridges

Our words formed over jellyfish,
the orange floated softly beneath us
cupping each secret with surprising accuracy.

Dropped a drunk poppy down to the surface
and gravity floated into an optical illusion.

Red petals breathed toward the bay
and the syllables fell easy from our mouths
as we waited for the bridge to call our names.

Beautiful day.

When swimming
through the dock's scummy underbelly
the water is always warmer than you'd think.

We tied our used-up underthings
into a sopping bundle
and tilted up the hillside
our shadows ferociously taking the lead.

It only rained a little
(from a suspiciously wispy sky).

Freed by the double-blades—
their angles closing in all the right places:
Now I've got summer's breath around my neck
and sunspots that cloud my eyes
with a silver lining
that dances through the darkness of a room
and remains shining
hours
after night has crept up her cloudladder.

Sun-drunk and glazed in afternoon rock'n'roll
we tumbled into bed
the air dancing happily into our lungs.

Motorcycle Music

We've got to do something about this music.

Dancing becomes the acquisition of daredevil glances,
feet smack rhythm all the way down to foundation
pushing music into woodwork.

Out in the yard our bodies dream in cartwheels,
leaving footprints sprawled across the milky sky,
the hours pass us by like motorcycles in the HOV lane.
We awoke just in time
for the morning to leave us behind.

Mosey

It starts with syllables
parenthesized between kisses:
"I'm okay with it if you are."
moved anxiety out of the body
lightness and laughter came tumbling after.

just a little bit

Lazy Saturday afternoon
the mowers are humming all down the street.

running

put off
the legs sigh and resist the pavement
laughing flowers distract,
brush pollen into sweat
gray holds back the angry light
creates a cool space
to push past the feeling of fabric getting heavier.

2 small ones

On midsummer's night
the myth will whisper to you
"crush posies
with the weight of your dreams."

A smudged stovetop
is worth the conversation.

Nostalgia

You say my poems play hide & seek
but my honey child,
I want you under my syllables
behind the word-furnace
& deep in that darkly hyphenated crawlspace.
Creation is the game
writing first to stash and reveal
papery inklinations.
most words don't make it home
the only remaining echoes form in left-over alcoves,
the hinging places
carved out by chased-away words.

You say my poems play hide & seek
but really
the game is done,
played out before the rhythm grew up
and made out with deeper sounds.
All that's left
is to climb inside
& imagine
what words hid there before.

Too Close a Comedy

pathos fractures
as the laughter scrapes bottom
with its newly heavy sandpaper breath
a humor run on fumes can foul the engine
create a thickness in the pumping of the lungs
distance is the only thing that keeps our sensibilities from bleeding.

Some Build-up

6/20
Backseat
The only way to know you
requires mutual rupture
eyes push through the rear-view mirror
coalesce closer than appearances.

6/19
This Sound
I’ll sweat for your music
push physics into every undertone
a guitar opens the throat,
& breathes a tenuous back-and-forth.
Night reduces,
sweetens like dark vinegar
copper notes pop,
smooth down the ear
drum-da-dum
the sound will get into lungs first
inspire shoulders & shoetips
small juts precede a full bodied reaction.
Unstoppable like the moon-fingered tide
The chance of phosphorescence
encapsulated in a flexible tempo
this sound—

It gets to you.

6/18
Avoiding it
Copper drops of sunlight,
pink and awkward,
exit the landscape
skirt the horizon lipped by lavender weather.
Hungry fish sleepily punch small ripples in the softening reflection
the ruptures wink away with all conceivable haste.
Loneliness resists
coagulates inside the pen.
When the lights come up they feel further away
Murkily,
Strength dances into the distance
lantern-lit bridge spans a quivering ladder across the bay.
scratching for distraction
the loneliness corks with a pop.
I am not a decibel of tangled formalities.
slender dogs paw toward the expletives
in the after-gasp
moisture creeps in
I’ve got mildew in my bones.

Not yet

skipped out
on expensive sensuality
to be more softly afflicted.

Empty Wednesday

A sharper version of sinking
floats through the ashy summer streets
small meals in small hours
wrapped carefully in tin foil
it wasn't exactly effective, but
bookish thoughts made their best efforts
still,
no reception.

deeper into summer

Dreaming about poems
harvested in a chronology of barrels
sweet and dark,
in those words
you can taste the passage of time.

Fire Ritual

translation by fire
pages oscillate in the wind
lightly swirled by the evening breeze
burned words thread the eyelashes
the fire didn't really start
until we gave it something so it knew we trusted it
heated orange fingers rupture, pull back, and hungrily consume
the tangibility of our evidence
even if you could
reach through the heat
words would crumble
disappear into the grooves of your fingers and hands
puffed my cheeks too far out
empty breath
no matter how softly blown
won't sustain any fire for long.
We drew or real names in the white ashes
stamped punctuation into the stubborn embers
& swept away any evidence of a fiery past life
fire leaves so much space
and I've become so hungry
I might burst
with any luck
strength will rush into me.

