I have been in Pennsylvania,
In the Monongahela and Hocking Valleys.

In the blue Susquehanna
On a Saturday morning
I saw a mounted constabulary go by,
I saw boys playing marbles.
Spring and the hills laughed.

And in places
Along the Appalachian chain,
I saw steel arms handling coal and iron,
And I saw the white-cauliflower faces
Of miner's wives waiting for the men to come home from the day's work.

I made color studies in crimson and violet
Over the dust and domes of culm at sunset.

welcome home!

i don’t have money for balloons but i figure since the county had enough money to repaint the roads, white and yellow might be just enough color to welcome you back to northeast ohio.

it’s a nice contrast.  against the grey sky and the grey grass and the grey trees and my greying hair.  

but enough about me.  tell me what you’ve seen.

you’ve seen the pyramids and the pyrenees and the pygmies and the phillipines and i’ve seen pennsylvania and passed through Paris township

you’ve seen thailand and i’ve seen a therapist

you’re taking your life as far as you can take it and i take a pill because there are times when i just can’t take anything but enough about me

welcome home

i don’t have money for flowers but i figure since the county had enough money to repaint the roads, we could take a drive while you talk to me about all the girls you’ve seen.  

the ones who are prettier than me with beautiful accents while my tongue is heavy with the cleveland “A” and my hair is turning grey and i’m starting not to wear so much makeup but you won’t notice anyway

you’ve crossed mongolia while i threw pennies in the monongahela

you’ve leaned your head on the wailing wall and i’ve leaned my head on my bathroom wall, wailing because i actually wanted you after all

i looked so beautiful that day and you know it.  i looked at the mirror and thanked god for giving me at least one day.  

and then i looked at you and i cursed him for not giving me at least one more.

welcome home.  

i don’t have any plans but i figure since the county had enough money to repaint the roads, we could end up wherever you wanted.

i don’t know what the roads you’ve been on were lined with, with but here they’re lined with telephone lines and cash advances, even though no one talks to each other and we’re not advancing on anything, let alone cash

things haven’t changed.  except my hair is getting gray but you’ve known me for twenty years, it was bound to happen someday.  and i’ve decided that not wearing a lot of eye makeup is okay because i can see my family every day that way

but enough about me.  tell me what you see.  

i don’t have any place to be.

10 pm in front of Chipotle
and you said, this is my [rusty] Chevy [something],
which had a radio that played exceptional static
for us to tune out on the trek to Mount Washington.

It was raining, but we had already driven all that way
and so we stood outside anyways
in the low hanging clouds above Pittsburgh.

I said, I’ve never been on a date
         with a girl      before.

And you said, is it everything you thought it’d be?
And with that

we decided to see who could throw a rock the farthest
[which you won]
and who could name more constellations
[which nobody won, because there
were no stars in sight on that Tuesday night].

Then the couple next to us left
and a new one arrived
and the blanket of fog temporarily lifted
to reveal the UPMC logo.

We watched as the number of tiny office lights
diminished, looking a little bit like an end of the world
power outage in slow motion—

and we silently shrunk in the weight of the moment
as the Earth turned and dragged the seconds along,
and the water of the Allegheny and Monongahela
merged into the Ohio the way our bodies connected at the hands;
two posterchildlesbians showing a city
how
         to
                     fall
                                 in love.

My favorite spot in a world. When you approach the bushel of trees and twigs, it simply seems as a bunch of cluttered weeds and plants. As you continue to go upward through the mud, rocks, and jaggers prickling possibly ripping at any bare skin exposed. You enter a large dirt mound, with a nature made bench rock for you to sit over. A few stories above the Monongahela river it shows the most beautiful view while being shrouded by vines and trees all around it. The space where you have is not very big at all. That's what makes it so special, it's a small hidden place on top a hill in a hidden pass looking over as a guardian to the world with trees, the river, the river bank of sand and trees over shadowing the water. During the Winter it will show you the trees asleep with a blanket of snow tucking the trees away, during the Spring it shows a beautiful surge of life throughout the massive hillside as far as the eye can stretch, Summer makes the hills be covered top to bottom with the florescent forest that cover any form of hill they are on, in the Fall it is a color game of red, yellow, orange and brown. Decorating up and down the hillside, falling into the river, mixing together colors only some of the best artist in the world could ever hope to paint. During the Summer the shores hymn with life, and cheerful people casting lines to the river, firing lighting their path. From this spot the world seems so perfect. It is also a fantastic reminder that a few drops from the end could turn everything off. Lights out forever, the ledge shows you the life you could have fruitful and beautiful; forever changing. While you are still on the edge from nothing.

A lone fisherman in his retirement years
sat in a folding chair just off the bike trail
along the Monongahela River.
‘Any look today?’ I asked.
‘Doesn't matter,’ he said.
‘I started fishing years ago
to get some time alone.
Any time I'm here I feel lucky.’
The smile across his face
proved his point.