When you’ve been working 
Going through the daily routine 
Grinding out the same process 
Day after day after day after day
Until you get lost midweek 
Having no idea what day it is 
Is it Wednesday, Tuesday, or Thursday? 
Every hour at your job is one less you 
Have to spend with your loved ones 
One less hour willing to live at all 
On the roughest days at a shithole
Nine to five for Uncle Sam to tax 
Your taxes and tax those too somehow it feels
Living for a mere 48 hours of relief 
There’s got to be something more 
To this life, in this world that’s worth 
Our breath than this 

                    I woke from a dream

            how close I was to danger,
            and I shivered
            about it, shivered…
            

Trust, I never miss just being an “I” —
yet you and I were never a must.
Before I combust, I confess —
the less you know, the more I’m
alone with the thoughts in
my head and they’ll always love
you. Even, up to, and with
my last breath. My
last breath blows out my own
flickering light. Light a candle for my sins.

Oh the mind has mountains,
any number of which are
film noir plots piled up in my lap
where le petit chat noir snoozes.

Today will be a better day—
Where the coffee in the pot is half full,
and the lonely sock may find its pair.
The rowdy dog may miss the muddy puddle,
and the wind may spare my hair.

Today will be a better day—
Because the traffic light will turn green,
The rain may make the flowers bloom,
and all the worries that arrived
may find another room.

Today will be a better day—
and if not,
tomorrow.

Sweet girl
Led into a place
Where men tell you what God wants
Dropped in a public space
They send you out to proseletize
You ask question after question
Feigning interest in my life
But what you need is the accomplishment
Of being the one
To talk me into saving my soul
I don’t need your grace, Grace
I have it already
And I don’t need your prayers
That my heart change
Because my heart is full of Love already
And I’ve given up trying to convert the converted

sky dumps redsting rain

gardener eyes ill for hours

dripping, regretful head

dream gorgeous
my love skin drunk
drooling at the petal

It’s not written on paper. 
It could never become flat,
a two dimensional apparition,
a ghost floating past us
like history lessons ignored,
like so many smiles forgotten
by our roadside of dreams and nightmares,
of sweetness and sickly longevity,

wild like riding across an American plane
bareback on a palomino’s shoulders.
I swear it was a different set of lungs
that sucked in air and pushed out sound
when I spoke it, a word that sounded
familiar and yet had no meaning
until it breached my lips.

Oh God,
          I cried,
                    Oh God,

this gift and there is no where to store it.

And the most beautiful word in the world
vibrates in my throat
and in the air around you and I,
and then, like all beautiful things,
it is gone.

I called you on my way home from work
to keep you company on your long drive north
I listened as you caught your first glimpse of the lake
waving hello to you and welcoming you