Farming, blasting, farming, blasting, waiting:
Repeat the next day.

My spirit goes traveling

The funeral home on the way downtown
from the, quote, commercial, end-quote, part of town
has featured for as many decades as I can remember
a baker’s dozen of model deer
easing themselves out of the dark pines
that huddle around forgotten paths and monuments.
Eyes naturally check this space
every time one passes by
and rejoices to see
a stray doe or fawn
nestled among the simulations.
The most remarkable part of this exchange
is the continued glee upon realizing
that one of the fakes
challenges the memory
of the same individuals mocking reality
that somehow prompt us to think
about the natural world 
more than the natural world itself. 
If deer can fake their presence so knowingly
as hundreds of people drive by unknowingly,
can we fake our own participation
in something as grand as life?
Otherwise we risk
darkening the pines on the forest path
until no one remains to see
our monuments and memories to them.

the first time we met
you 
played this song
with a room full of amps
cables coiled around the floor
with the glossy black heavy 
1965 Les Paul break my heart 
custom guitar with vintage 
sweat stains that you can see 
still to this day as it hangs 
in a shadowbox on my wall

the second time I met you
a stroke broke your rhythm 
and you tried to play 
in pajama pants 
the notes mottled together 
but I could still hear Santana
stutter through the string

I wish 
we could have talked 
about why you 
went to bars with a bible in hand
a music man wishing to save 
them all

we had was a moment 
standing on an island
in a estuary 
said not a single word 

becuase why would we
estranged as we were 
but we both shared 
that music chase 
fevered notes and sweat 

so I’ll play it for you 
cause it’s the only language 
we knew for one another 

share with the others out there
that know what it’s like 
to make a guitar sing 

grow berries, spinach;

Forgive my impudence—have you chosen
to omit the frozen treats from this evening’s
selection of cuisines? I’ll throw you like a sparrow
through the rafter beams. I’ll concentrate my hate
and concuss the waitstaff at this Denny’s.
I’ll concatenate my rage to vapid poetry.

Maybe maple or birch,
it’s wild, leafy and twisted.
Lush green with strong branches.
The roots are spread wide,
across states and borders,
oceans and rivers,
but rooted deep in New York.
Too many leaves browned 
and fallen to the ground.
We buried one this week.
No matter how far I am from its roots,
I’ll always be sheltered by 
the shadow of its love.

People wax poetic

Slipping Away Like…

What happens when 

soon-to-be raindrops

gather in warm air, 

like a swollen bubble waiting to burst?

They huddle, right before darkness            
takes hold, turning cold into chilling
condescending pelts.

Becoming hasty like feisty hot tears,

accumulating into silent mist
until they slip from the safety
of their soft surface.

Cast out to take a plunge,

into the uncertainty of expanse,

landing upon new terrain and place.

Not like a fleeting feather,

but angrily tumbling onto

hard compacted red clay.

Shedding any excess of moisture

into runoff to fade into trembling mud.

Pouring unattached, 

into the pull of the ocean,

evaporating its lost wetness                    
into vapor spray of release.

With hope of one day,

making their way back,

to float effortlessly into the clouds.

May the droplets, this time, 

seek clarity, find serenity,
and get it right once and for all. 

Or else return, like rage
transformed
into storm clouds, ready to raise hail.

six foot four
raised poor
poor education
full head of curly brown hair
civically disengaged
vapes
made me feel valuable
made me feel loved
loved me

and still, we crumbled under capitalism

(alt. title: dakota johnson, girl. $80k with that apartment? in new york city? please.)