I had a dream there was
a giant
outside my window.
His hair was
made of yarn.

He was walking
And stalking
He did not see me there.

And you were
there
right next to me.
I saw you there
lean close to
me
but the room was dark
it was morning.

Where’d the giant go?

I felt your breath draw near to me
I heard the beast walk near to me
I felt your lips press up to me.
close to me
spontaneously

your lips
they touched so
fervently
so warmly
and so they fell
so softly

I’d cross the giant
To feel
to touch
you
With me
Like that
Again.

Before I start my
soul search
I have to tell you
that this self
hunt starts
with you
where inside your
eyes
a lullaby, a
cypress,
reflecting in the moon.
Douse me in your
moon glow
where I can drink your blazing
calm
where I'm floating in your
darkest sky
I've been yours all along.
Before I start my
soul search
and before the
sea foam holds the shores
I'm telling you
I know your soul
because mine's always
lived in yours

I want passion.

I want to be overwhelmed
in the shadow of
100 cacti
mesmerized by a
myriad of bay leaves
rocking in the wind

I hope to be overcome
in the waters of
1000 rivers
where my toes are frozen
and my heart is full

Where America
isn't everything
and fireflies aren't the only
ones who light the night
and where you throw
away the lock
the key
and I can fall
into the arms
of love,
once more.

A mess you have made
and I have fallen
in love with the sun
in my eyes,
even though it blinds me
and all I can see is black
when I look away,
Sunshine, what a mess
you've made.

Across the Delta
Ponds
the frogs are
chirping

and the winged
geese have
flown the
day away

and every
Tuesday
wind is
here,
engulfing

as I watch the
day's
glow fade
from gold
to grey.


the strip across
the sky is
like a puzzle

without borders,
just an orange
or
reddish hue

and the moon
above the
field is
slowly
rising

In all the
ecstasy of
Oregon,
I want you.

The trumpets
sound on
without your
touch
without your
voice and mine
duets bouncing
back and
forth
in harmony
and time.

Orchestras
play
without your kiss,
stringing lover's
song
a sea of bows,
and heaven knows
you've been mine
all along.

Tonight,
underneath the sooty
sweeping sky
where my
amber lights
all blossom in their
honeyed, brilliant
blaze,


I'm no longer
lonely


how do people
do it
where they fall in love
and push ahead
they reach rapture and
keep going,
they reach the height
of ecstasy and only
move on up

It means the world to me,
that for me,
to me,
with me
you've found the edge of
rhapsody  
where you
balance on the
threshold of a
romance ever-
lasting

And there beyond
what I've done right
or wrong
a field escapes
monotony and
turns into a pond
where crickets chirp
and grasses grow
and water carries
swans
and when I see the
bayou's glow
I know that I belong.

I saw you today
for the very
frst time.

la première

I cannot fall in love (again)
I cannot see your smile (encore)
feel no more.

I can only look on
to write
these words
in place
of you (a dream)

words to hold
empty spaces
that appear
when you walk away

à demain

...a dream of you
a false hope
of you.
a vision of what could be of you
(and me)

fantasise

I can only look on
to write
these words

to only
fall in love with poetry

vous êtes poésie

in place of
(l'idée de)
you and me.

Everything
is Champagne
glitter
sparkled stars
weightless in their
rapture,
floating ,
(London to Beijing)

on hand
the world is
red-hot
white-hot
fire that is
burning hot
My love,

you're
all
of
everything.

What would you say
  if I told you the earth spun [it spins] for you
  And where could we have been today
  if I hadn't said the stars shine [that they only shine] for you.
  Could we have been everything [for everything is nothing when I'm nothing to you]
  Could we have been loving [for loving means something, when I'm loving you]
  You're the oxygen in me
  how can I say I don't need you
  when I need you
  [just to breathe]
  How would you react
  If I told you the grass grew [it grows] to be closer to you
  and where would we be at
  if I hadn't said the flowers bloom [that they only bloom] for you.
  Would we be kissing [for each kiss I've missed is a way to your heart]
  Would we be forever [for forever is empty 'cause you've torn me apart]
  You've walked the road with me
  how can I say I'm strong here
  When without you
  [I'm so weak]
  Talk to me, do.
  walk with me, through.
  Tell me that you need me or that I mean something to you.
  Just...
  love me.
  love me.

The flower of once was
the leaves of all the grown.

The leaves and petals and stems and stuff
of all the things I own.

And what is it
I own on Earth?
If not the lakes and sea?

The flower of
my time on Earth.

A time
that own not me.

I broke an egg and
blood fell out
into the pan.
You told me it
was a bad omen
that someone
close to me
would die.
and you touched
my bare hip
and for a moment
I felt fat
even though the
doctor says I'm
losing weight
again, 5 lbs
in 3 weeks,
again.
and I know about the
blood pool in the pan.

