you aren't there - 06/06/16

You are in everything.
Mingled in pronunciation,
intertwined in every verse,
hiding in
the sunset,
the sunrise,
the clouds,
the heat,
the wind,
the chill,
cursive s's,
dark chocolates,
twisted around all the little
phrases
I picked up from
too much
not enough
time spent stumbling
around you.
Your weeds
blossom all over
my heart
but you don't think they're
flowers.
You are everywhere,


but when I look

Funeral Flowers - 05/31/16

With purple hyacinths
blooming from
the hollow cavern
in my sunken chest,
beating chlorophyll
through drained veins;

with chrysanthemums
spilling from
chapped lips,
broken bits
painting petals perinone;

with carnations buds
protruding from
emptied sockets,
stems and roots
deeply intertwined
with synapses;

I ponder:
"Lilies are more
traditional,
but would
tangerine tulips
bring you back?"

Pressed - 07/15/14

I keep leaving
flower petals
in shapes
on pages
hoping you
might take a
closer look
at their form,
might pause
and notice
all the time
I put into
quietly explaining
how I love you
with cryptic
flower petals.

I keep writing
poems about you
and leaving them
where you might find.

Coffee Beans - 002/17/14

Let me justify this
sleepless habit
by saying that
God
itself must have been
caffeinated
to create the world
in six days
and only rest on
the seventh.
So this rampage
through days
without breaks
is cleanliness,
as it is next
to Godliness.

I am drinking poison
designed to prevent
herbivores
from consuming
coffee beans
and I think
I've always been able
to feel it
but the only time
I couldn't ignore it
was when rainbows
covered chalk boards
on that first
24 hour mark.

When I Say That You're Stardust - 01/19/14

Don't let anyone tell you that you can be anything;
that if you dream it, you can be;
that you'll get anywhere wishing on stars.
This world was not built to grant your wishes,
nor mine,
and, someday, you'll find
that your blood is required to get very far.
I want you to know this going in.
I don't want you to know
that the world is mostly darkness;
I want you to know
that you're the world's only light.
I don't want you to know
that life is a battlefield;
I want you to know
when and how to fight.
I don't want you to know
your place;
I want you to know
how to scream,
I want you to know
what your words taste like
when they leave your mouth;
how to say "love" and mean it;
how to say "hate" and mean it;
what equality looks like,
what power feels like,
and how to have the parts
of both that you want and need
in order to breathe
a sigh of relief
in this eighty, ninety, hundred year struggle
of your life.

I want you to know
you'll never get anywhere wishing on stars.
I want you to know
you'll get exactly where you are
and you'll never be happy
if you aren't allowed
to watch comet trails in the night
and imagine a utopia
where you don't have to fight
for the right to be
exactly the way you were born.
I want you to know
that a star is more you
than a mirror and
I want you to know
that the same is true
for everyone you meet.
I don't want you to know
that you can be anything
because I want you to know
that you are everything.

It's a very particular emotion - 01/12/14

The comments
on internet news articles
make me want to
set flowers on fire
so if you understand
the reaction
I'm trying to convey,
plant me a garden
of delicate
purple pansies
to fuel my rage.

Even I - 10/14/13

Even I can't fall in love with the moon in the sky,
even if I try,
not matter how I try.
I can't pull the stars out every night,
not with all my might,
no, not with all my might.
I can't turn a scream into a lullaby,
that would make you sigh,
that would make you cry.
I've got nothing up my sleeve,
nothing up my sleeve,
anymore.
I've got no more parables
to keep you warm,
to keep me warm.
Even I can't fall in love with the moon in the sky,
even if I try,
even when I try,
no matter how I try.

Sulfur - 10/14/13

The lilac sky
around midnight
tricks me into thinking
it's a fair time of day
to run away,
so when the lime lightning strikes,
I'm out of sight,
out of mind,
out of the line of fire.

Yes, I'll be far enough away
to taste the sulfur rain
on Venus.

It's all burning away - 08/31/13

and although we think of it

as a tragedy,

as death and destruction,

associated with pain,

endings, loss,

natural forces beyond our control

fire

is an indication of

life.

Midday Bus on Thursday

large, oblong rain drops

fell on the cherry blossoms,

and pulled the whole flower

down

straight and slow,

through cold, late April air

to the leather seat

of a red-bodied motorcycle

outside an organic coffee shop.

She Bruises Easily But Heals Quickly - 08/19/13

Before you worry
that she's gonna get hurt
remember:
she's been hurt before.
And, every time,
she picks herself up,
dusts herself off,
and climbs the same damn tree.
She believes that,
rather than finding another tree
that she can scale effortlessly,
she ought to get better
with what she's got
because she's been conditioned
to believe
that happiness doesn't come easily,
that's it's something to be fought for,
something to be earned,
something to be practiced,
something to be learned.
So before you rush in
to bandage her knees,
remember:
she may bruise easily,
but she heals quickly
and she's just going
to get back in that tree.

