Wednesday, February 21, 2007

The Street in Front of the House

Taking notice of bright surroundings:
houses tailored in half winter grim
over half selected shades,
poles and wires glazed,

cold cars owned, but ownerless,
no man's land where the path would be
now only trod by crows feet.
Moving across slick surfaces,

shoes softly and decisively
seeking clear patches of pavement,
lifting leg knee high,
finding perch on a cornucopia

of snow formed ice.
Someone, no one to clear it away?
Nature's formation in our place,
in our space.

As I land I find a man
with grunts and groans worn on his face
as he carries snow from one pile
to another pile some feet away.

I see great effort,
but I see no great effect,
for snow is snow
and doesn't care where it lies.

I continue with a smile on my face
that no one sees as my eyes look down.
Though I journey down streets of man
nature has smeared

a crisp canvas
in alabaster oil paint.
Being happy and travelling quick
I do my best to avoid a fall.


Sunday, February 18, 2007

Catalogue of faults

They keep a catalogue of faults
that all relate to me --
greed, judgment, regret, doubt,
deception, vanity,
San Andreas Fault and

(Writing is more harder than forget,
more caloused than forgive,
more phoenix than fire,
more pillar than pyre.

Writing is watching a rhyme bloom
and not cultivating it
because it's mismatched
with the garden.)

lastly, of course, is averice is
take a breath and exercise my vice.

You do not have to be good --
you must only
let the warm soft soul of your body love what it loves
and fear not the fault lines.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Crooked line to a diagonal future

I keep counting and waiting and waiting. I keep figuring that everything's going to be alright. I keep my fingers crossed because the wind changed and they got stuck that way. I run until my lungs feel like bubble wrap -- alveolar-ripple-puddle. I want to be there, where the drip joins the rest, where the sea sprays the air...

I just want to hear. I just want to see. I want what is real.