someone.

i hold these notes,
written out events of every time
you were something.
(oh, i know i shouldn't say
but you were something).

i fold them up, and place them
in the book on the top shelf.
pressed and ironed,
skim my fingers across the top
but not too rough
or it may fall apart and
all that i have will too.

regenerating.

now, i've never had my heart broken
but lately, i've been thinking maybe
you can have it broken when
it's already full of someone.

i hold this heart, fold it up,
put it in the laundry, and then, in the sun,
and hang this heart out to dry,
wrung and wore out from loving someone.

pulsing anew in my boned in cage,
i renew this old heart, regenerating,
(but they never heal completely)
they, these scars, they are complicating.

one day, my dear will realize
there are no more cells
to bring this lonely heart
bring it back to life.

if love is blue

if love is blue,
organic, it flows through,
like streams in the dew
of the morning blue.
it's azure like a blue jay's wing
as it settles down to sing
of the gentle hearts' coupling
in the blue, blue stream.
if love is blue,
it is the heaven's sky,
caressing life from up high
and stretching far and wide
into the sea's loving tide.
if love is blue,
it is calm and sure,
undulating as the tide who
eats the sullen shore.
magnificent as the
rolling hills on the land.
soft as the warm-sunlit
touch of tender hands.
oh yes, if love is blue,
it is the color reflected in you.

stay there forever.

the wisdom of winnie the pooh still gets to me. It's filled with child-like, innocent hope and poignancy. 

it's a simple thought, but one filled with a genuine love of friendship. and now, a poem...

Hold hands and hold on.

(do you see its pulse race?

and my whispers, quiet quiet?)

slow down, frantic child.

don’t let it go away now:

the road is a million miles,

a hazed horizontal, the shore.

It’s time to hold on, let the feet

drag on the pavement, hot

Like the star’s organic aura,

And travel 'cross the land, not

Unlike a mouth asking for more of.

More of this motion,

Heading in towards the ocean,

But crawl slow, slow, now, and

Watch the sky change shapes

And wrap you up in a drape

Of sea foam and titanic white.

(do you see its pulse race?

and my whispers, quiet quiet?)

now is the time to slow the pace

and enjoy the scenery of this place.

so let's hold hands and hold on.

We're too young to know better

I want to court love again,

Make a mix tape, hold on to a hand,

Travel together across the land

In a cooped up little car,

Like we think we’re going someplace far.

And we’re too young to know better.

Fall in love with no reservation.

Live life in perpetual youth and sun.

Try and try again with utmost compassion.

Oh, oh, this is my love song to you,

My dear, while we’re driving away,

Never fear, let me sing you this tune,

Run through this field to the moon.

Maybe this is the beginning,

This is the year I fall in love,

This is the day I see a smile like light

In the shadows scattered above.

note to self (or maybe others if you're listening)

First off, I would like to apologize for the angst driven poems of late. I'm sure you can understand why I have been this way if you only read just one. Secondly, I don't know why, but I am obsessed with parenthetical titles to my poems. If this annoys you, sorry. I think they sound quite lovely. However, I will try to stop to stop being so predictable. :)

With that in mind, thirdly, here are some short poems.



---
blackbird song (so this is goodbye)
---

i cradled your hand in mine and 

waited for the goodbye to go by and by

as the blackbird sings its little song

it trails off in the northern sky

oh how you used to feel like lightning static
like raging forest fires and mountain leaps
we were falling like fallen angels and devils
before they sat down to weep.


---
heartbroken melody (of a king and queen)
---

i thought i should write a "heartbreak" poem

but it's much to soon for me,

still see that smile and hear the way

you said together we'll forever be.

so instead i wrote this la-di-da tune of mine

that holds all these memories

of birds and bees and darkened mead

of a painted queen and her lonely king

and all the times they took a hand

to keep from falling apart

and of all the times they left behind all

but just each other's hearts.

love lullaby.

cause in time, in time, in time, in time
there will be a moment
when you'll always be mine
when we can always keep pace
and hold onto this wonderful place
oh slow now, honey-pop, sugar-rain
this is not a "heartbeat-fast" race
to the end - no, it's just the beginning.

cause baby, in time, in time, in time, in time,

you'll hold my hand like

you can see into my mind.

we'll be two hearts, one body combined

holding eyes like honey and dew

out from under the something new

into the middle of the great big blue -

oh, no we're climbing - high into the sky.

do-do, do-do, do do do 

yea we're climbing, high into the sky. 

sky and fog.

the twilight shatters around our bodies

as we lay together, breathing softly

this hunger that is buried under our skin

quietly unsaturated, under nourished

we stay an inch apart, avoiding lush sin
but waiting for the break, the end of tension. 

we look and do not touch, awareness

taut like a pulled wire, sizzling like 

sun drenched skin, and we are so eager.

