There was no trace of umbrage
Between  us two
And no one knows
Why it was vexed
And went away

it is safe to assume that my poetry will not make you love me back.
you can wash your hands of me,
but once i have tasted you my lips will spill sonnets about loosing myself in your voice until my throat is dry.
i will uncurl metaphors for your smile and the sun and
how they both pour golden light through the cracks in my ribs and into my heart,
until im empty enough to make room for you to fill me.
do not fall in love with a poet.
better, do not let a poet fall in love with you.
we make nasty habits of bleeding ourselves dry to make enough ink out of our blood to fill the page.
do not let a poet fall in love with you,
unless you crave an immortal soul,
because we will write about you on the walls on the inside of our coffins.

I am both fascinated and
Terrified by you,
And the way that you move me
With the subtleties of your being.
And I suppose I forgot that my heart could beat faster
Than its usual, too-steady,
Too-predictable pace.
You remind me that
Nothing is predictable.
You remind me of the person I am
In my favorite dreams
After which I wake up
Disappointed,
Simply because they are over.
I never feel more alive,
More wholeheartedly present in a fleeting moment,
Than when it is you
With whom I share it.
The purest warmth I’ve ever known
Is the closest I’ve ever been to your chest,
And it is there that I know I am home,
Drinking in the glow
Of everything that you are.
I touch you and
Forget immediately how to be anything
But yours.
I touch you and
Realize immediately that there is no way to be
That could ever be enough.
My favorite mystery,
You defy normality
In every possible way.
You are a beautiful
Anomaly.

for Leonard Cohen
RIP*

That holy voice that undid the buttons of dresses
whispered them off shoulders onto the floor;
songs that celebrated the pellucid sky of Greece;
the dark confessions of hustlers and junkies;
Abraham poised with the knife of obedience;
the desperate Hallelujah of broken kings;
razors in the hands of beautiful losers;
generous assignations in dingy hotels;
the singular Glory of the god of Art;
spoken in the minor chords of death;
celebrating the discordant mystery of life;
danced to the very end of love, never missing a step.

So pleasant was the weather
a summer spent together
she's *****-trapped with pleasure
sensations in great measure
To you, she was a treasure
but today there's nothing deader
than the tingles in your head or
the fantasy to wed her.

Tell me of her touch
like earthquakes in foreign lands
that you can feel between
your legs
like ocean water churning, churning
falling upon you when you're burning
from a sky so vast, it seems
that your dreams are pauper's dreams
She's like that same sky in the night
so dark... so bright
your eyes are alight
with infinity in sight
and you take a bite
of her honey cream thighs
you feel alone
and then she sighs
and you are responsible
it's like some living math
you plus her
in a bubbling bath
equals roiling memories
that cage as much as free,
freeze as much as warm.

What choice do we have?
Life is a choice of slave masters...
Be enslaved by love,
or dominated by hate:
either way, there's pain.
Either way, there's a rain so fierce
all the world is swept away,
but you and she, she and you,
you can never be erased,
for you are not earth and tree;
you are not river and rock;
you are spirit:
a thing proved unconquerable by death.

So, after life, when there is time to linger,
think upon the touch that tingles.
Heaven waits for all men,
each woman a
piece of
it.

I have scars etched across my skin
like raindrops that drizzled down and stained
the yellowing pages of your notebook.

I don't like talking about the black outs,
where my mind goes,
what's left of me.

I don't like talking about what triggers them,
or who I am after I come to.

but these scars are physical reminders
of memories I never got to remember.

and every time you kiss them
I think to myself
"maybe even that part of me,
whoever she is,
deserves to be loved too."

and I wonder if looking
at my hands and arms
makes you sad,
or if feeling the raised skin
makes you uneasy
but either way

I love when you kiss my scars
and make me whole.

Copious birdsong with candor along the windward lake shoreline
Natures electricity demanding conduit at the forest divide
Chipper 'Wrensong' , curious Ravens speak of the morn , rollicking gray tree barkers , southbound 'honkers' ride the blind of Autumn sun , diamond piedmont dew dabbled with new-day spices of black pepper , sage and English tea cinnamon
Brown cathead biscuits , warm sorghum syrup and peach butter breakfast
Cattle call bell tones crack the solitude , the thunder of hooves embellish the shine of rolling pasture , of thick spearmint beside gravel roads , steam collecting along quiet pecan groves , o'er fertile fields at rest