run me down to
the shore
grab my hand and
pull me to
the rocky beach
through the thick mist
peppered with salt and
pine and sea
through the deepening
shadows of the streets and
by the electrified home windows
that echo back
our bright laughs
we stop short of
the water, and molecules
collect in our hair –
in the needles of the trees
we share a glance
a squeeze
a heartbeat
and the sun has set
I got creative
when the Amtrack
bartender heard ‘gin’
instead of ‘Jim’.
The tonic’s fizz lifted
my head and thrashed it
like a believer speaking
in tongues and possessed
by the spirit’s flame.
Creative like the guy
who thought of the
cup that held my
clear bubbled elixir.
He decided to make
cups out of plants
and now the earth is getting
saved – and not just on Sundays –
but everyday,
One disposable
cup-made-out-of-plants
at a time.
droplets vein and
track down the
slicked and glistened
glass window.
their quiet silence and
my lover’s voice
wake me – it’s saturday.
morning thunder
rumbles out of place,
audibly unfamiliar – belonging
to a summer afternoon
still to come.
chugging low crashes
soundtrack the small
chores of the early day and
rattle the panes once
in a while.
the gray dawning is
sublime and mortality
hangs in the air
between our two bodies – No,
it flashes with a
glance and shakes us,
each to each’s core.
damn it.
I think I left it
in my other pants…yep.
in the right front
pocket with my credit card
and just a little
bit of lint.
well, can’t go
back and get it
now. I guess
I’ll just make
the best of of it
hope I don’t get
tested. hope I’m
strong and good
on my own…you know,
capable.
I mean, it’s a big
busy world out there
and it swallows us all
up without even
thinking.
I wonder if anyone’ll
even notice. People
must forget theirs
all the time…
We floated in
Warm muddy water
Calm and lapping on the
Gummy sandbars
Woke earlier in the night for
Reasons that I don’t know or
Reasons I forgot
Dark night scatter-lit
From above and we marched out
To catch the receding tide
Heels sucking in Mexican clay
I’m pretty sure
Cortez was an asshole
But I didn’t know the guy
His sea, though, is just
The kind of adventure that pulls
Some kids from far away
We floated in
black and starlight
and I can’t remember what
we talked about or
if we talked at all
but that night I was sure that
mystery was real and that
life was a stunning gift
it rolled over me in
tides of curling diamonds –
phosphorescence that
I hope Cortez saw too
i wash dishes
in the low yellow light
of my small evening kitchen
while my lover’s voice
paces and animates
the ins of the day
and the outs
i wash dishes
with my back aching and
my shoulders rounding to my core
my mind rushing and
utterly still in the
warm water and suds
i wash dishes
in the atmosphere of music
on a bright weekend morning
while enormous white
clouds roll through the
wild blue in the window
behind me, bidding
me to live abundant
always
I expect that you will earn your keep –
that you will bring home the bacon
but not eat it – cause it’s bad for you,
you know?
I expect that you will broaden
your horizons and will make your mistakes and learn from them and learn from
everyone else’s – but still have some fun, because boys
will be boys.
And I expect it’s time for you to be a man – expect you to take on responsibility and
pay your dues – I certainly paid mine.
But I expect you to travel and
jump off cliffs and start saving for your future and try new things and work long hours and get a graduate degree and learn a new language and know your priorities and
live for adventure and keep your blackberry on and spend time with your love…
But definitely, certainly, absolutely, and without an ounce of doubt –
I expect that now is the time to contribute
to your IRA.
wherever they want
crocuses bust up, purple
but here it still rains
some days lunch just tastes
so much better and you eat
gratitude ’til full
I watched a man-
a construction worker-
eat a sandwich at
a huge picture
window, a fifth story window.
Outside the snow slowed to
a float, flakes
suspended in the grey
New England morning.
He sat heavy on
an upturned crate and
chewed, looked out the window
over his shoulder at
the slabby world around him.
Outside light snow rose upward
past him on the
opposite side of the
glass and hung, hovered – paused.
He wiped the corners of
his mouth and
gazed hard one more time,
tossed the wrapper to
the ground, pressed hands
to knees,
lifted,
and strode back to building.
Outside snow sifted
downward again,
finely,
then furiously.
Dirt in the mouth.
Each grain that grinds over
The tongue
Tastes oddly identifiable,
Each mineral familiar.
Pick oneself up and
Beat the dust from jeans.
Rub the dirt away and
Yet deeper into pores
Savor
Flecks of bone calcium and
Iron that dissolves,
Sticking to gums like blood,
Tannins of wine and
Earthy tea,
Charred granules of
Carbon burnt meat,
Copper, nitrogen, and manganese linger and
Slick the pearled teeth
Hands finely gloved
In dirt that sinks
Low into the furrows
Of grated palms.
Rubbing eyes with bits of aluminum and
Deposits of sulfur
My gaze starts where my feet are
Planted and
Jumps up to
Meet the horizon
I breath deep and
Run ahead with
Mud and spit and sun
Spackled across my face.
we used to
live here.
the soft and
indigo evenings were
ours.
we were folded
in the
valleys and scars of
the red rock and
the land.
we climbed and
we ran – we
strolled and breathed
deeply with
rich minerals in
our water and
warm sun on our
shoulders.
we absorbed all
we could.
but there was
more and
there was
less than
the fine grains and
glittering flecks
that accumulate and
weather in memory.
those that
are transposed in
pen-strokes are
often incomplete.
we used to
live there. and
now we are two
by the sea.
and all that glows in
dusk behind us and
all that anticipates in
warm dark ahead
is ours!
ours for the making,
ours for the building, and
ours for the taking.
I love bright mornings
cold air bites,warm bricks glow orange
day breaks over me
In Boston
I see boxy blue cars.
Tired blue buzzards.
On roads, I can’t
Tell if they come or go.
Parked, I don’t know the front
From the back.
They have flown cross country.
Seen deserts and
Churning snow storms.
Fine Swedish engineering
You wish would last forever.
But I ride the train.
I come and go.
In giant, clanky lunch pails
On wheels.
Peeling and rusting on rails.
Full of boots and coats and earbuds
And more blank stares.
Knowingly or unawares;
I cannot tell.
A single strand slung
around my calf or across
my chest.
Her long feathery threads
attach like lithe stowaways
on my socks;
cling to the gruff stubble of
my chin as if it was
the single hair to
escape my razor.
She declares through radiant
wisps that which is hers,
Wisps in predictable and unlikely
places announcing;
This man is mine!
This man is mine!
I claim him and he adores me!
Do strangers notice?
Do passersby see the signs?
It matters not.
The signs are there.
Her precious woven gold
marks me.
Wonder is written allover
a young woman’s face.
She walks beneath the vaulted
arches
and stately shelves
of humanity’s
accrued and finite wisdom.
History and Science-
Romance and Mystery-
The Bellicose and The Transcendent-
stacked neatly,
and made known.
The measured clicking of her heels
sounds throughout.
She releases a sigh
from a space within-
pillared and buttressed
and no less
marvelous.
She exits in low light
beneath a
glowing, jeweled-green sign,
and leaves the dust
clinging to
stone and wood
and pages undisturbed.
I forgot my belt today.
Reflected in the glass
I see a little boy,
can’t be more than 2,
in khakis and a tucked
blue checked shirt –
a beard, broad shoulders,
and no belt.
the sieve and the sand 