Another Poem With A Theme

Sometimes I can't feel my feet
and I'm pretty sure it's either because they're not there
or I'm just too drunk to think
I never touch alcohol, so I think it's the first
and stare off into the distance on a summer afternoon

On occasion I fall in love all over again
and it makes the world so perfect
but then the flaws come back and make themselves known
and sometimes I'll be feeling pretty low
but that just means the highs will be that much higher
they nearly always are

And no matter how I act or feel
I'll always take care of you
I'll always do the best I can do
no matter what the weather

Guinevere

I loved you Guinevere, I loved you
In the silence in the heartbeats in the leaves in the loam
I loved you Guinevere, I loved y ou

An d st ill inth e brok en pa nes o f g l
a s s
I loved you Guinevere, I loved you

The leaves, they fall far far too fast
Spinning down into our past, and brown and crinkly on the ground
Too dead to cry out the saving sound
"We loved you Guinevere, we loved you"

Give Us This Day Our

We are made in the image and likeness of God but. where is the image, what is the likeness and who is God? Is he a big human, are we little gods? Is it our minds, our fibers, our fictions, our loves, our flaws, our? The wilderness is floating overhead, and I am lifted from everything. I will return to the One that gave me birth, and I will fragment and hover and blow away on the wind like warm stale air pushed away by a breeze. And I will become the breeze, and fly up to heaven, and dance there, and laugh with the other breezes, the other souls, the dead and the not yet living. And we will spin and wheel under the sun that is the Father, and it will somebody's birthday every single day, and there will be parties and cake and ice cream and there'll be a sprinkler in the sky, like rain but even purer, and we'll dance in our swimsuits or our birthday suits if we prefer, there'll be no lust and no shame. And when we're tired of walking on the ground, we'll walk on the air. And when we're tired of being awake, we'll fall asleep in lovers laps, and everyone will be our lover. And it will all be pure and shameless and I won't feel bad about it. You'll be there all the time, whenever I want you, and it will be perfect. And we'll run off by ourselves and gorge ourselves in a strawberry field, and Einstein will be 3 rows over hiding between the bushes, and we'll laugh. And oh, Darling! It'll be heaven, I promise! It'll be just like Heaven, and the sun will be just like God, and there will be Jesus and the Holy Ghost and Buddha and Mohammed and John Paul II and Darwin and Elvis and all these people! They'll all be there, and there'll be ice cream and mashed potatoes and limes and lemons and everything, it'll all be there and we'll never run out and we'll feel the Lord in everything like electricity, He will sing our bodies electric with His magnificent song and I won't have to cry anymore, you won't either, because we'll all be dead, and if we cry it'll just be for fun. It'll be so much fun!

Image & Likeness

Now I haven't been around for very long yet
But I've still been waiting for a long long time
To kill the evil that is bred inside
The flaws and weaknesses that are uniquely mine

And when my failures have gone
There'll be nothing in me that's wrong
Just a low key person who can wake up
Happy every day

But for now you'll find me driving on those country backroads
That lead somewhere special, but where that is, nobody knows
They lead to the center of the world and my heart
And I will dig and drive and fly until I am completely blown apart

In All Times And All Places

Puella quam amo est pulchra. Meisje I liefde is aardig. L'amour de la fille I a les yeux les plus jolis dans le monde. Die Liebe des Mädchens I hat weiche Haut. Θα περπατούσα σε όλο τον κόσμο τρεις φορές για την. Nuoterei i mari più profondi ed arrampico le più alte montagne. 私は彼女を愛する。나는 그녀를 사랑한다. Eu amo-a. Я люблю ее. La amaré por siempre.

Wilderness Remains

I glance down at the road, so warm soaking up the sunlight
and lay down on my side, and let it kiss my cheek
My compass falls from my coat pocket, and spins wildly around
it cannot find North, it does not know the way
So I am lost, and the wilderness remains

Now I drink from a stream in the side of the ditch
the water runs dirty, filled with germs and filth
My stomach churns uneasy, but my thirst lays slaked
while my head spins wildly
The wilderness revolves, the wilderness remains

Standing under an overpass in the cool of evening air
a stenchy wind ruffles my long tangled hair
My eyes are itchy and tear in the breeze
the city is a jungle, and I have fallen prey to the beasts it contains
The city will consume me, the wilderness remains

