[you would make…]

you would make an ugly flowerpot and i am nothing
but burnished hope and unintelligible transmissions
through swimming pool water. there is no raincheck
for desire. i am severing the bungee of devotion, but
all i’ve got is the edge of a coin handled by too many
people. the dirt under our fingernails is proof we tried
to dig ourselves out, but i choked on peet and gave up.
so i settled for pulling out my molars because i was tired
of the daily grind. i am as bold as sumatra this morning
and we are driving into the dawn so you can fly into the
sunset. i bless you with egg shell and coffee grounds.
i will not see you for two weeks. (maybe longer.)

[a wind will blow…]

Don’t make the mistake of sitting dead in the cold ashes of a withered tree.
-Emyo

a wind will blow but the ash will remain
trunk turned gray, leafless with old wounds
in petrified bark. to be seated beneath the
tree is to know what was once held aloft in
green branches. as a sapling it dreamed.
but now there are only exposed roots, brittle
like sea stars, dead deposits of bitter want.
naked in a wind that never stops blowing are
secrets of a lust older than silvered willows.
the tree rattles a story of wishing gone
wasted. finger dipped in ash, a smudge across
your forehead, and still you sit.

frequency

how every breath must be a work of art.
but you don’t really understand modern art,
just some lines and dots of reductionist cello
music or furniture that hurts to sit on. when
your life begins to come down to some lines
and some swirls, you know it’s time to start
throwing paint cans around. so you began
to look for a Muse for real. you penciled some
dots and dashes on paper but you didn’t really
know Morse code. they were just some staccato
scratchings that looked like they were trying to
tell you something that won’t ever translate.