they teach me it’s you i should learn
your insides and out.
but all i know is of your love for back rubs
and coffee
i can make you coffee each morning
(though often i forget)
and i can certainly try to rub your back
each day
but i wonder when it’s over
what i’m missing
in loving
in learning
to know much more than your
every curve
(a detail i assure you i can recite
perfectly from memory)

the learning process is certainly
not tedious, but rather daftly confusing
as i’m bewildered by why beer, donuts,
and me naked aren’t all you could
ever hope for.

when you move somewhere
far enough away from home
you might get there faster
digging down instead of
flying around
and you land and see what will
become your new home and
as you spend the morning wondering
where you’ll have breakfast (and if
it will contain a tree-worm)
you walk the streets and take
in the sky and the sun and begin
to wonder how on earth all of this
will possibly feel normal. feel like
home. and then you live and you
live and one day when you’re running
home in the rain you realize you’ve
arrived and it does feel like home
but you dont know how you got there.

and somehow dwelling on it too long
like the spelling of a comfortable word
makes the whole thing seem once again
uncomfortable

wind blows the rain
batting the ground the way
i shake my sheets to make ripples when
i spread it to cover the whole bed

God’s up there, shaking this rain sheet
making sure he gets enough wind underneath to pull
the corner over the side of this city

then he calms down. tucks us in.
and whispers goodnight

every time a table is delivered
on time and craftily built to fit
through a door in my lovely america
my confidence in this country
which failed to serve me butter
this morning for my pancakes
slightly diminishes. i need to return
home briefly, visit the dmv and
allow myself to bask in the misery
that is american red tape so as
to better appreciate this bureaucracy

yesterday a girl attempted to jump from the 7th floor
to make her fiance eternally regretful of his decision
to cheat shortly before their wedding

and i found my daily time of considering death
has not yet prepared me to stare it in the face

and i found my life experience
has not yet prepared me to sit on the cold floor
next to this crying woman and try to understand

and i hear it
works the other
way around too

the latin folk
created a word for
this and called it
vice ah vers ah

i think its because
they were ashamed
of the many cream
filled frosted delicacies
they allowed themselves
to indulge in during
the decline of their
once impressive empire

we string together memories
of the same place again and again
trying to add flowers or balloons
or whatever will make the same
sidewalk more colorful
on that perfect sunny day we
return to as we write poetry
in our heads just like when we
were 20 and invincible

and losing grip
we turn the music up louder
and smile at our dancing partner
hoping they fade around the same time

some say love
is like a river
but they’re full of it
they’re all old
and stupid folks

the truth is love
is much more like a pond
or a puddle
filled with stagnant
moss
thriving on sun ripened
bacteria

the puddle will never
fade
but it wont be pretty either

oh i write brilliantly when the sun has been hiding behind the clouds for months at a time and i’m frozen. my down jackets and extra layers of all-humanity-is-suffering-alongside-of-me socks bring out the best in my desire for clouds and trees and something which will bring me joy. the hope on the horizon of the summer they claim will come.

but then i up and moved to where the sun will never fail to shine and i cannot pass the hour without both a hat and sunglasses (an accessory i’ve never used in my whole life and thus had to purchase the kind that fades in and out but embarrasses my wife when indoors and still slightly faded – but i love it because at the core of me i love when i’m judged a fool). now the mountains scream beauty to me every day and the last of our issues are being worked out in a city that actually serves donuts.

yes i’m afraid i’ve shot myself in the foot. or as a writer should perhaps better say – in the hand. i fear these bones will continue to type or write into oblivion or at least eternity and be wrought with not even the slightest of inspiration thus bringing you fear, trembling, joy, love, beauty, and everything you ever longed for

sans poetry.

sleep
cereal
tea
bible
pray
feed kids
bike
run
share
lunch
encourage
dream
pray
share
tea
more tea
shake
bike home
feed kids
chillax with the wife
rinse
repeat

we can see for miles
on these hills they measured in meters
and beat our heads firmly
on rocks placed here as an ebenezer
by our ancestors.

that or we can buy donuts
beer
and celebrate

i wear my feet down as though
sandpapered through pebbled
ground to rebuild the skin in
thicker measure and learn to
run as my great great great
grandfathers did because some
guy in a book somewhere told
me it would change my life

it has.

i never thought i’d live to see the day i drove from clouds to sun through 13 hours of straight misery pass graveyards in fields still growing grain and corn in first, second, third, and fifth gear because fourth broke down somewhere along the way and we had to stop and pull a crazy maneuver in the hills of some asian country we could swear looks just like the baja to turn around roll down the hill 10 kilometers to a guy who said he could fix it, couldn’t, and then promised he could in three days, or we could simply continue without a fourth gear.

never thought i’d see the day where i moved to my dream home in my dream country doing my dream job and getting friggin paid to dream of growing a kingdom that’s not my own, of which i’m only a citizen trying to be faithful to something more than dream.

the day came
and praise my heavenly father
my Lord and God Jesus Christ
He brought me here to dream
dreams far too big for one man
alone and pray for change in
the lives of 9 million people

and the future of this country.

if dodge were a place you
would go when you die
then i would be running for
my life as i desperately flee
this place of horrible pain
suffering and misery.

to emerge in rebirth
stepping into the light
i’ve purchased sun glasses
for fear of shock and i hope
the doctor has the clarity
of mind to give me a good
slap on the back to ensure
i continue breathing

tonight
i gathered with what are soon to be old friends
(i’m moving in 10 days you know) and we sang
and sang something like karaoke
for four hours till our voices grew horse
then settled for dinner.

“rabbits head”
we picked because hey.
what the hell are old friends for if not
a good rabbits head once in a while.

i suckled at the brain. it tasted like you’d think
(spongy, salty, spicy, awkwardly disgusting and not
just in principle) and i knew my vegetarian
friend there with us
would appreciate and remember this as our last
meal together

when i lived here.
ate this. sang that. played with you and wished you

farewell.

standing more on the pads of my feet
and leaning slightly backwards to improve
my posture as i complete my sweaty run
all but barefoot and walk back into my
house feeling bigger than samson richer
than jobs and sexier than, well, my normal me
today i press the wife.

“what woulds’t thou have me to conquer?”

for i’m empowered right now to take on the
world. but your coffee? you want it ground?

conquered.

in patiently awaiting my new home i’ve discovered something like yoga. i call it misery.
take three and call me in a few weeks. if that doesn’t work. take more. overdosing leads to extreme misery, and then small amounts of joy followed by a positive life change.
it’s hard to plead the grass is greener
when there is no grass.
but then again… on the other side….

today i brought something into this world
which was not here before
i birthed the non-existant into the air
giving it oxygen to taint
tomorrow i’ll set me sights higher

i promise to bring for you
something more than poo