the leaves go belly up, dancing with thirst
ticking clock or a clock dead, which is worse?
summer is a waiting game, moment’s peace
what will close sooner? the days or me first?

when I tuck the truths I avoid in fleece
when the welling waves in my chest increase
how brief it is here, the being okay
crashing when the hot winds beneath me cease

it’s missing the step, darkness in your way
how your stomach drops out, it’s disarray 
the routine drags you through every cold night
when warmth will return you can’t really say

some things that make
up the whole are
ugly

wow,
revolutionary

Two years and some change 
and this is the first time
that my inventory is completely honest 

I want to go
into a restaurant
where the menu
reads like poetry

If i can’t visualize
what is written
in the menu anyway,
I’d rather it read like this—

To control a people you must
stifle their ability to breathe
bare access to the very thing that
is life itself
Pollute the air
Kill the trees
Disconnect the people from traditional
foods & lifestyle
All to create a numb world
A world in pain so that we don’t revolt
Then tell them to come to them for a cpap machine
a band aid on a wound they created.

Once, the sun welted across my shoulders,¹ the
speakers, my feet. We sat on folding chairs;
a sharp rock nudged against
my heelbone. But I paid it no mind.
The afternoon wrapped itself around
my ankles and wrists so honorably that I
did not request a rescue. Rambling around us, the
hours claimed space, checkmating the
sunbeam trends showcased by your kind of
strumming Woodstock pacifists and my kind of
swaying influencer activists.
And joy settled in among the crowd with
a gather-round campfire ease.² On my own,
I devoured the salad…feeling
grown from
its kalamata, vinegar healthiness. Then, when
it was too hot for frying oil ,
wearing my last-minute, look
and grab straw hat,
I wondered.
I wondered about the singing men next to us, and
how prepared they looked when
the basket of garlic, parsley, and French fries arrived
between sets. Brave of them for bringing
their barely toddling baby…
Braver still for them to pack utensils³…

    ¹ First go around at Newport Folk, 2018…epic…in over my head with friends whose souls sought deep-cuts instead of the top-twenty I embraced…burnt to a crispy tater, paprika red….weren’t no way I was goin’ ta do anything but painfully laugh my way through that day of lyrical awesomeness, you know?

    ² This festival is worth every dime because you witness a bountiful harvest of musical camaraderie through jam sessions and a community of shared language…in other words…my guts were shook….and stitched back together with the same loving carefullness one might use when repairing a quilt once owned by a founding father. 

    ³ Lucius, Nudes, “Woman (Acoustic)”, 2018… I opened my eyes from a sun-burnt stupor and heard heaven. 

When our poetry filters out our mouth
The breath catches in our throat
Right above thin collarbones
As if gasping for air
For that next word
That next beat
That next prolific thing
To ripple off the tongue
Like a wave crashing into sand
Like a newborn baby 
Screaming its first cry
As if air cannot come deeply
Or quickly enough
To fill that space 
Of needing
To push the next words out
From my mouth
From my guts
From my soul
But I cannot find it
Without gasping in
So deeply
So quickly
To find the next pattern 
Of words
To articulate my thoughts
That run more quickly
More deeply
Than the words from lips
My mind like a child
Running through wildflower fields
That same child
Small, short, and stunted of breath
To not know yet
The immense power
Of her spoken word
Eventually helping the words escape
So rhythmic and enchanting
Magic from within
Something so beautiful from the inside
Out
My breath so much more grand
Larger
That those words 
Than the weight of my words
From mind to mouth to world
So deep
So quick

Who are you reading? you ask, sharing your list of 10 favorite poets.
Ah, that I could sit in the sun today, devour poetry til dusk, ripe apricots on the side.
Even make progress on The Correspondent before book club next week.

Instead, I worked my way through
        – Sheets of eyeglass prescriptions: which one is needed to replace the sunglasses
           that broke?         
       –  Twelve back and forth texts for plans with an out-of-town visitor         
       –  Online information regarding late-stage Parkinsons; had to shake my head at AI’s                   solicitous first person voice “We’ve covered several topics here.  Is there anything 
          else I can help you with?” 
       – A grocery list, until I decided not to bother         
       – Instructions for completing Generali Trip Interruption Reimbursement paperwork
         after contracting the flu in Houston         
      – Altima manual while waiting at the optician:  how turn off the new buzzer that                        sounds when car touches a lane marker?  (failed)         
      – And for the third time, instructions for syncing my phone and computer (also failed)  

But I have to tell you, whenever I have a few minutes, Jose Enrique Medina’s chapbook, Haunt Me, flies back into my hands        

          Time passes,     
          And my binder grows, thick with ghosts       

          But, enough about me.    
          Go on.  Show me your collection.   
          Don’t be shy.

“The kindest thing is let him die.”

No. The kindest thing to do is try 
to preserve his life,
help him learn how to fly,
and only then to say “goodbye.”

Avoiding pain is not living.
Refraining from taking’s not giving. 
We owe one another
more than just cover;
we owe everyone everything.

But I am not up to the task

Meeting at two

reports are due

and rent is too

Yessir

No sir

Yessir

Glasses are on

Papers and mouse—

click click click click

keyboard typing

clack clack clack clack

See nothing ahead.

Sun outside.

Through windows.

It’s still there

I know that.

Just forgot.

Sun setting

workday done.

I could have died today
slipped on the stairs,
choked on my own ambition,
looked both ways and still got hit.

But at the end of the day,
I guess I’m allowed another one.
Some clerk in the sky stamped my form:
“Try again tomorrow.”

Funny, how we dodge the reaper
like it’s a game of tag
and still forget who’s “it”.

I could have died today,
from a papercut, a bee’s sting,
or an airborne thing
But here I am,
writing a poem instead of a eulogy,
still late to everything except
the end.