Cars Go

While I was dreaming,

You appeared in

mist shadows

Dancing in white dresses

swelling in the breeze

Among the tumbleweeds.

You were barefoot,

And dust ran up your legs

In black clouds.

Your hands sliced

Through the thick air

Like butterfly knives—

As if they were born

In that year

To leave streaks

Of silhouettes

Against a morning sun.

When the rain came

With it’s mass index

Of symbolic gestures,

You stood among

Blue orchids in bloom.

I watched as a distant passenger

As you sat down and laid back

Looking at the dark clouds

Form even darker storms.

You had a smile

connected to nothing

That hangs

like a waning sliver of the moon

In the early months of

the North American winter.

In the dream

I was sketching eights

Into the dust I stood upon

As you laid with the color blue,

Weeping among the shady bloom,

Just off of the path we’d drove

Before we saw storms

That swerved us off of the road.

Then the storm began to settle

And the sun came back

In a blood orange lift

and a cerulean drip.

I walked to you,

laid next to you,

and looked up with you.

Storms clouds filled our eyes

Against the closing blue night.

Your hand gripped mine

As rain clouds cried.

Your belly jumped beneath white

As we waited for the first sign of day,

But the night reined the majority.

In the dream,

We held our first born son

In a rainstorm among orchids

And he wasn’t crying.

He was looking up into the storm

Like the others before him

Who consider the meaning of home.

When I Said I Needed to Leave

ask for poem.

A Plea To Open

So if you’re wondering,

I’m not a hollow space.

I’ve just been dug up

and filled with temporary

feelings of isolation

that have flimsy walls.

I’m not the person you met

a few months back.

That person had experienced

a life shift on his back

that left him up nights shivering

in confusion’s grasp,

and had to deal with the limits

of his dependent past

that left him feeling alone

and stuck in his past.

I’ve grown into a new form,

Grown into embracing being alone,

Grown into self reliance.

I’ve learned a couple tricks

that have influenced positivity

In my day to day complexities,

And one of them has been you.

I was ready to give in—

Ready to throw in the towel

And surrender my emotions

To the mercy of emptiness.

But then I met you,

And for some reason,

You’ve made me feel alright.

You’ve made me see

That there are more

Pressing issues than

Wallowing in the past.

I was stuck on last week,

And you pushed me forward

Into the present,

Looking up an elevator shaft.

You’ve already burned holes

In my eyes,

So take a step out of those

Moon craters

And walk on flat land with me.

We’re playing with that flame

That has a tendency of burning

Anything that gets in its way.

The flame that keeps us warm,

But flares up when we get too close.

I’d like for you to ignore that element

And focus on what’s stirring inside of you.

Because with you, I’ve run in circular ruins,

Stumbled over shattered glass barefoot,

And woke up battered by the evening’s drinks.

The morning the sun peaked through

The shutters, I was awake

Listening to you breath

With your head on my chest.

I was waiting for you to wake so

I could tell you these things.

But when you did, we laughed

And skimmed pages of ourselves

Never closely examining the meaning

Of the information we shared.

Open up to me.

I’m not an empty vessel.

I’ve recently been filled

With inspiration I’d been lacking

In recent memory,

And I believe you’ve helped me

Fill that void.

So open up to me,

Say the things you want to say,

And I will do the same.

The Flash Trail

I hovered about the Pacific seeking the burn of a flash trail
That flared bright and blasting colors across the midnight sky.

I found it waiting in white sand as I contemplated the tide.
It was a fragment of color blinded by black and white.

When it saw me, it spiraled upward then dove into the waves,
pushed against the current while spinning grace through coral reefs,

weaved baskets of driftwood, made disco balls of fish schools,
and road dolphin sound waves on the highest notes pitched.

I clicked my boots I converted into levitation devices
and blasted a charge into the heart of the ocean mist.

I used lightening bolts like ski poles as my momentum control.
I reached to capture it with light speed in my heavy feet

hoping for its glowing grace to graze my fingertips,
but the speed of light traveled faster than my effort.

So my boots transformed into rocket ships and exploded with fury
as I extended my body to the tail end of the flash trail.

I stretched until I felt my limbs begin separate from their sockets,
felt my vertebrate stretch, and dislodge themselves from my hips.

But at last! I caught the anaconda-esque tail whipping to and fro.
The flash trail carried me through obscure galaxies,

dragged me through parallel and adjacent universes,
and coiled around me for solitude in trying times.

But soon it became too warm, and it jerked slowly away in the heat of flames.
I tried to hold on, gripped until my hands exploded with friction,

and blisters ate away at the calluses I spent years covering myself with.
I realized I was holding a flame, and it would only burn me in the end,

then left me with a pile of dust to sweep up and sprinkle into an urn
to remind myself that I tried as hard as I possibly could.

