Poets

Have you wondered why we are poets,

blessed and damned to wander

the streets of these cities,

countries,

lands,

until we findlose/losefind ourselves in them

and epiphanize and eulogize

the future that has passed?

instrument

your hollow body makes a home for me
as my fingers stumble strangley over you
and get caught in that which is still unknown
but I will break my hands to get to know you better
See, even now it hurt to type these words,
but you resonate with power
and I think of the time you consume,
and the hearts and hands you break,
daunted? maybe
sly smiles lead to better plays

Goodbye

Goodbye: we're leaving now.
break the champagne on the bow,
pack our bags and go away,
and as we pass each other say:
Goodbye, we're leaving now,
though in truth I am unsure how
all this time has come to pass
and just what makes a class a class.
footsteps echo in the empty hall
and as we pass each other, call:
goodbye. We're leaving
Now, I do not when I shall see you all again
as you become another face
woven into to time and space
This makes me hesitate to say
"goodbye, now. I'm going away."

to be here

Weeks now i have watched you froth into the asphalt as i try to decipher
the words and symbols painted on your concrete
and inked into your skin
you are a blood blister
hot and ready to pop
straining against your ropes
and sweat clouding your eyes
I have difficulty distinguishing your edges on the horizon
the sunlight highlighting sharp corners
and casting darker shadows
but i have been here all my life
and i know you as such.
your confluence straining
merging currents
a myriad of one million places
people
lives crammed together under a smogged dome
are your streets my veins, my hideaways?
my scars, your pain and failure?
You are a mosquito bite and i can't stop
tearing away at the skin of you
unearthing secrets
cobbled streets and an overturned ants' nest
of twisted streets and bloodied lanes
what makes you bristle in the mid afternoon heat?
curse and swear the days away
but you ring out until
nawd fo egde eth
draws you backwards over schedules,
make work projects
and congestion filling your air
is this what it means to be "city"
?
to be 'place'
?
to be here?

July 4

There is a haze and it feels like a ghost town
with empty streets and the merest hint of trickles of cars escaping the net of your holiday weekend
with trips and stops and hours in the car
all the people glow in the early light and the faint echoes of their footsteps meld with church bells at a distance
bouncing off of brick roads and houses
This is nine a.m.
Fourth of July Weekend
Sunday
and as the bells end their knell
Sirens pick up,
somewhere further in the city

Earlymorningnotecards

{notecard1)
at 425 am
I hear the birds
at 430 there is rolling thunder
but still the birds
sing on .
There is no such thing
as a silent night
Only your moments of
inattention
Deafness
(notecard2}
that makes
the darkness seem
so silent

I thought about running
through your predawn
thunder
And rolling down steep hills
into rivers
and following the rain-
[notecard3?
my common sense says
that early morning is the time
for rest
blanketed and secluded
not the pursuit of
transcendental reality

At 4:37, the clouds break
they hold no fury
only melodious
/notecard4 \
droplets
that shower
the unsilent earth

and make the world
sing out
persistent praise
That will be forgotten
once we hit
dawn

When are you

midnight sleeps all dark and lonesome
passing through the days
and drifting through doorways
singing out sin and soul
staring you down until-
with forced, heavy conviction-
you bring yourself along.

awakening in muddled daylight
confusion blooming on your cheeks
when are you now?
tearing off covers and running through the streets
searching something desperate
as the sunlight cuts through you.

When are you now?
Blinded by daylight
stumbling down wretch filled slums
hands grasping
and holding tight
attempting to pull you forward
and backwards

oh, when are you now?
Bathed in red light
and backed by a tye-dye sky
dark silhouette
scream mercy and surrender
all your ill-got finery
until, somehow,
again you see
your captor and your enemy
and darkness coming down around you
like a well meaning fiend
when are you, now?
velvet midnight drifting through your sleepless days