The long walk home

the animals cry and sob from the space between the headlights and
space
the streetlights flicker in my confused vision, but my hand is being held and i have no primal fear
only a slowly beating heart that tells me you are here
so i will keep walking and not think
of what waits for me off the beaten path
in the bushes and the shadows

a smell of incense floats through my brain
tinting my vision and perception
will you love me when you're dusting, spinning through the summer air?
will you love me even then?
will you not abandon me when you're molecules and elements
recharging the universe?

i believe my home is in the sky
i will be lifted high, past the jungle i am tangled in
i clench my fists and rock on my heels, 'i will not not die, i will not die'
my ghost is mine and mine alone, not for yours and theirs to own

i will find my way among the rocks and stones and move beyond their grabbing dragging down
between and past the maps that only show the shadows in this endless town

What I Did On Holiday

lately i've spent my time trying to listen to songs
that bring out that feeling
where you sway and sing, 'hallelujah'

and lately i've been running my dog in thunderstorms
and getting blown about
washed clean by the rain and the wind

recently i've been kneeling in the corner of my room
sick to my stomach
the weight of the world like an anchor in my belly
keeping me here

lately i've been missing you more than ever
more than ever before
or than i thought possible

P.S. I love you still but I'm sure you don't feel the same way, do you?

Dear darling it's been almost three weeks
and thirteen days since I did the dishes
The sun is hot streaming in through the window
and dust is thick in the air and on the floor
I promise you I'd keep a cleaner house
if I just knew you'd be coming home

But the air is dry and hot
and the flowers are wilting
The yard is slowly turning brown
there's no motivation inside my head
The paint is peeling off the wall
strategies for dealing with life are surpassed
By my custom-built idea of living with it

So now crying is like breathing and sleeping to me
i do it all the time, sometimes not knowing why
And drinking, too, I do that a lot
i guess my intellectual aristocrasticity has decayed since you left
But for some reason I don't really mind
my moral superiority was just a stance
Taken by a child, from picture-book examples
i don't know if they were true
But I've never thought they were lies

Vacation

let's break the sky into a million pieces and scatter them inside our heart attacked hearts pushing the boundries of space and horizon twisting the boundries of love and time and leaving us alone in a special place with each other and no one like the the stars all glistening and twinkling in the sky above us that's all ours and only ours, i bought it and kept it just for you my love.

let's run through walls and sink through the earth and walk back through time and find a place where no one knows our faces or our names we're perfectly anonymous naked on a ridge of dirt and plants and rocks and stones over a great city no one ever knew of in a land no ones ever heard of in a time that nobody remembers just together and never apart.

let's lie down in the summer on the cool grass in the hot sun in the quiet forest and forgive each other for not being in our arms every second of every day and fall in love over and over again like the waves in the sea or the air as you're talking to me.

Justify your answer.

It's time for the final doubt
For taking one last breath before we prove our hypotheses
That living can be happy even with another person
You said that twos and threes and fours and fives
Are the happiest people you'll meet
I think we might end up justified

Auto lights playing on the wall and the ceiling
It's the principle of the thing, leaving the window open a hair
I swear it's spring, even if there's snow on the ground
Flopping your arm around me, in your jammies just for now
Warmth is all you're looking for, if I was so innocent..

Busy streets, messy with possibilities
And a plate of scrambled eggs, greasy with affection
That cracked the shells and mixed up the yolk and white
I think we might find out that we were justified
For falling in love with flaws and old photographs
Flannel shirts and lank wet hair

It Lifts You Up With No Effort At All

let's not be trite and cheap and tawdry
let's not have glamour with lights that flash
how about we grow and strengthen
and show our earnestness and life

and move and breath with violent symphonies
expanding pushing changing pressure
becoming more like trees and stars
things not living like you & i are
things more greater than our animal strife
the blood and sweat is wasted currently
the rhythm and the beat of everything moving
universe lifting lifted lifter

wet and damp and cold the rain comes
stinging my face and numbing my hands
wind explode and revive reawaken
bring me back to life and shaking
cold but steady legged, bright eyed and waking

like a-

a poem written like a song like a thing with sound and a rhythm and a melody like a something that came pouring out your soul and you couldn't help it just came and you vomited and you were sick like a party like a something last night can't remember what you did but you did it it's there in your memory like a stick in the mud that you drew pictures with and the rain came and washed it all away but you remember and take it and pour it into your hand and flows out your pen and you're crying but it hurts oh it hurts but you're creating and you're making and this is better than you've ever felt before better than closing a deal or the first night first time first whatever but it hurts but you're better now worth more as a person just like you've wanted always trying to put something between you the empty void you know lies at your core like a shallow pond with new sudden depth and meaning and matter and it just flows and finally you realize that it's over but you can't not do it again so you get some sleep get some rest eat a little then you do it again and again and again and again till you've beaten yourself up and we're done here now there's nothing else to do.