Reasons

This poem was written by Jeff James and myself. 

Edited by me.

I don’t know where it went.

I left my key in your door

And tried to open your chest

To shift and undress your ventricles.

This was not a matter of surgery…

Did the scalpel in my hand mislead?

I’d like to say I know what I’m doing,

But we make loud decisions for quiet reasons.

Reasons are misleading, so back to the scalpel.

This tool came  as a ballpoint pen,

a blueprint to polar shifts and shin splints

Acquired by chasing in excess.

That’s not what I wanted to happen over there—

I left the window open to draft you in

And endure the cold embrace of your breeze.

I’ve been reasonable, but far from malable.

You haven’t moved an inch,

And you haven’t asked me to lift a foot,

But to be perfectly clear,

We make bad decisions for good reasons.

.

Anticipation

I wrote this poem for a friend  I care about deeply; always have, always will. I'll never tell her this is about her because that makes it too damn obvious.


Anticipaton is a set up--
Movement and contact
dress themselves as jesters.

Anticipation is:
A flaw in the Nuclear Lady
and fleeting--

Cancer.

Building lofts to watch
the universe through roof shingles,
through cold winters;
the skylight of grand eternity--

Watermelon deliveries to cafes,
coffee and smokes,
friends new and old.

Anticipation is:
a freckle on your palm--
A letter of acceptance
in a bath of rejection.

The sun parting rain swollen clouds
and the birth of new grass sprouts--
Interest in notoriously mistimed interests.
Unsure of confidence in youth.

Anticipation is:
a blank slate absent of cliche,
world halting put downs,
and slowed momentum.

Hair running over the feminine figure;
the driving sprawl of America, down and out.

Anticipation is a surprise to reality--
Anticipation is expecting what happens next.

To anticipate anticipating anticipation--
Now, that is living safe.

To Be A Man

A man is always chiseled in his own, unique ways,

He is never the same man as another man--no way man!

He maintains a clean and level beard,

or reveals the naked curves of his face with a shave.

He wakes up early to lead a day of decency,

or he sleeps-in and dreams of decency,

either way, a man is decent and true.

A man doesn’t shut down when life unplugs,

he has a generator that’s powered by

another generator, and that’s called heart.

He always has heart, always, always has heart.

A man watches the sunrise a few times,

sees the work of nature in its infant state;

Watches dawn grow into noon, and day age to midnight.

A man speaks when spoken to—a man is honest.

He knows when to bite his tongue.

A man comes home on time; he is punctual.

He greets his family, (or if he has none, greets his home)

with integrity and as the face of integrity.

A man reads Hemingway and drinks scotch,

eats steak with chest hair exposed in a tropical twilight.

He can identify an El Greco, knows

the difference between nihilism and existentialism,

has studied Plato, and can recite Walt Whitman.

A man can budget his time and assets,

can greet people with a smile and shake hands

with the webs connecting between the index finger and thumb

in a colossal grip.

A man can be straight, gay, bisexual, or transsexual—

whichever his beating heart desires.

He can sit in silence with his thoughts when he needs to,

and listen to classical music to calm his nerves.

A man can cry in the company of loved ones;

he is never ashamed to show a range of emotion.

A man can pitch a tent, build a fire, and sing into the moon.

He can fall asleep under the stars, and breath cold air.

A man can acknowledge the logic in caution

but doesn’t always listen when he charges into the heart of the wild.

A man calls his mother at midnight on Mother’s Day,

and goes to basketball games with his father.

A man remembers he was once a boy,

remembers every mistake he made in his youth and

treats those mishaps as instruments of knowledge.

A man can admit when he is wrong,

and he is humble when he is right.

A man is stubborn about injury; ignores physical pain.

He overcomes adversity quietly, then tips his hat

when he finally silences all of the questioning.

A man knows how to use a basic tool set, can fix a leak in the sink,

he can build his little girl’s swing set, or his boy’s tree house.

A man has a pallet for sardela and caviar; can operate a stick shift,

can read a map of New York City; a man will try, try, and try again.

A man is allowed to fail; he swallows his pride in success,

and  can admit when he needs assistance.

A man respects the fact he was made by a woman—

shaped, developed, fed, and nurtured in her womb.

A man respects a woman for what she creates,

he adores what she can become.

But a man cannot do or be all of these things in one lifetime,

and he recognizes that. He tries everyday to be honest,

because that’s what being a man returns to—honesty.

A man—a good man—is honest.