Youth

A bend in the road
For a bank account

And late with my rent
Because of a bird chirping

I lost what was left
Of the little I had
In the evening rain

Yet on
We drove

In open
Rebellion

With designs
On sublimity




*I released a version of this in February. I trimmed it a little. Gave it some direction. And a better title (hopefully).

The Lot

The uncombed grass and feral 
Hatchery of hoodlum plants

Like the crooked chicory
And the golden Solidago

I love a messy lot, a stray pumpernickel-colored cat

Without solution, cricket perfection

The Whatnot

The irony of turtles
Is jellyfish prose

Like a filibustering moon
Roundabouting a dream

In the driveway the cat
Asleep next to the oil splotch

An alliteration of reptiles
Sings Rocketman

Poetry toasts
The aria of balloons

In the hourglass
Too is infinity

In the Month of May

In the month of May, I stood in the yard, the dark roofs and power lines and one of my cats looking over at me and the gray clouds illuminated by the moon. Maybe I’ll study the numerology of paradoxes. The slanted roofs of this enchanted city. My own heartbeat. In the month of May, because it is a warm night, the universe grows horns like a ballad. A bouquet of fairy tales procured by the wind.

Walk On

A stutter a gambol enough
Hinge and pry and unease and
In a flutter a fancy a dark brow
Of a March tree promising spring: Oatmeal in a bowl
Flaxseed blueberries almond
Milk that’s my breakfast:
Zero assumptions are like zero gravity
You need a few to walk but if you have too many
You need to put your foot down
No!

Lines Written in Spring

I prefer the scriptures of the dandelion.   
The weight of happenstance.

Imaginary bouquets and
The fatigued folding chairs
At Prometheus’s funerals.

A solemn oath whispered into the large
Hole made by a construction crew.

There is a wild in the unbathed moon.
Said the universe, said the rain.

A light drizzle in a dream.
The streetlights hover without their stems.

The names of each thing have vanished.
Leaving a newfound hunger for stars.

The Sky, Almost Dusk, After Rain

The puddled sidewalks and streets are expert ocularists. And the roofs are ruddy and formal.

What to do with an abandoned car in an overgrown lot. We could toss coins at it to make our wishes?

We have a kind of photosynthesis in our souls, pending celestials at the doorway. The darkness threaded by a spool of angels. The property value of a gust of wind and of the dusk already into the hills.

The mass of the planets helped shape the solar system. And how much of that affects who I am?

4 Short Poems

Authentic: 

A twangy guitar like volcano
Flowers.

A sparse harmonica
Like a ghost in the afternoon curtains.


Walking:

How a star
Invented a pulley system

In the arches between
Dreams

In addition to paradoxes
And doorknobs


The Moon:

Slapstick plate
Over the shed roof

And the reason your bicycle
Has a flat tire


Your Shoes:

UFOs in yachts
Even the sidewalks
Curve with spacetime