Darling, breath-breaking words,

Forgive me, but what does it mean to live? 
            consumed by a flickering fire tying the gray of smoke to ash
            with a song of crackling hisses and touch like dizzied wrath
Or burn? 
            firecracker laughter eroding smile lines onto the young face
            with the confidence of a perennial lover, caressing, holding
Or grieve? 
            welcomed into the pit of water, falling and fading, molasses
            dripping into itself, heavy and sweet and teethed and gone
Or drown? 
            memories lodged between the throat and world, a spinning
            reality taking its tax, the reminder of the old, indelible debt
Or think?
            a wild thing, hitting the clear window pane then the sponge
            of the skull, looping, a boar, crashing into glass and brain

Forgive me, but I think we’ve used you too liberally.
            metaphors employed like maids, stanzas split for aesthetics,
            and sentiments dashed to hurling, whirling desensitization
Oh, to live, to burn, to grieve, to drown!
            to think, magnificent, breathing in the weight of the written,
            ink against the blinking cursor, mechanical clatter, the rasp
You give so much with your every appendage.
            sans readers, writers, or dreamers, the beauty is sans eyes,
            shape over sound and the novel gleam above the gleaning

Forgive me.
            we, the discombobulated, will die as dust but you will endure,
            you, the facts, confessions, laws, lists, orders, stories, truth

Yours,
a Poet

Almost to the hours of the day
when the outside begins to disagree
with my enjoyment of fresh air.
The heat can be managed
but it’s the sun’s creeping beyond the eaves above
that starts to bake me in my tattered lawn chair.

The view is nothing spectacular;
a couple restaurants and the liquor store
that kept me well-imbibed during lockdown,
an intersection drivers can’t figure out,
the crossing road not perfectly aligned
sure to spark a road rage showdown.

When the light finally becomes too much
I’ll begrudgingly be chased back inside
and that’s when the rest of the day can begin.
Do I need to go to the store? Is it time for laundry?
Are friends gathering later for some pickleball
or do I just say fuck it and spend the whole day in?

A little bit of day-drinking may be in order
sipped slow to maintain an evened out buzz;
relaxed, but still able to venture out later.
Before that, though, is the sun’s continued crawl
now dropping below the tree line, the returning
of cool air, when the shadows are straighter.

Back out comes the chair, a book to read, a beer
or a glass of wine if I’m feeling fancy.
So begins the next set of hours.
And it will be hours unless social desires call-
the need to be around people tickling my restless-
or until it’s the dark of night that overpowers.

But regardless of where I spend the day’s end,
whether sitting at a bar or laying in bed,
the inching of the skies now belongs to the night.
I’ll soon awake in another rebellion for peace
with dreams of this routine for the rest of my days
content, setting out my chair at morning’s first light.

I see green
a prairie or plane
rising and raging
like a sea
The sky above
yellow with tints
of orange
perhaps dawn
perhaps dusk
sweeping
like the land below
sweeping
with no where
a hint of man
This is pure freedom
undisturbed
and disturbing
as freedom should be
as if everything
is a storm
about to strike
Pure freedom
which is why
it will never be
locked in a frame
It is as a stallion
racing across the range
Caging this canvas
would be a crime
 
                                     for Kami

don’t quote me on this, but poetry thrives
in the place my mood stabilizer aims
what a twisted thought, finding art in pain
spread my hide, dehydrate it, display it 

wish I could bottle the place pain derives 
feeling light and blank is normal and fine
pain goes from the thing you feel to you see
kept in a little frame, manageable 

is making a spectacle of myself
the only way I can sculpt? or could I
glance outside, see more than just pain growing?
set my pencil down, and if I’m able 

arrange plates, spoons, and napkins, set the knives
let my hope have dinner at the table 

The temperature soars 

and I’ve so much work to do.

The home ground shifts before my eyes.

Stones are melting and purslane is taking 

my garden, edible but frightening, too,

for the bugs are eating everything 

as first leaves emerge, except the purslane. 

Nothing usual works. If I resort to seven dust,

it’ll feel like defeat. I don’t want defeat,

I want green plants in my garden. 

I need fruits and vegetables

like I need hills and rivers. 

I want wild and tame, 

together. 

unplugged
hands free to wrap around
garden implements, cooking utensils,
musical instruments, carpenter’s tools,
books, friends, lovers, babies;  hair
and make-up done by wind and sun,
clothing along for the free ride, bare
feet dug into soft dirt, down
past bullets and buttons
of the recent ones, beneath the bones
of ancient ones, to touch the heart
of Great Mother herself

what they do is worth doing.
i try not to stare at them too much

The space between
an idea and the paper
lengthens with each distraction 
you trip over.

Each second it takes,
another percentage reduction
you’ll remember the whole,
the parts or nothing at all.

Flirty fishes fins
flash by my thighs not letting 
me touch their vibrant skins.

Raised by kin and creed to despise waste, doubly horrified by
Pseudo-Christians wielding scripture to bury the talents of
disenfranchised by birth, inclination, orientation