Love can be like
trapped light
existing like dusk
the likes of which we can't see
physical but not optical
gravesites for stars
a waystation for dreamers
a delta to cruise through
paradise on Sunday
cold as ice on Monday
a hundred pound block on tongs
with a butterfly at its center
your temple of madness
or the Egypt of your ***
lands of mystery
an island of death
proven theories of sorrow
your lineage, children, tomorrows.

is
I come home from a hard day of manual labor
pop a top
go through the notifications
and see
real people somewhere out there
in the stream
just as ****** up as I am
and they
plussed me
took the time to comment
they wrote some great poetry
I go to do what I can
to let them
know that someone just like them
****** up alone worried
but awesome
saw their works their
heart strings and visions
their open wounds their hurts
their
words telling me
I am not the only one
out there in the stream all ****** over alone worried
angst word filled touched
by their words their cries their tears;
in the end we all drown;
for now we paddle
keep our heads up

When love comes to visit
she only stays a few days
at a time; her work in the city
is important she says, so
she brings her satchel of books

I wait at the crossroads
where the bus lets her off

Then we go to bed to dream
where she sings and hums
before morning comes

When she gets up
and pulls on her jeans
and goes out on the porch
it's so early you can see the moon
and the sun; I go to work
while she lays around
to read and do what she does

The days go so slow
and when I get home
she's baked some apples
and painted my bedroom blue

The next morning
I take her up the road
to the bus; we say so long

She never talks about her job,
so I leave her  alone.

when I thought
when I worried
when the moon
came up too early

when I saw all alone
on the edge
ruddy high above
sky so weary

like a dove
who had spied
war and flew
up above

to get normal
all alone
I got nervous

all alone all hurried
called above come save me
dove

she just cooed
looking down
so up high

and I was wingless

the frailty
of that simple stem arising
with all the glory beauty

with such a fragile base
out of the bare earth
holding high to the light

her own telling her rendition
of simple splendor
on a thin stem

Live in the moment*, we exhort ourselves as well as others,
But such a mandate is a fool’s errand, nothing more,
For all which we endeavor, all we savor and regret,
Are transitory things, snatches of synapse,
Fireflies gone a-gleaming before we can fasten the cap,
All Chinese-checkerboarded with air holes, onto the jar.
So forgive me, then, for not extolling the virtues
Of your laugh, your smile, a certain set of jaw or wrinkle of nose,
For those are fleeting morsels of time,
Mere snapshots, flat and obsolete at the click of the shutter,
Like the crimson-iris inducing Instamatic images of long ago.
Rather let me, then, dwell
Upon the aftermath of these glimmers in time, in your eyes
Those crevices of memory and apprehension
Where the momentary acquires its shading and gradation,
Its context and concreteness, its niche in ones cosmology
Of those things which flutter the surface
Of somnambulant ponds of sleep,
Roiling the stuff of our dreams for better or for worse.

Because it's different now and
not like it used to be if it ever was,

different.

I'm different
looking at things differently
some things interest me
others do not

and I feel like 'Lot'
carrying a bag of salt,
but that's the Methodist in me,
a touch of the weirdly wonderful
Wesley in me.

How can we be content to be
different
when it all looks the same?

(playing the advocate
is the Devils game)

It comes and it goes
shows up in newsfeeds
everyone leads a different life
but not like they used to.

Technologies,
ogres and catastrophes
devalue evolution
making Darwin
obsolete

and we complete the circle
by building boxes,
dwell in
cells
which is different
but the same as
a prison.