What’s your explanation?

Are you one of those cosmic crystals that always burn up in the atmosphere,

Or are you an every-day, pretty-faced, busty space-pirate looking for a place to hide?

Are you one of those in-between moments that sneaks into the space that separates actions from words? 

–One of those times when it’s hard to breathe and you feel your heart skip a beat?

I hope you are.

Will you jump up and half-tackle me as you grab me by the sleeve- because you want to show me something amazing you just found?

Will you hold me for something real.

Will you lead me down the banks of some river of stars and nebulae,

Running hot through the cold valley of space,

Will you pose me in place and tell me to stand there and watch, as you run back and summersault across the soft space-grass that grows on the edge of this moist ledge?

Will you touch me and tell me not to speak?

-And then laugh when I tell you to get off because your knee is in my thigh?

Will we dance upon the sturdy glass plane suspended scenically above the galaxies churning below?

You, in nothing but my half-buttoned shirt, and I with a hat tilted jauntily to the side?

 Will I wake up, my shoes, still wet from running with you through the rainy rings of Saturn, jumping into the biggest puddles at any excuse we could not explain, my jeans, dusty  from rolling around with you beside the craters of the moon.

I’ve been dodging comets for far too long, waiting just outside your door.

Will you come on out and give me all this and more?

I hope to see you soon.

The Hush of Dawn

the warmth of dusk,
cold science of night,
holding on to the promise of
changing,  with weary fingers
tracing shapes on
invisible seconds,
that came before:
-improbable.

I was entranced to begin with.
nothing you could have done would've changed that.

And when we fall

silent secrets, spoken on whispered wind,
carried in moonlight, with out a friend,
through sylvan pillars, from weathered years,
shapeless cries fall on unmoved ears,
into ancient darkness, with piercing eyes,
granite words, turn impassive lies,

their meanings lost, in breathless night,
the glimmer of hope, the delicate flight,
some will stand, and some will fall,
those who listen, will answer the call,

wandering footsteps, without a sound,
even they- do not know, just where they are bound,
they do not linger, they do not stray,
though the road is long, they'll find the way,

the whispered wind, it comes and goes,
carrying dreams, singing of woes,
they dance in the moonlight, they die in the day,
they wander down the road, they cannot stay,

their meanings lost, in breathless night,
the glimmer of hope, the delicate flight,
some will stand, and some will fall,
those who listen will answer the call,

girl beside the river

bare feet- sink into water
toes point out straight, stretching as far as they can
toes curl up- arches curved,
then released.

they turn together.
turn apart.

touching the surface playfully-
up and down

ripples.
she smiles.
head tilted back,
neck exposed
she shades her eyes as the sunlight falls warmly upon her face.
her hair is golden.

the grass feels good between her fingers as she runs her hand across ground beside her.

the girl by the river picks up a small, smooth stone- and tosses it softly into the slow moving stream

Concussion (Snowflake) [incomplete]

When I was about ten years old, I had a sledding accident,
I hit a tree at the bottom of a steep hill,
I was going too fast.
I think it was at a golf-course, which when frozen over made a popular sledding location.
There was a bump at the end of the slope and I lost control in the last crucial moments before the hill evened out.

I think it was February vacation.
Funny thing- I didn't even want to go sledding that day.
My best-friend who had moved away a few years earlier was supposed to come over to my house for one of the then semi-annual visits that our mothers arranged.
But the plan was changed.
Instead of coming to the house, my friend wanted to go out sledding and had started making plans with another friend of his to do so.
I was invited to come along as a substitute activity for the play-date that was planned.
I really just wanted to stay in and relax that day as was expected before the change in plans, but felt obligated to go.

When I hit the tree, it didn't hurt.
I didn't black-out, not exactly.
I just didn't feel anything but subdued blunt impact,
Nothing more than enough physical sensation to register that anything had happened at all.
The adrenaline-fueled shock blocked out any pain.

I shattered the front of my scull and fractured both orbital sockets.
My brain sloshed to the front of my head and made contact with the broken bone.
When I got back from the hospital, I had to sleep sitting up for about a month or so because there was a razor-sharp splinter of bone that had dislodged from behind my forehead and rested perilously on surface of my brain.
The doctors didn't want it to slip down in my sleep and puncture the soft tissue of my frontal lobe.
For the first few weeks, my face was a layered painting of multicolored bruising,
Blue, yellow, and purple brushstrokes of broken blood-vessels edged in red and green covered the canvas of my skin.
Beneath my eyes was black.

That was nearly a decade ago,
Just about nine years in a week or so.
They said there was no permanent brain-damage.
Sometimes I wonder.
After all this time, I can still look in the mirror and see a little boy trapped in a lanky, six-foot-two frame.
Those heavy brows will always conceal the soft-edged eyes which define me,
The angular and aging face, the soft-shelled soul that confines me.

description of sensation

 this sensation.

my heart feels like its folded open, wide. and flat in my chest,
extending over from the left, through the center and to the right,
book-matched halves spread apart and pushed up hard against the inside of my ribs.
made open, airy, vulnerable,
it's like my heart wanting to tempt fate,
it knows it hurts,
it presents itself as a fragile spectre for the world to push right through,
a thin, foam-like filter to gather dust- and the fine black particles of everything that doesn't belong,
as everything around me flows through it like the sludge in my blood that makes its way
down to my fingertips, and back into my brain,
filtered through my heart, and back to my fingertips again.
my body, kind of numb-
or not so much numb, but still-
refusing to become physical,
entertaining the idea of
suspended animation.

gentle/sensitive

i feel strongly,
whether in the finding of great beauty where others overlook,
or in the infliction of pain by means of the ugliness around me,
i feel the joys of subtle moments, small-scale wonders,
and the great tragedy of those passed by.
i easily feel out of place.
and almost always do.
when i don't, i am happy.
when i don't, i am okay.
i just want to be okay.

(ode) to the only after

fenced
the milk-keeper
sand-dune-sleeper
dream awake, full of sexualized fantasy
brush on shave
clean cut skin
patch over to the inside man
grifter
momentum taking place
a sure thing
it's easy
one last job
one last chance to get away clean
midtown
latex prints
lock-pick perfect
renaissance man
a sure thing
oak shelves
redwood lattice
red wine array outstanding
rehearsed precision
perfect execution
disarm
disassemble
disengage
the inner room
clock-work workings
took-apart takings
almost home free
escape rout
fail-safe
tipped off
out-gunned.

Unsung Madrigal

The clock door opens,
I come in clad as an impersonator, impostor, un-me.

Dear Emily,

And there it was-
I'll tell you all the truth you ask of me-
Let all of my hesitation- reservations- love-
Pass by unnoticed- unheeded- misheard-

Be it strange- or be it my aptitude towards the unholy,
Whether the soft touch of the willow-fed irises-
Or the half-life glare of nighthawks, posed aloof and aloft-
In full conscious awareness of their physicalities-
With willful composure- and heads turned just so.