People are always saying
"expand your horizons"
and I'm trying to do that

I'm trying to meet
other painters
and I am talking to
strangers in stores

and I am imagining
flying to Spain
and making meetings
in the market place
where the misters
soothe my skin
when sunny streets
are scalding

These stories are
seldom told
where I'm trying to come
out of my little ol' shell
and expand, stretch
my wings and take
up the space I was made
for.

Oh.
Oh is all
that I could say as
you turned your chair
and I saw your hands scribbling fast
incoherent words
on medical
sheets.

Oh.
diagnosed.
diagnosis is all
that keeps repeating
in my head and in my sleep
and dreams you
diagnosing
me.

Expect to get your blood drawn
every visit.
You're a new patient.
The first one's the hardest.

Oh.
I am scared
and no one knows
what I am going through
the thoughts where I don't know
if my body will betray me
lay me down
and go to
sleep.

Oh.
is all that
i could think to
say and feel and where
have all the words gone when
he stares back at my face
and i can't even muster
a questions to this
diagnoses.

Expect to get a call
tomorrow or the
next day for
your next appointment.
the first one is the hardest.

I wasn't made for here.

I wasn't given the tools
I need to
survive here.

I don't know who I am.
I can't tell who
you see me as
who I want
you to
believe me as.

I do not belong with you.

There's something stirring
inside me
billowing with every
breath I take,
every star-eyed
breath I take,
that's why
I'm so alone

I never meant to let you down
or push you into somewhere
where I know you can't
escape

and now I watch your
downfall
and I feel my own
fall
too
and I'm broken underneath your love
and I feel like I need you

and I know that it's not healthy
and I'm soaked in your cologne
I'd rather give you
all of me
than feel like
I'm alone.

We drove out to
Dorena Lake
out past those
little towns,
buried in maps,
"It's not like it's New York
  City, baby."
your sweaty
fingers clamping
a burning cigarette
I can't even look at you.
It's not like New York
City as we
drive past cow
after cow after
barn and
those bails of
hay covered
in white
plastic.

They say the sound
of bird song
calms the
body,
rests the
  pulse.

So fly into my
canopy
beneath
a thousand
trees,
darling,
you're like a birdsong
        to me.

Early this
morning

when the sun had
started her
rise

I put the needle
on Janis Joplin
and she sang to
autumn's chilly
dark

and I filled in my
eyebrows
with a soft, brown
pencil
and I stared at my
self in the
mirror as
I curled my
hair

and I saw you in my
eyes ,
                 somewhere.


I'm giving it my best shot
not to see you
anymore
and so
I put
my
feathered
black
hunter's hat
on and
I venture out
into the
day.

It's finally working like
scarlet
like patterns of roses on
rocks.
Like fossils embedded like
stickers
and lizards our own little
            voyeurs

It's finally working like
summer.
like designs of sunsets with
garnet tipped rays-

Like my sandals are
kicked off and
you're in the
garden
and our chipped
china
black
coffee
for
days

I exist in
moments like
these
where I'm in
your arms
and the windows are
open to
birdsong and
chickens
and quiet, humid
April breezes turn the
posters on the wall-

It's ten minutes before
the alarm goes off
and we go our
separate
ways.

i hate the way that shapes
make shapes
and lines all
connect at
the end.

that i cannot separate
from you

that my end
eventually
meets your end

i hate the way that shapes
repeat all
the time and
connect in ways
that
make me
sick.

and miss you.

and ways that make me miss you

all the same
i hate the way that shapes can never end like you and me.

We always say
the sun
  goes down,

but we're the one
who turns away.

Isn't it funny,
that walking through a
sun-stained, dripping golden
heat garden full of
green and green and green and
pops of
viridian veins
bursting in quiet,
outstretching desire to
feel the warmth of fire of the
closest, neighbor star
that

I find
myself
more lonely
more confused and
for lack of understanding,
hopelessly wondering
what it is, next to
flowers, I am supposed
to do?

Flowers live and drink the sun and God,
to be a flower too.

In my past
life
I was a painting
an oil
dripping off the
palette knife
of some
one who believed
in love and
the beauty of
a butterfly
who can't sit still
for anything, but
flowers.

After everything.

After the embers finally
cooled.
And I left the rain that caused
the chill.

After I felt the touch of
rage
and the hand of anger
try to

finish me

after I heard the breath of
   dying

and I heard the song of
  hope -

after I felt the tug of
rejection on my
sleeve

and the toxic
black and white dream of days

it's
the bitter taste
of nightfall here.

The sinking pause of abandonment.

The hesitant blossom of
springtime.

I hope that I can
find
peace
with the
blisters that
you left me with.

