how big the ocean when you wish to be far away

at night
he oceans
softly beyond horror

in waking
a body’s cursive skin
remembers laughing

then the act of morning
resplendent with apology
afflicted with new

walking into a
three-legged day,
each time, bells everywhere

luxury of forging memory
concrete and steel collecting
in the corners of cities

put some blood
to those bells
as he oceans
coming clean away

never the cut that healed straight
mind the life going infinite
in forgetting

a life rendered
from fat of moments
is thus shouldered by skies

missives or letters
plain speak in first waking,
how hungry for the past

still
he oceans certain
all moments
unbound to him

Midnight Stubble, Dreams of Grandfather

Born in the quicksilver
of living and deep earth
born to you
I come to learn
you’ve been up at night
visiting the dreams of
your blood

Once, seated as Buddha
in a woolen robe
you peeled an apple
and cast your love
so it wound tight around
the bone

Last night
I sat on your lap,
a child again
clamped tight in
bear-like arms,
you told me the
troubles of your
old-man heart

and now to wring out
words to say
your cheek was like
the firmament, tangible
beyond even a last touch,
I am lost in blood,
taking my first breaths
on the day of your birth.

Waiting on the Winter, Writing it out

would wish it
open palm of
the thought, it
was blue
and then tasted
of mallow

the thought
that was the most
beautiful

I make the window
a home, when you
go by in a sketch
of legs
of teeth

I am fetched
I am underneath

perfect, plain
entirely too lovely
in the cold-smelling
wind,

your face
festooned with
a promise.

Drinks and Ponies sometimes go together.

But poems, ponies, and drinks always go together....

http://www.changinggears.info/2010/10/04/reinvention-recipes-manhattans-two-ways/

Fox Hunting to the Memory of George Carnaghi

grandfather,
known mostly
by absence

I know now
that I love something
we could have loved
together

and I see you
in the low, fog-saddled
fields just before dawn

or in the bright shouts
of late fall trees

often, I hear you call
my heart
by the voice of a hound’s
long, throated cries

and grandfather,
when I gallop,
I know you gallop too

glacial decisions

a glacier
tucked under
a tongue
the expanse of
melt, lost
out of mouth corners

that was the saying,
the chewed gristle of ice,
rubble, and freshly formed
speak

that was what you were
hearing, dripping
out of face and heart
and everywhere

the melt of making up
a mind
there gnawed or pawed
spat through that you might
see that flat awful
of white resolve

Untitled

In this home of my body
there lies scarcity,
my chariot mouth
carries nothing profound
when it wishes to say
‘beauty’

How One Must Treat Skin

the skin in the beds
how it severs
how it bends away
to reveal the temperature
of the mistake

learn,
it is something
to tear holes in,
what was gray
now opera pink

I am rushed
and have no wisdom
but was taught early
to appreciate a sketch

and fraught with color
the peel
of each new sky
is tugged away
is bent away

A Six Legged Marriage

And then I was called upon
to carry you

If not then
I would stand
behind fences
for you
and share the sky
for all it’s shudders

Or to know you
in all seasons
when your hand is
a brush taking the dust
from me

For then I was
called upon to be gentle
holding your direction
in the pink of my mouth

And to not strike
my hardness out
but leaving earth torn as
we went
you upon I
until there was only us
and the fence was gone
its cedar planks
fallen past this
breath

Scenes Of A Domestic Life

in moments of dust and color
home, a dark hutch, waits
beyond blooming

full bellied life
lined with objects on
every shelf, breathing
the glint of their thing-ness

my eyes crack open
to plain significance
when morning asks for more

for the desperate wish
of breathing my own
glint
handled gently so
as one handles an orb,

I river through each
room of home
plucking here and there
the wilt
of life and togetherness