Promises

And after we've gone our rounds,
Let's go for tea,
And say not a word,
About you, nor me. 

Recourses

we danced,
because it was difficult to stand.
we sang,
because it was difficult to listen.
and we loved,
so that all our minds would be full to bursting with other people. 

#12

May all of our goodbyes be in laughter,

And may God grant me the chance to hold your high cheeks,

When we first meet,

When my bones hollow in the wet alone. 

#400

It is an unbelievable beauty,
And the deepest sadness,
It has created me, and it will rend me. 

#484

To all who would be thankful:
Look around.
You cannot explain why any of this has come about,
Yet here you are.

Love in the interim, Love before you learn your own name. 

22:00 prayer

What in the world is this
movement, am I king of the heavens
of pavement, rubble and lovers
torn from their mothers to seek another's breast
Help us O we Insufficient Fallen
to beat the life out of our beds
and awake in fullest canopy. 

Sapient

Meet me,
Tell me there is a corner in this room,
In which I can find some sense,
Feel my forehead,
Whisper into my mouth,
How different you are,
How we should go back into the trees,
There are jaguars down here,
That hunt, that kill,
In a corner in this room. 

Luck

He came down from the mountains,

Walked through the outskirts,

Walked through the town,

Approached the ocean as he would a lover,

Confident but exposed, appreciative,

He fell to his knees,

Pulled from his breast pocket the tired sheet,
That bore his achievement in this life:
He was richer than God.
He could buy Heaven if he wanted to.
Clumsily he reoriented the paper this way and that,
But he could not make heads or tales of it,
Save for a quickly fading memory of what it meant,
He laid it gently in a tide pool beside,
"Take care of that paper you organisms in there!
I hereby promote you to the top of the pile!"
He backed into the foam,
Spirals adapting and learning of his shins, then his knees,
"You are richer than God now!
You could buy Heaven if you wanted to!" 

Going Out Into

Write me a letter
sweet Love,
detailing the indeterminacies of our progress,
the rhapsodical nature of our talking points,
how you never dreamed we'd leave that blessed sound.
And I will write you back,
With my bones and eyes and hands,
That dreams were meant to be kept separate,
But that we are guaranteed to return,
As gusts of wind, as ourselves.

Juice

You tore fitfully
away from smokescreen habits
into a life where there was no one to greet you
O but you did not go back
biting into every pit in every fruit
gnashing of teeth indeed.

Sandcastles

Take me far away
(I have taken you far away)

I am lonely here
(You seem lonely.)

But these droves of birds are beautiful
(Sometime you will share with the birds)

No one is sitting beside me
(You are alone.)

No one is sitting on either side of me
(The paint is faded)

I have no wants
(How could you?)

Will I grow old?

It is very beautiful here,

But living is a hard business. 

Spaceship

In the midst of that mission
To broadcast the death of cowardice to the masses
You turned to me in that spaceship and laughed
"We should have waited for it to snow."
And I loved you then.
Each one of my particles has come together to love you now. 

I am forever,
Waking up in the mist and the wet,
Feeling my extensions for the first time,
Dreaming you rough and unfeigned.

Oh the paths I have trodden that I may look upon your face.

The Hail in Birmingham

Shivering,
Cackling soul,
All your wisdom is so much,
Carrion for the undiplomatic coma.

What do you care that we went to the moon anyway?

Adam

Unfettered
I could not contain the beauty in all your names
So I spread it out amongst the animals
The flora and the ages in our lives.

Iseult

Don't let's steal away,
The orchards have secrets enough,
And I have yet to make my most indelible mistakes.

Father

Kissing your forehead,
The taste of summer sweat,
Talk of half-birthday presents,

These things comprise the marrow in my bones now.

steal through the night

Look up
Hush, look up
The creases in the years in her
White nightgown, lantern-leader
Softly over the moss.

We cannot stay,
We must pass on,
Talk of utopias will bore.

The burning cities
The phoenix born
What lies behind the eye.

Follow the laughter and the hope on all our lips,
Drink of the dew,
Look up.

Status

If Heaven and Hell both contain,

All the value judgements they purport to,

Then I am content to stay in the dirt,

And the seeds,

And the wind.

Dictionaries Will Only Carry You So Far

My children will understand the term "adult"

To be a big mixed-up combobulation of flashes of glimpses of different selves,

But one that certainly means continuing to be a child.