shot in the dark

He was a great balloon maker
the balloons were never known for speed
there's no way you'll get sweet

you asked me to waste some time
come out to see the sun
you're all we've got

but i said i think there's more of them like us
and he said "you might be right..
we'll find them in time somewhere"

He was a great balloon maker
then they outlawed all balloons
he packed up and put his things away.



Read from start to end and again the fearlessness of thoughts in print

strips the chord of a sensible word and what's worse

she left her mark, indelible the nature of a scripted verse

keeps my eyes set on the page, and it says

frankly dear I'm forced to give it up

tried my hand and now I've had enough

even though we have to say goodbye

keep me in mind

blamed in advance for the past with no bearing on a present tense

all that's left are claims that she made when she said

oh dear someday we'll learn to be better fit to pursue one another

but 'til then we'll call it the end as she adds

frankly dear the drifters had it right

stayed the afternoon and left at night

even though we have to say goodbye

keep me in mind



Maybe come with me to the coast
And watch the way the rain comes down
Out of the shadows she's more passionate
We'll watch her role roll in from the south

She'll wrap her sheets 'round us
Forget the sun

Moving from sea to land dancing
Swinging with the boats out there
She steps on toes if she wants to
But never because of lack of care

..It's all in the mask, you see



Don't cry, I'll bring this home to you
If I can make this night light enough to move

Cargo (tugboat) ships move sluggishly by
Tracking on the horizon line
There's a luster from the city lights
On the waves that kiss our feet
And we're thinking of going in
The times getting thin
Out there, are you still alive?
I stay up hours worried about detox-strangling
But anyway, this is a city for not sleeping
And the clocks are set by feel
At those moments from where I sit
None of it seems real



Toss, turn, and flip
until the ground becomes the overhead
but instead of sunken battleships
I find emptiness instead.

And you'll say I can't save me unless you let me
(go)
but my dreams have been lonely
lately.

cycles

once

a single cell

found that it was full of light

and for the first time there was seeing

when

i was a bird

i could see where the stars had turned

and i set out on my journey

high

in the head of a mountain goat

i could see across a valley

under the shining trees something moving

deep

in the green sea

I saw two sides of the water

and I swam between them

..i look at you

in the first light of the morning

for as long as i can
but secretly,
peeking from behind curtains of hair
while i'm spoiling.

original light broke apart,

the Gnostics say,

when time began,

singular radiance

fractioned into form

-- an easy theory

to believe,

especially in early summer-

when that first performance

seems repeated daily.

though wouldn't it mean

each fracturing took us

that much further

from heaven?

not in this town.

not in midsummer winter: hazy harbor

and cloudbank, white houses'

endlessly broken planes,

a long argument

of lilac shadows and whites

as blue as noon:

phrasebooks of day,

articulated most of all

in these roses,

which mount, rise, fall, and swell

in dynasties of bloom,

their easy idiom

a soundless compaction

of lip on lip. their work,

these thick flowerheads?

built to contain

sunlight, they interrupt

that movement just enough

to transfix in air, at eye level,

now: held still, and shattering,

which is the way with light:

the more you break it

the nearer it comes to whole.



these days,
lately:
..only flesh still

welcoming to flesh.

feels like hurtling into vast darkness,

the sky itself whistling of space

the black matter between stars

the red shift as the light dies,

warmth a temporary aberration,

entropy as a season.






i'm sliding open windows and slipping out, across apocalyptic ground
dreams reaching out, unfurling, to wrap me in shadowy waters
washed in a copper tinged mouth is the hint of his bodytalk
silence stretches wide and seeds awareness-
two beings. more kindred than originally thought
not legible
but the same strange animal
I don the shape of a woman,
a coquette with confidence like hot and cold
yet I am bound by deeply embedded golden truths
of yearning, season, and flesh...
bruised from the coarse affection sweettalk, attempts to grind it in
make it stick
although the existence of such, the unspoken
is already unknowingly powerful enough to
drown even the riptides of
time.-
(streaming by in the festively lit night,
seeping into words that brush on addiction and sedation
faraway and familiar both:
nostalgic laughter,
light airbrush touches
sitting on old news and sewing new tunes,
yuletide wrestling matches)








clumsy stumble down the ravine, to your hotelbed
where we meet,
you say- with no secrets to tell

and you are laid out
across the dance floor,
probing your doubt,
i go deep into you in search of more
your resistance sings a lot like mine

we have our lives away from the meeting point
where all things seem placed carefully like collectibles
splashed with vague memories..
the space between, when closing, is
precious yet forgettable,
you can't discern- to the other- what is overlooked and what is held close
tight to the chest like the ghost of someone else,
filling holes

(like packed rooms filled with our reflections in countless mirrored eyes
only there is a blankness, something bottomless and unrecognizable
unremembered reasons that we rationalize away the following days
keeping ourselves safe.
and i can see what boils deeper, beneath the surface tension)

but i hope somewhere hidden beneath the seams
ragged as they may be, like 70s hand-me-down cloth
you know
i continue/d to want you always,
even long spread thin distance pulls the heartstrings
through this fog of years we have sped through;
we dream of times that don't exist in our days,
and we each go into every night to come undone.



merry christmas
(sleep of reason)
once again.