freewrite on the typewriter

pieces of the afternoon
steeping pungent in the sweet and beany air
puns gaining pluck and possible controversy
high shelved "i" sounds curl up to the ceiling
there can be no reverse of the things which transpire in this kitchen
June #23 is every bit as full as it could be
the punctuation is wavering in the sweet and slippery distance
the roundabout calls to every neighborhoodlum
"Come wait in the sunlight"
circular burns come from dancing in the street-side heat

skin peels softer and softer
bruisy knees beneath the backyard trees
shouldered sunshine is sweetened by blue fabric and gin

a heart is only contained by its chambers
four platforms of potential value
a jury of muscled pumppumppuumppump

wet green bottoms of feet
find earth through grass grown long through Spring
lush yellow roses outweigh their ambitions,
droop even under the touch of mother sun

tastes like togetherness
bowls cupped in six hands,
thirty fingers working toward the same destination
and it is delicious.

From the front porch.

A cylindrical echo
blows silver down the street
Sunday afternoon is smoothed simple
by the empty pbr
rolling toward the intersection.

All night

the afterparty spilled over
dancing through the bookshelves,
the footfalls of conversation seeped through a dawn
best ingested orange, on the balcony
sifted through a tangle of limbs.
Morning is not like an eggshell
even if the birdsongs try to convince you.
The sincerity of a sleepless night
is worth all the soreness and slowness
of a dawn that breaks in the company of lovers.

Overripe

This swatch of cloth is vulgar,
a representation if just how little you know.
Laced-up,
this ignorance is a talisman for words unsaid,
a mark of refused vulnerability
keeps your milky self contained.
When we pretended together
it was much more romantic.



this was one started by a friend and finished by myself

I'm

a little late
won't just fold over in the wind
last week is last in line
the engine takes life
itched by a jagged finger
hope shakes off it's dewy late-morning dreams
catches the bus
just in time.

SIZE

the objects of imagination are growing steadily
watch out for whale-sized typewriters
use buttons as dinner plates
and pencil shavings for sails
on your poppy-blossom boat.
In the alternate reality of big BIG tops
the universe is breathing amplitude.

3 poems in reverse chronological order...

Jazz Night
You were there.
Clear through an orbit of drunken footsteps in ill-fitting sandals,
We were there.
Fell into a rhythmic flashback,
the jazz beneath folded over pinstripes pushed closer
and lifted me through a stairwell
emptied my lungs
like only my body could’ve remembered.

Spiral smiles and the confused pressure of lead and follow—
music moved over every angle
as our bodies echoed through the barlight.

Caught you there,
before the moon’s universe
drew you out.
In that small eddy of rhythmic alignment
the sounds built up
and snuck out through lips
dancing closer and faster than the reach of silly,
drunkenly sandaled feet
(I almost
caught all the words).


Sunny FREEwrite
The sunshine isn’t green anymore.
Planes of gray have swallowed their own shadows
and blue is brave again,
knows exactly what to do in the face of June.

Hard and hot sunshine days unfurl
and the daring takes them on
no more small sips.
The angry rustle of overcast eyes has been rubbed brighter
& clarity is climbing through the glass horizon
a scribble of the unknown
is less than a smile on my mind

the dirt is becoming more than dirt
in the early breaking of June
possibility walks on two legs
& hope melts into a series of stained-glass windows

Shoesless feet and cloudless sky
The wind rattles the clock tower
both hands measuring only as far as the wind consents
A dancing parade of feathered intentions tick-tocks into midsummer
the yawn of sunshine stretches past any definition of night.


Lupine Horizon
We drove out to the water
and from the moist center of the thicket flying by
warm throats kicked a trembling a cloud of froggish gossip across the bay.

an approximated congruence of language and energy
unspiraled warmly out the windows of your Subaru.
meanings clicking like a clamshell’s profile,
a body of thought in motion
will run being into action
our legs made wet by lupine strides
in flowers head-high
we purpled through midnight.

someday
these eyes will find your sunset.

Sunburn

absorbed warmth pinks through the afternoon
the skin breathes hot and deep into the night
a red leftover
patterned in a negative tank-top.

blue twilight melts around you
and couch dreams creep closer every second.
Come to my dreamspace
we'll push down the clouds
and release the skin-collected sun.

Low saturation levels

the color of the sky won't sing to me anymore
a yellow falls voiceless from throat of winter
and a misguided gray tongues the horizon.
In softly screaming finger-streaks of cloud,
purple shatters into midnight.

Some thoughts on loneliness:

The burgeoning quiet in my head
is a bullet of memories mulled over—
sanded sharp by the edge made between accident & design.

Shaky red shoelaces
stay shaky
with nothing else I could say about them

to better enunciate this loneliness
sit at a large table,
with three empty accents,
be overly polite to your waitress,
and avoid all attempts at bookish interaction.

Wordplay (with a coworker from yesterday)

Trumpets lacking crisp eventfulness
clouded the air
like a thick layer of under-garlicked hummus.

Dezi

Beneath the overt becoming more overt,
through a cut-throat paper-trail,
and the hollow breath of under-education
his eyes were loaded with an intelligent cynicism.

Getting through

With 72 hours on my head
and summer peeking rainy through front door
I can taste freedom in the paperwork
(it's almost like flowers)