Milk
is the word of the day
when a frost bitten dawn
coats the still green
grass underneath
like crystalised milk
Milk
is the word
and milk is the world
when the sea of east
meets the northern
winter swept down
drawing whisps, patches
and curtains of water
into a smooth wall
of shiny white milk
Milk
all around me
on the balcony
through milk I see
like grains of cereal
in pale white distance
in the giant curved
petals of the
highway intersection
swirls
Poems are plotted
and prodded
and pulled
and pinched
and pushed
and punched
to perfection
But don't deserve
the cliche of clay
this
is a latch-hook legacy
Words knotted or woven
and kneaded
and pulled through
so each may stand
solidly in solidarity
but together translate
convex cartoons
of balloons and bunnies
flags and felines
lions and lime sherbet cones
each effort evident
straining against substance
bending, but not breaking through
I ponder and pine
why I weave
instead of sculpt
Resulting in revolting
Latch-hook legacies
Not clay cliche
Or marble magnificents
The record player
Scratches out memories.
Old songs haunt me
With what might have been
I travel back in time
To when decadence
Was treated with reverence.
Footloose travels on a whim
To see a site, to see a movie,
To see a friend.
Ah friends…
Friends to the end of time
Have found the end
Of their time.
Did time stand still
Or did the sand run out?
I’ve gone from wishing time away
To hoping to find another minute
Another hour, another day.
I say no regrets, regretfully.
Ignoring the ghosts
Of lost dreams.
Until the song ends,
The needle lifts
And the record player
Turns itself off.
A bus crashed last night
Broke bones and shards of glass
Wounded flesh and innocence
Shook the community to the core
And we screamed silently
Prayed loudly
Heard the echo of our prayers
In the hollow of the halls
We were blessed, but broken
Lucky, but shaken
Fortunate, but torn
And today I sought embrace
In a voice on a coast I've yet to see
In a hand of a girl I've yet to meet
And she laughed
And the month of discomfort
Slid away
Like that bus in reverse
Sliding up
Back up
To normal
To right
Seeing you appear in a dream that was not my own
had me believing in the the mirror image of your envied lover.
I threw a stone and watched my relection shatter
and hit the floor.
Alone I slowly sink into the familiar sea of self pity.
I was only trying to drown my broken heart.
Later on, as I remember the way we were I refused to let the puzzle pieces fall apart.
Quietly I turn to you with open arms
with a porpusful lack of sensibility I sweep a thousand lies beneth my bed.
In the shallow water of my shower I remember all the things I wish I hadn't said.
What would I rage against if it weren’t for the dying of the light?
And what my dawn be if I hadn’t been through the night?
What would I know if I was never wrong and always right?
and how brave would I be if I never had to fight?
See sometimes in life the questions are more important than the answers
because the answer is without the question is meaningless
and maybe this means less
knowing
but the truth is I don’t want to know it all
all I want to know is how to think
and maybe the world isn’t rosy and pink
but it’s just as well because I like all the colors
I like the blue and the red and the orange
black and white
even shades of gray and such
it keeps me in touch
with the plan
and with everything I claim to know
I still don’t understand
like the tree of knowledge
doesn’t do anything but make me self conscious
so I drop the fruit
but the lesson I learned in time
is the branch cannot bear fruit except through
the vine
it’s so divine
like water into wine
and so much more
I was who I am before I was formed
and now I free to be me
more than ever before
and there’s so much more
in store.
too dreary
too saturday morning
too damn long
from head to hand
I think, misfire, go back again
rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat
fail more fail over
a presicion task
preformed by drunken
hands in boxing gloves
too damn far
from mind to muscle
foggy, fuzzy, foggy, foggy
just trying to get
out of bed
dammit
A job is something you have to have
And work is just that...work
My dad would say to me
Today I could prove him wrong
And I would say to him:
Dad, do you know what it's like
To love your job?
To look into the eyes of
The most troublesome of students
And see the dawn of a new day?
Do you know what it's like
To adore what you do?
To listen to their voices
As they chatter on, excitedly
As if they had won the lottery?
Do you know what it's like
To finally be proud of your position?
That pride rising like
The sun on fast-forward
To settle permanently at noon?
Because I do.
And all I have to say is that
Work is, indeed, work
But what I have is a career.
Cold and crisp
two girls on ponies,
blonde on palomino
brown on bay,
canter across the frozen fields
dusted with a haze of freshly fallen snow
weaving an equine dance.
Laughing.
I stand beside a ruined homestead
built two centuries ago
by refugees from the New England mobs.
Just a foundation and chimney now,
atop a frozen knoll.
Suddenly they appear
from behind the knoll.
They wheel around me
whooping savage
flesh and leather
hoof and steel.
A brief moment I am
eye-to-eye with the bay,
nostrils flared
blowing steam,
both near panic.
Then they are gone,
laughing,
horse-butts across the field
kicking up a crystal dust
that slowly settles
sparkling diamonds
in the cold sunshine.
Later as we walk back
the brunet says
to the blonde
‘sotto voce' like,
“Bet my dad
almost shit himself
when we buzzed him.”
“ Young equestrians
usually refrain
from barn talk
in the presence of their elders.”
was my best response.
“Lucky for you your mother
is not here.”
was lost as they giggled
and trotted off.