FP

you bump against the core of me
like two noses rubbing so eyes can still
stare into, and into, and into each other.

my middle is warm and quiet, whispers love, but waits
silent as I smile into your skin.

Tonight cars are creeping past the window.
Yellow streetlights blink--on, off--on, again
and are green, and red, between each waiting.
The whole world hums.

Tonight, I am alone but am not lonely.
The T.V. on: soundless, and soothing;
familiar, and strange.

The cold slips in the window, its breath
a whisper on skin: exposed, to the elements
of memory, and of future, and of now.

Tonight, fingers reaching, to the blankets.
I pull, the velvet, sky down.

I see things out of the corners of my eyes and sometimes I think it's you--yes, you--and I remember because you never really left.

i miss you, in short.

nailed to every poem, an inside joke
on your insides (turned inside-out
so i can see: your flesh, on the table,
like we're all made of the same stuff.)

and i think we were at one time but not
anymore, because you're still--addicting--,
still laughter, still make me think "ladder"
think "death cab" think floors,
& we stare at ceilings (I think I wrote
you, once) instead of carpet stuck
under our nails.

Crawling the Ladder Down

You said the love that you make makes you
miss what you made before love.



We seemed something November, were Fall.
Like you saw something worth falling for.

The Balanced Life

I thought it said, "Start making cookies," and I had them all lined up: chocolate, oatmeal, gingersnap, pumpernickle, sugar-glazed, almond-raised, dough and chip, spoon to lick. But it said "making Choices," and I said, I've made mine. You want to argue war. I'm here to eat the sweets.

TollHouse

Is something like forgotten bubblegum on the tongue,
trapped in my hair while you twirl your fingers through it.

You taste, remarkable, like chocolate.
Your teeth are the flavor of apple pie.

Tomorrow may be Christmas but today is the apocalypse
lets go, swimming, but we never seem to drown.

The Approach

“Emmanuel” and everyone is ringing bells
while wishing for snow (it's eighty-two degrees here: a desert winter).

It means 'God with us' and I shiver even in the heat
because that means He's not in the clouds: not sitting pretty on a gold throne
but in us. Around us. This Manger,

mangy as my dirty fingertips with filth caked under the nails
like I had something to accomplish.

Don't come yet. I have to push back my cuticles. Like I have something to offer.
Like I have nothing to hide.

You are only a baby and I am already cowering in secrets
that won't keep themselves from You.

From Dust

I am not supposed to say that I am man
but merely that I am--"human" too much a box
for body to fit in, if I'm going to bring the Soul along.


I am supposed to say "I am, I exist"--but does it silence
the True I AM? The One who made me Be and put flesh
on bones, created body, ripped ribs from each other
and smashed us together in this ground we call earth,
This temporary home?


I am body but not merely--inside somewhere, something
nonphysical that braces itself against the transitory hide:
a breath, and ready to crumble at Your feet.

11.23

You point across the sea that is San Franciscan
bodies moving down Market and we above them:
skyscrapers at sunset and we own (the earth at) our feet.

Every secret a promise and tomorrow, together, breathed.

On the Image

He is sometimes a white-horsed man with sword (“Truth”)
and palm fronds stuck between his toes. I prefer him without
armor because he fits better on a postcard.

Hello, Hell, you are defeated by three things/being/essences
who swirl around at prayer time and wait for me to chant
mercy at my throat. Candle smoke tastes sweeter than brimstone.


Hello, Hell, I said and now I wonder if I am addressing
a hell of his making or of my own and I wait for an answer
but he is busy fighting demons (mine) at the door.

Put your sword down, I should insist, but instead
I forget where I was going and am trailing footsteps
with something part guilt, and intrigue, and death.

He is rarely a white-horsed man and is mostly truth (“Sword”):
a donkey between his knees and incense on his breath.

Advent

This is called the waiting.

stomach murmurs questions but I am deaf
to it because my hands are focused on the clasp
that is in my lap in the waiting that is Waiting
like dandelions, before they begin, to bloom:

a not-quite comprehensive understanding
of what is to Come when the candles are lit
and the whispers waft to the ceiling, to the floor,
to my palms open but not reaching; seeking but not racing,
like dandelions, before they begin to bloom

and are plucked to be blown: dust carried
in the clutches of the wind.

Nature Runs its Course

My tea cup is (cold) is waiting
for another drop which you don't pour
into it--instead, wine (drink up, me
heart). eyes your throat like I'm about to bite into it.

And I do, but I do it gently and let my tongue
run its course but it's your
wrist not your throat and that's because I'm looking
for your watch

(which you never wear but you should
because I'm tired of wearing mine.
Gives me tanlines).

Therefore, you do not have the time
and I am left pining after it.

I keep forgetting that I'm made of glass,
each crack splinters like spider webs
& ready to shatter at your feet.

Unravel(ing)

I wish I could start over; tell you different things--about me,
about the world I know, that I knew, the world I've seen,
and that I have made.

Rewrite what's been said, fix the story, erase
your memory of it: a forever amnesia,
a rewind, re-record, and playback

sounds just as I want it to be. Sounds just as it was.

Can't remember which world you know: was I good?
am I victim, am I cause? Am I shown on the big screen--are they
laughing? Do they cry?

Which lullaby do you sleep to?

