1999-2000

Bows and tied
Explosions in the sky
We fly for hours
There are ripples in the water
Smoke in our eyes
The fire got put out
We'll do it all again
Several years from now

Dancing light
We're lovers wrapped in arms
My hands are mine
You can have them for tonight
Gloves hugging railing
Icy stairs to evermore
We hug and hold together
And wait for dawn to break...

...

I awake outside my kitchen
My house is quiet now
We're all just sitting 'round
No one holds their breath
Not a song to sing
The lights will be alright
We won't need so much shelf space
We don't need all this bread

The celebration's lifting
But it's anywhere but here
Except for in my head
It seems it's only there for me
At least that's what I fear
Lift a glass for reason
There won't be time for doubt
For the rest of the century

I fear not.

1998

Here he comes
'A haunting
When my father fell
I saw the blood
'A falling
Eyes raging
I feel the clouds
Collapsing

Sepia world
Dark spots
Speckled on your shirt
Backwards friend
I take my vengeance
Bare-handed
Twisted fate
Your holes are big as mine

1996

Deja vu

An open field
I recognize the feeling
I've seen this place before
There's my bike
Rusted;
I must have left it here
I think this was my home
So many years ago

The parking lot is worn
Gravel strewn from side to side
But no ferris wheel
Or anything resembling
Lions
Why do I remember...lions?
Bricks that held up cars
Lines devoid of clothing

The pathway crawls
Same as it always has
I remember all the contours
And potholes 'long the way
Quiet
The clicks of insects
And rituals of rodents
Pervade the humble valley

The house in rubble
A note left standing orders
"Keep it in the family
And resurrect the swing"
Running
Like water by the road
I never want to come back
This place is far too real

2001

Our pasts are slowly fading
Gather up your memories
Before they disappear
Gone forever
They wipe away like magnets
Over videotape
Shuffle through their remnants
Hands on your floppy disks

Three and a quarter
Used to seem expensive
Terabytes impossible to fill
The garbage without end
Our brains are bottomless
But we brush bodies away
Hoof under foot
While we secret eternity

The blood continues
It circles the world
And we fly it international
Clogging our skyscraper arteries
Nations hemorrhage; lamentation
Cancer selling for hundreds a barrel
We’re like patrons in a movie
Calling for the ending

All we want is an answer
With every carbon exhale
We breathe away our time
And chew what’s left of others’
The places to hide our shame
Have all but gone
Slowly fading memories
Where everything was better

1995

Forever high rise
Turning tables
A rotating room
Fixed glasses
My eyes are watering
But all I see are mirrors
Little wooden houses
Sliding up and down
The windows are broken
Tiny hands, big buttons
Elevators
Shimmy and shake
On their way down
The everlasting shaft
But no one hears us
Tumbling through

Blood on the shatter
Glass in my hands
There's no way out
They're watching for us
Waiting by the doors
Clobbering children
I make for the stairs
It won't be long now
The banisters are wet
It's cold and hard and dim
I push from the wall
Enabling my descent
The building is cracking
The mold is in decay
The carpet floor is burning
All the orphans ran away

1994

Eighty-thousand feet
To the surface
Glass encases every way out
My lungs are bloated
Struggling to breathe
Twenty-thousand leagues
Into the darkness
Underneath me

Where is the air?
It escapes my every inhale
Yet I float about this distant world
Right out my backdoor
Why haven't the sharks come?
Fins cutting towards me
Teeth shattering in my bones
This will be my end

Surely, surely
The waves will wallow over me
Drowning, drowning
Indefinitely
Lonely sea creatures
Softly gliding by
I reach out my hand
They never take me with them

It's quiet.

1993

Seven
The numbers I count
In the darkness
Three from your clock
Four from mine
It's twelve fifty-nine
From my side
It's way past our bedtime

From our beds
Through tonight
To harrowed hums
Florescent lights
We glide again
On and on
In our socks
Without our shoes

We're so quiet
Not a stir
Raising no alarm
For any intruder
The basement is soft
I can feel it breathing
Hush now, boy
A ghost is approaching

Down the steps
I see her walking
Not a shriek
Or even haunting
She is silent
Moving slowly
Subtle beauty
A fragile frame

Her hand extends
And points me to bed
I shake my head
"Please, not yet."
She smiles at me
And nods accordingly
So off I huff
Back to the bedroom

I tuck myself in
My sister still sleeping
I swore I just saw her
Up and about-ing
Sliding there with me
Round through the doorways
But not back to bed..
"Go back to sleep,"

She says.
Have I been dreaming?

1992

We have sprouted wings
Flying high over the suburban city
These are our adventures
Our vacation get-aways
We're just trying so hard
Trying to
Get, get, get
Out of our atmos

Fear
As it relates to dreams
Is always about us
While we break all the rules
And recreate the galaxies
It complicates our subversions
Desimates our confidence
With little warning or notice

"I'm afraid we might fall,"
I say, and likewise we did
Back to the Earth below
To the confines of space and gravity
But she is still smiling
Knowing soon we will forget
And come back up
Swinging

My Father

He has a long nose
He lowers His head
And nuzzles my hair
My Father
I smile up at Him
Tears of joy; the rain
I am cooled; Yahweh
He kisses my forehead
His hands at my chest
I feel Him
Dancing deep within
My heart; Emmanuel