When a dream breaks the fourth wall.
Like the footsteps of red autumn leaves
Determined by the wind’s simplicity. At night
So much of what we haven’t done
Lies awake. And wonders. The walker
Visits roam. A ghost spiritually can no longer tie its shoes.
All ghosts have untied shoes.
Which is a tripping hazard when going through walls.
Handwriting is a cosmology,
An archipelago of inklings
Like the orbits of our footprints
As we walk through puddles.
Because the calendar still has one foot in poetry,
Outcomes, whoever simple in the moment,
Over time gain in complexity. The horizon is always
Present-tense,
Yet the clouds like coins
In a time machine.
walking
Waves
It is all waves. On the largest scales.
And the smallest scales. I am on a ladder
In a dream, sans shoes. The stars bristle over
The sea.
The traffic light blots the intersection
In turn red, in green. It’s raining. I’m out for a walk. It’s all
Chance and honesty. In the end.
And inherent to the universe is complexity, is life.
And all that is breaking. Breaking down. And breaking open.
Walking Poem
A walk is a glad
Unfencing of the
Present. The body
Finds it meditative.
Eventually, though, I stop for lunch.
A peanut butter and jelly
Sandwich and an apple.
I sit on some neglected ledge
Not far from the railroad tracks.
The posture of electric towers
Is impressive as I straighten
By back.
In the fields that run along the
Railroad tracks, that’s where
I often walk, I like the belated
Graffiti and all kinds of flowers
And insects, the corrugated metal
Fencing of the junkyard,
On which is spray painted:
"A spaceship
Like a hiccup
Lost of home"
&
"A passing moment
Not intended as far as I know of anything
At all. The rest I leave to the weather"
At the end of the path I am walking on is a
Clearing, where last year someone burned a car,
Leaving its charred remains.
From here I turn back and head home.
Fragment
And if I have spent my certainties, I have
Also pooled my uncertainties, a body
Meandered into a wayward dignity.
All time is of a length, and all lengths are relative,
And lacking an absolute foothold, proclaims
Feet everywhere.
Poetry is a Brain Heist
Listening to an old Walkman
At the bus stop.
The darling splendid ruffling up of
Routine. I took the day off
Of work.
A sidewalk dream meandered
All day.
Who knew the stars in our dreams
Are the same stars when we are awake.
Do paradoxes dream?
Hello Again
Hello again.
The light from the lamppost reflecting off the rims
Of your glasses.
As deep as a well in a fairy tale
The stars burn.
What have you been up to?
I spent the afternoon playing
Mini golf alone.
Sitting quietly listening to the sound of rain on the pavement
Play out its equivalence.
Airing out a bed sheet after calling off work
Turns devotional.
And the waltzes before 6am.
A cloudy cut of afternoon
Along the railroad tracks
And a little rain just started.
If it gets worse, I’ll stand under
The viaduct for a while.
And the lack of meaning or too much meaning in the red leaves
Astonishes even into the cells and nerves
When autumn fetches the hills.
Like a ship
Parting with the night
Of a prowl
Hardly stepping
Of the sea
Till cloud-decked
With purpose.
Primitive loops of wind
And rain and streetlight.
Over the railroad trestles
I walked since a kid
I’ve done this and picked field
For its lonesome.
Heading home at dusk across a parking lot overrun
And left for potholes.
Potholes are nature’s ingrown toenails.
Unless filled with rainwater.
What could a gymnast do on the even bars?
Let’s begin with a mess, shall we?
Surreal Summertime Remembering
A summer wind
Short-cuts
Through the rip
In the screen door
Has eyebrows
Like sacred groves.
*
A chance of rain puddle
For dinner.
Our guests are nonlinear
Outcomes.
Moustache handlebars
Of cumulus nativity.
*
A sense of collaborating
With the sea spray
Parries everything but
The rocks below.
*
In the midst of a field
A meandering salute.
All alone yet guided
By an inward proclivity.
Like Blue
Blue imaginary birds
Know the spells to swim
In the moon.
And all the pretty vows
Know very well the distances
Between stars.
When done ingeniously
A walk is a bout
Of meandering.
There are footprints
Between the powerlines
And amongst the goldenrod.
Dynamic Simplicity
I carry a paper bag of flowers. The petals are blue, yellow, and orange.
Early flowers, the bag is a sandwich bag, it’s dawn.
I put the flowers in a basket and bike home. The sky is blue, orange, and yellow.
The flowers are for the dining room table, to be with books, and pencils,
And to have breakfast with,
Encourage me to open the windows, they are the better part of me, for a few days.
In which time, I’ll write what seem to be stream of consciousness poems, better yet,
I’ll put on my canvas shoes and walk till my stomach growls.
June is Decidedly a Cosmonaut
June is airy and incomplete and true and I
Will be getting up before dawn to walk
Along the railroad lines and find any hidden
Imaginary doors or graffiti haiku or a summiting cloud formation
Like a labyrinth of words in the sky.
naïve haircuts 