For Margaret M.

i fell in love
and my heart stopped beating
and my breath stopped breathing
and i fell in love

i leaned over and kissed you
and my mind exploded
and my hands decided they should shake
but i leaned over and kissed you

then i tasted someone else's mouth for the first time
and i started smiling
and my heart started growing
and i tasted your mouth for the first time

i woke up in a sweat trying not to cry at the thought of losing you
and grabbed at the blankets
and rubbed at my eyes
after waking up from a dream where i lost you

i started to find out what living was like
after i kissed you
after i realized i love you, and you loved me too
and i'm starting to find out what living is like

dre@m

it's kind of like dreaming
this whole life thing

you live like you're happy, and then
you wake up

you cry like you're sad, and then
you're startled awake

and the thing about dreams is
they don't really come true

but if you're lucky it'll happen to you
you'll think and you'll ponder; you might even obsess

get into therapy, find a priest and get blessed
and one day you'll find

that this life thing's like dreaming
you just have to dream like you're alive

Thrownings

scat t er d s i g n a l s
s pra y in g s p r e a d ing a c r o ss
t h e s k y
l i k e a u t u mn l ea v e s

l i ke ou r l o v e

The Water Cycle

I was on vacation
and the sky fell in
and the locals screamed
and I took a picture

I was in bed
and my stomach got butterflies
just like you were about to walk in the door
but then I remembered you don't walk through doors
around here any more

I was in a church
and I thought it was a funeral
so I was praying for an anonymous soul
'til I looked up
and saw it was a wedding

and then I realized that the living never die
and tears are just water, and rain from our eyes
to soak through the earth
and propagate, and evaporate
and float up in the sky

City

She said "Give me a dollar or hundred for gas
And I'll get out of this town
I have sunglasses and a japanese car
I'll drive so long you can't call it far, because the word's too small"
I responded that the world's too small to get away from here
I've tried before, and when you leave the city you just drive and drive
Until you come to another place that looks just like this one
With drugged up girls who are oh so smooth
Whispering me plans about how they want to move
So far away

When the shivers run down your spine, you'll pretend that they're not there
When you're playing a game with this high stakes, you won't tremble a hair
And the grease and the slick and the sewage in the city
It's the blood of the town
With the soda cans and garbage
Used up needles and half eaten food
If we can clean the blood, maybe there'll be peace in the city
If I can scrub your blood off the walls, that will be peace in the city

And there are too many secrets out in the open for my poor tired mind to take
And too many things I don't want to know and too many things I have
I feel like my soul is locked in some sub-sub-basement
Far below where elevators fall and escalators crawl
Give me a thousand dollars and a japanese car and I'll escape from this place
I'll wipe the grime and the dirt from my face

Driving time

driving;who knows where
cooly invading, the scent of pine
:it's like an olfactory bath: you say
i say that's my line, i say weird stuff like that =
we laugh

and look at the stars

'traditionally the man drives' 'who cares about tradition?'
and i'm okay with that
you shiver and i pull the blanket back on your lap

and
who

cansaywhere

we'll

end
up



not i, perhaps
not i

Hang My Head Low

and I will walk past the beaches where the lonely seagulls cry
and greet the fishermen with a wave and a twitch of the eye
and I will hang my head low, and I will swing my head high
I will sing a bold strong marching tune, I will laugh until I cry

I will wander through through a town that is drenched straight to the bone
I will step into the tin-roofed shack that I call my home
I will start a fire in the stove, and write you a short poem
I will write you a long letter telling you much I love you
Then I'll pull back on my jacket, and start again to roam

And I'll hang my head low, and I'll swing my arms high
I'll drink until I'm sober again, I'll dance until I die
I'll laugh until I'm angry, I'll smile 'til I cry
And love you in the morning, when the birds yell on the shore
And love you in the evening, and when you are no more