I can't seem to shut my eyes.

Don't "Hey" Me

You are a cloud without a kite, a kite without a string,

You are a clown. You are a clown upon the kite, you are the string

snapped off the cloud. You are the ground.

I am the rocks within the dirt. I am the ladder to the hay,

I have the dirt upon the hay, I am the hay.

“Hey-Sally,” no sound is listening to the kite without a string.

Find the needle in my hand. Sally is the grain of sand.

The Question

Fingertips trip past eyes, thighs, drag
sigh from chest and rest in crevice

between shoulder blades. Breath silent but moving

while heart, pounds, in ears straining

to listen to subtlety of movement

which comes when tension

breaks: lips’ question slips in space between two

faces, facing each other. As if something is about
to happen.

On Depression

I am not allowed to use feelings to diagnose the problem
so I wait for a physical sign of distress: heart's beating fine;
chest heaves out, caves in, in breath; I can hear my brain ticking
in my ears, in my eyelashes; tick-tock-tick, brain waits in thinking;
tongue licks moist lips, is tasty, is alive; I am waiting. For a sign.

Arachnid

Spider stretches from yesterday into this morning, silk thread suspended 
across my door frame, where we're supposed to stand in case of earthquake,
in case the house is falling down around your ears. Into this morning the spider
threads his silk and waits: middle of door frame for unsuspecting fly
to stick. Curious circus performs in door frame of trapeze-spider, tightrope-
walking across silk cord, on frame of death-trap, swings side-to-side:
a pendulum in my door frame, ticking sticky seconds through death-defying days.

A dictionary is full of answers, knows the right way to pronounce this word I am trying to say, which is simple I'm sure but is too complicated to articulate.

Limbo

This is my story about the Jesus who is still Familiar
even when stranger. Jesus the household name of my upbringing,
and, unlike you, not the curse but the prayer,
lifted on the shoulders of candle smoke in the quiet

This is my story about the Nobody that answers, the silence
that replies in the red prayer book, at my bedside.

And you ask me to pray over dinner and I am afraid
becuase I think He might hear and Respond,
though rarely responds,
to me.

Must be waiting for a something--More than just the praying--
that is a Doing, is not the meaningless (redbook, candlelight,
alleluiah, amen).

I cannot hear you when you breathe,
I am shouting, and He says,

You are a whisper, to me.

2am

I stick my sticky fingers on your cheek

I wake and you are just a dream--were never really
there and the room is black is cold is lonely like my belly
is hungry like my soul.

I have your whole world in my pocket, I assume, but you say
in my hands instead and the dark of the room
is still black hole-like, like the buzz of the white noise of the fan.

God is good but he doesn't die
which makes me wonder why we
do. It must be the reason behind
the man on the corner of Fifth and Market
who pushed his bicycle into my thigh
and asked me about the apocalypse.

Who's gonna save you when He's gone
And I didn't have an answer
because I really didn't need one.

Off

My brain hurts (doesn't make sense
because brains have no nerves
have only thoughts and electricity)

So I say I have a short and someone laughs at me (my conscience)
and tells me to take a walk (so I don't because I don't like to be told
what to do).

In the closet, mouse chews on her cage and I hope that she dies
soon (which is bad but I mean it because she keeps me up at night).

Still sitting in my bed staring at the ceiling like some black-
dressed emo kid from eleventh grade that put his cheek against
mine and said my heart was made of
weed.

10.20.09

I am doubting I say and he says no, you are not doubting, let me show you doubt.

and he pulls the picture from beneath his books and points to the man in the center

This is doubt, he says, this is a man who is full of doubt and it shows in the creases in his eyes, in the red of his irises.

I am still doubting, I say, and show him my list of ten problems and he looks at them like I am made of white wool
and he says no, you are not

made of doubt, you are made of a question.

But there is no answer, I say,

and he says, you cannot hear it, because you talk

too loud.

Emphasis Added

In the news today: Europe praised

our President, an MIA retrieved un-maimed,

then thirteen lost to murderer’s rage,

and Metallica headed to the Hall of Fame.

'Remember when you were beautiful?'

I asked, tapping the mirror, watching the reflection

ripple through years of wrinkled,

heavy memories folded like creases in the eyes,

like the lines etched across clenched fists

or the bark of a tree.

Reflection cleared, the foreign face blinked

back, unsure whether to answer

or to let the question remain

rhetorical.

blue

is a color (but it is more of a flavor

like the snap of the skin of a berry

in your mouth when you press your teeth

against its crisp and feel its juice

running down your chin--humiliating

when your crush is staring at the trail

which snakes to your white blouse

before you have the chance to wipe

it clean).

the silent treatment

no. you cannot have this poem, because I am sick

of giving you them—when you put them, on your wall,

without reading. bullied brain

is sick of writing—love-man-poems—“hisfingertips”

to “isadog” eventually “kisses:likeapig”—

when words don’t drop televisions

out of three-story-windows—like I want to—

don’t punch balls into groin—like I ought to—

(but, that is crass, you say, to write balls,

in a poem, and I say, you are crass: to have them).

no, you cannot, because I am not speaking

at you—but, useless, when you’re used to not listening.

Intonation

We all know the dream.

The once-upon a remembering twirled with a kiss

and sealed with a ring

forgotten for three-thousand dollars and a settlement.