Goslings

Power failure over something less
Personal failure in the wild
Mother and father herd them to the water
They only drink when told
Water's clear, manmade
The bugs ignore, skirt the shade
Skim the water to the mother and father
Who entertain better than computer could
That's what I want
In the shade
In the wild where goose families laid
Between the cracks, away from work, getting paid
Incognito, brandishing facts
To scratch on glass with refined detail
Burned blistered by mellow April sun of disappointment
April 15, 2001

And Cheese

Brandishing tin weapons with dull points
Spoons or knitting needles
To poke the truths from holes
In the strainer recently emptied of macaroni
Or maybe the conversations in bed at night
Requesting a new game every time we hypothesize
Out of hypocrisy
And know we'll lose

Scalded by false pretenses with true postenses
Dropped on the floor, splattered on the wall
Sticking because they're done
Just right

Scalded by steam from the smallest pot I own,
With no handle
Convinced it won't hinder me, ignore the sting
Accept the stink of your garbage disposal words
All wrong

We're not having dinner tonight
Or maybe ever again
March, 2001

Superstitious Suffocation

Everyday I watched you while
Rubbing frost off a bus window
Strained to make certain I saw
You rush up the driveway, holding
My breath until you disappeared.
Without air I would have you
One day, you would love me.
You told me
Ten years later
You feared sneaking a breath
From the moment you shouldered
Your backpack until the front
Door slammed behind. Holding
Our breath, together, our lungs straining,
How I wanted everything
Those fall and summer days, disappearing
Behind the maple leaves in your front yard,
You held your breath longer
Maple trees have come between us again
But now I continue running for my front door,
Already out of your sight.
Dec. 28, 2000

Blanket

I'm working backward
Through a mission of suspense
And worry
Undaunted, I return again without
Repercussion
You missed the point
And without it, there is none
I chew my cuticles to remove
The memory
Sometimes the restlessness
Subsides
But I recollect that you don't
Covet me more than he
or if so, let it become your priority
secure my affection
Dec. 2000

Crazy

Crazy
wow. I wanted you to be here with me, watching words swim and colors mesh into each other
I can't decide if I want food or sleep or you
And from somewhere that just came
None of this seems poetic
Listless again, or does that give too much away?
And for the first time I'm feeling the keys beneath my fingers
Why do I always want things to get over?
Why do I not ponder them and savor them
Now-and it's gone

If I don't write these things down they will be erased by tomorrow
Nov. 2000

Old Friends

Blonde for them with sunlight
Brunette beneath awaiting closure
Exchange internecine smiles
Shrink from lese-mageste exposure

My mind, lost in hair, fraught with rare
Thoughts of our past where you cried
Touching my lips with fingertips
For comfort before your soul died.

I awaited your return. Did you know?
I carried great concern. Then I forgot
Those tears and lips and hair with blonde.
I became you, or your memory brought
from my past.

Aug. 18, 2000

Work Day

battered reality from air conditioned confines
increasingly humid, time passes, defines
space divided with plastic conformed
after within mirrors the ground when stormed
trampled silently, bored and restlessly fit
skull spinning from screen to chair where sits
the friendly of me, the weak and demure
waiting for that of hard work to assure
June 5, 2000