I keep thinking about a white
house in a garden
with drooping dahlias
lining the crooked
stone path

a stone path that leads to
an awning- spilling shadows from its
canopy
down to cover
a degrading wooden
step

I keep thinking about the door
single panel window and
unwashed, dusty curtains,
lace, sunlight bursting through
the
window fogged with
grime and age

I keep thinking of places
that do not exist
and are puzzles of
things I have
seen
before

where even the bees are lazily buzzing symphonies and
the tallest trees I've ever seen sway in their drunken lull,
it's August in southern Oregon and
I keep thinking about a
white house in
a garden

On night's like this
when the air is warm
and heavy
and its humid shades
of green caress
my skin
the empty, shallow
pit of my stomach is
longing
and aching for a
sleepless night of
sin
and the orange glow from
my lamp is
overwhelming
while the blue
tv light fades into
the dark
and I imagine your touch
glazed over my body
where in this moment
I am not falling
apart.

Sitting in bed with
you, back against
the wall,
we talk about
how smoking
cigarettes
is ****
and we laugh
and the 5:30 glow
of soon-to-be-sunrise
floods the wall

it's then you tell me
your stories
your deepest
tragedies
your longings
and your needs
and I can
taste the
whiskey on your
sorrowed tongue

and so I hold
you here,
in my arms,
our shadows changing
shapes in daylight's
advent
where I
want so much to
keep you and we
watch the
sun come up

I'm digging through
buckets of sea glass and
agates
I found on the
beach
prying them out of the bitter, cold
sand,
          -  that ends at
white lines -
and concrete

The wind's in my face
and it's a furious hunt
to the point where I almost can't
   breathe

I'm on a continuous search
my knees caked in
dirt

seeking
     la joie  
           de
                vivre.

I remember
running across fields
with my arms out
like a plane
and leaping over
rocks,
or stumbling,
a fall.
I remember
singing across meadows
with my arms out
like a bird
and looking at
you nod
your head with
me as you
poke a stick into
the ground.

And that pink line

is in the sky again.
and there are

splinters in my hands.

and all I want to do is dig in dirt with you
again.

I'd run across all of the acres of the Callahans to be with you again.

I'm reading a book
but there are no
words

the pages are filled
with lines and curves
while my mind
drifts, it
drifts
away

behind my glasses
it's foggy
behind my eyes
it's hazy
behind the text
the lines of text
You're the text
and I'm the crazy

Crazy,
staring at these words
but I'm not seeing
the meaning,
my mind
pictures you
here, and
commence
silent screaming

Because
on the next page,
it's you
and against the hard spine,
it's you,
when I close the book,
and close my eyes,
switch off the lamp,
you hypnotize,
my bare feet
find and take me
to my
bed

it's you,
and the softest place on earth
(your heart)
*it's you,

I am not the harnesser of energy,
  I'm more like a train station where
good things and
bad things
come and go with
time, that carry me,
fleeting,
and are gone with a
whistle blow

You left me a necklace
before you died.

and it sat in a dark
blue box

My name was
written in your
meandering script
that snaking
serpentine,
dreamy shade of charcoal
against parchment

and inside the box
so softly lie a silver
chain,
& on the
end a butterfly
as stiff as skeleton,
bones

You left me your last gift,
a butterfly

and you became a poem.

Another love poem
Another sad poem
Another poem
an
ode to heartbreak

There's nothing I
can say
that another
writer
hasn't said

another way
to convey
my heart break
and my affection
my equal
yet
unparalleled
experience of
loss
of losing you

another poem of death
and of tragedy
or encore and of hopeless
ness
of all that
lies between

you are gone and I am gone
and every poem I've ever read
is gone
because words
can't exist where
you do not,
my love.

I dreamed about you last night
after six years
of leaving all of my thoughts behind
letting them be closed up and padded away
in suede suitcases
dusty boots under that patio
where
you held my hand so
tenderly

tenderly,
I loved you

and quickly you
flew away

and frightened,
I fell.

How hard it is to be in love
and to forget it all
when I still see you in my dreams.

So I'm
sad that
I can't
conquer
love
and to
think
a year
ago
I didn't
know that
love existed
or that I
could feel it
in my soul
like so

and the sun
sets in its
orange descent
but I see
the world in
mono-color
where I
stumble
as I'm
falling
(I'm falling)
apart

So in hope
of defeating
love, I'll sit
beside my-
self
in the
corner of
my room
and cut
1,000
paper hearts.

There you were
at the end
of my driveway
your bright red
hat against
September's
fog of sunrise

There you were
as you as
ever
waiting with
your hands
shoved in your
pockets

And there I was.
totally
in love
with you-
my gloves and scarves and clothes
hiding my
feelings

so I'll go to
the farm with you.
I'll walk the muddy
apple lines
with you
and I'll pretend it
doesn't hurt me
when
you do not
say my name

and later,
when the LP is on
and the cider's on my stove-
and the dogs are running,
and your body is
pressing mine
I'll hold my breath
as to not tell
you
I love you
ceaselessly

hold me for
another
moment
and remind me
we're just
friends.