Camera - 07/09/13

My momma's camera can't seems to see
the images that make my eyes gleam
now I know the real mystery
is that everything is what it seems to be
but I don't know how they ever convinced me
that that's any reason to believe

I turned right when I should have turned left
and ended up biking a mile uphill
only to come back down it
so by the time I found my way around it
the sun had set and the trail was closed
and the streetlights were telling me to go home
which I guess is for the best
because they don't allow bikes anyway
so I suppose I'll come back earlier another day

See, I only get lost following street signs
but if I walk out in the woods,
I'll make it home just fine,
I know that you'd rather stay inside
and not talk to me
which I guess is alright
but if you ever feel
like being dumb at night
I know the back roads
like the stars know the sky

I want to end up lost in the country side,
where there's about a mile between each street sign
and in the middle of the road, the yellow lines
are faint and faded in the star light

Because I want to take your picture,
on the hood of your car,
completely relaxed, staring up at the stars,
stunned into babbling
instead of being so reserved
and I want to take your picture in the city,
and I want to take your picture at the movies,
and I want to take your picture on a bridge over a river,
telling your best friend about the beauty
of some obscure folk punk song
that you've been muttering all day long

See, I only get lost up in my mind,
but if I don't pay attention,
I make it home just fine
I know that you'd rather stay inside
and not talk to me
which is more than alright
but if you ever feel like doing something dumb tonight
I got a brand new bike
and, for you, I'd ride 'til the stars leave the sky

Willamette - 06/28/13

The western skies are green
and the clouds above are
artificial-grape-flavoring purple
and the air tastes like musky basements
but the wind

oh the wind

feels like song lyrics
and watermelon
and childhood bike rides.

You're seeing stars
and he's seeing skylines
and neither of you realize
you're looking at the same thing

which might just be
meant to be.

Soft Serenade - 06/02/13

Despite
ignited engines,
thumping speaks
in chilled chest cavities,
bombshells and butterflies
begging to be released,
roars resonating
in riveting rockets,

I long only to sit,
lips meeting in a gentle, silent smile,
and listen to you call
universes
into being with your words.

The Ultraviolet Catastrophe - 03/04/13

I built a world
on observations of stars
running backwards,
missing pieces,
imaginary numbers,
and infinite energies
in all the wrong places.

So when the i's
fell into possibilities,
as probabilities somewhere,
as certainties some times,
gentle lines fell along data points
and familiar constants
marketed security as truth,
which I bought in
tera electron volts.

Calculators away,
pens down, papers over,
but left behind
were a pile of dots and squiggles
and my imagination
to build universes
from the scraps of broken lives.

Photon - 02/01/13

I feel like a photon,
light:
massless,
unconstrained,
free.

Yet full:
infinite,
stable,
existing across all time
and no space,
everywhere and when.

I feel like a photon:
light and full.

As I wander,
I am going
nowhere and anywhere,
with all the time
in my frame.

If I could feel
each separate atom
I am comprised of,
would I feel
me?

But I do not feel
in Newtonian systems
but as strings of events:
a bend in the knuckle
to a wrinkle in the finger,
to a twitch in the forearm,
to a soreness in the shoulders,
to a stiffness in the neck,
to a freedom in the mind.

I feel me
all at once.
Like a photon.

Light and full.

Inaccurate Memories of Train Rides and Birthdays - 12/19/12

Unraveling green thread,

tossed blankets

of mossy fabrics,

the oozing motion

of light blue paint

falling on bubbles sheets

falling on the clear edge

of the canvas.

Bandits and robbers

won't take my candy,

only Great Grandma's laughs

I think.

I remember green,

blue,

brown.

Trees, sky, dirt.

Where did the robbers come from?

And the arrhythmia?

And the bumper stickers?

And the stillborns?

And the cantaloupes

in your daughters tubes?

More importantly,

where did all the holidays go

when no one was dying

to celebrate them?

The City/My Soul - 11/25/12

I can hear my heart beat
in the city at night,
the rush of wind
over the river
is the pulse of my blood;
the clang of metals
in the distant industrial area,
the opening and closing
of ventricles;
the hum of traffic,
busy capillaries.

I can see my mind running
in the city at night,
radio towers twinkling
are my neurons firing;
satellites flying and falling,
thoughts conflicting;
the rippled water
reflecting distant images
chiaroscuro,
sums up
my being.

The Photoelectric Effect - 11/25/12

I cleaned out my idea books

to make room for textbooks,

set down my quantum books

to fiddle with computer programs,

rid my mind of poetry

to welcome in philosophy,

turned away from all I felt

until I thought no more.

But the stars don't care

how you interpret

quantum mechanics

or what images

you make with them

or how you came to be,

for they are

your creator,

the still image

of their past lives

making its way to you,

slowly.

I turn away and the light

cannot be said to shine.

When I do not write about them,

they do not wait,

yet are still where I left them

when I come to my senses,

turn back around

and see.

The city lights are star,

fallen on the ground,

and the path I take to see them,

a black hole's event horizon,

dangerous and dark,

Nine pm out on the bluff,

with cold stars of night air

burning my burnt fingers,

and stars of water molecules

rippling down below

and stars of thrilling melodies

ringing from the bell tower

and stars of my own,

palpable as I peak

from under a branch

and the city glitters into being,

stars of probability functions and many-worlds

collapsing in the existence of many-minds

but somehow always the way I see it,

and only when I see it.

Each scientist and poet

got their fame

by listening to the stars

and reporting what they heard.

No more or less

could ever be said

about anything in the world,

but stars and stars

is all we are,

little nuclear reactors of light

so bright

our after image spans the solar system,

pushing further everyday.

Graffiti Poetry #6 - 09/06/12

Mother Sky looks over her brown daughter,
Earth,
barren and lonely,
cold and dry,
and lifts a thick blanket of ocean
over her land,
soaking the cracks of the desert,
filling the holes of the plains,
trickling in the seams of mountains,
until the two inanimate
grow life.