eager, eager, as we drink in these meager 

touches -- brushes of skin, breath against lips

lush enough to kiss, hands walking across slender hips.

we are here, but inches apart. holding close, but heart

like the melody of a skylark, song bursting mid flight,
this burdened anxious feeling bubbles over as

air rushes past wings of youthful attraction;

touch feeling like gold feels to Midas, 

warmth to the ice, we melt together, 

curled around each other like sky and fog.

a year of memories.

i'd think of February
when we'd drift through the snow
leaving behind footprints that show
four lines, four uneven rows.

i'd think of that time in the rain
back then in April,
you grabbed my hand and i complained
but then you put your hand to my cheek
and kissed me sweet and coy.
i just smiled, and said you silly boy.

and sometime in June,
I'd lay my head on your chest
and slowly, steadily, confessed
that I think I might be falling.

by you, in august, i softly laid down,
our backs on the grassy ground
i breath in to match your steady pace
and looked over at you
and saw love in your open face.

i'd think of october
as a month of coffee and coats
of studying in light filled libraries
quiet, but steady and sure,
we never thought to drift apart.

december, a kiss, short and shy
as we said our goodbyes,
looked one last time into each other's eyes,
and watched as the love died.

cherry trees.

and maybe we would have been good for each other
had we waited to grow into our own bones
like a tree grows into its leaves
but darling, you would never believe
that we met a little too early, when we were still kids
minds like empty containers without lids
running around, looking around for the person
we thought we were.

i thought we could grow together,
holding hands if we need each other,
like two blooming cherry trees in the field.
but neither of us could hold on and yield
and like the river curves away from the mountains
we moved in our own undulations
pulled further and further out to sea
without reaching out to where the other might be.

it saddens me to think of us like lonely
pieces of driftwood, and so instead i'd think
if i were a lighthouse, I would call you back home,
take my bulb and let it shone.
but I am not yet rooted in the earthy ground,
and so i let you go without much of a sound.
maybe when we're taller and wiser
poured into this mold we made for ourselves
maybe then we'll still fit like we did back then,
holding hands like cherry trees
all tangled up in each other's leaves.

something like love.

i swallow the sun and let its delicate flames
curl into my lungs like the heat of a California forest fire
it fills them up, expanding like a hot air balloon,
pressing together, congesting my heart between them
punching the tender muscle black and blue, blood dripping
down into pericardium, and I am surrounded by red heat.

my breath catches in my throat, burning on my tongue,
while lifesource chokes the pulse in my arms. soon,
i am blue, lips shivering, toes tingling, and eyes blurring
stuffed full with cotton, and now i am falling.
and there is no greater fall than this.
freefalling through the dreams like Alice
in a Wonderland of flames, licking at my skin
like mischievous zephyrs riding on a current.

I can only hope, that you will catch me at the
bottom of the sky, where the land caresses
the under belly of the luminous sun.
but for now, i feel the blood in my veins
stilling, and i am unsure.
I only know this feeling, like falling
drowning in soul magic, soft like fairy wings
and zinging like static against my teeth
while i kiss you goodnight.

summer wine.

they laid their heads down on the dirt path
in between rows upon rows of ripened
sweet pinot noir vines, aromas thick like syrup in the air

they could almost taste it in the space around them.

in between feathered leaves and dark rooted vines,

lush-deep-majestic fruits, tightly wound and heavy.

light flickering on its surface, like the light on their faces.

dark stain on their lips from the wine they drank

and the kisses they'd shared, in between the laughter

that flickered like an old oil lamp as the air rolled past. 

they took a sip of wine, looking at the other over

the bottom of the bottle as the taste lingered on their tongue.

tastes of raspberry and cherry and currant melt like wax

congealing with sweet reddened grapes, and then they kiss. 

and, then, there it is, the hot-cold flash of exaltation of summer love 

and the blood rushing fast and sparkling like dry champagne.

they let their hands clench in the dirt, holding it 

as if they could capture a part of this earth, this bearing earth, 

much as this day had clenched their own hearts.

but for now, they laid their heads back down, and let the air
wash over them, while the sunlight crashed through
the leaves and berries and honest to god sweetness of summer.
a bottle of pinot noir between their heads,
open and breathing, half of its life drank out of it.

in you

in you, i see the river,
strong and slow as unquiet stones
running across the land without a
moment of rest,
blue flowers at your bank,
curling in to sip at your sweetness.
in you, i wish to bathe,
pour the water on my skin, sliding
like silk across rough patches
and scars from past loves lost
across the skies.
in you, i wish to drown my soul
letting its words whisper to those
who might lay by your river
and dream, ponder, while
looking towards the sky.
in you, i think of spring, the frost
melting from a season of barren trees
and wilted moss and wet earth.
in you, i see so much sun, tanning the
white earth brown, turning brown to green
like the loveliest shades of your eyes.

in you, i see the turn of winter chills,
and the start of sudden, molten thrills
like the sun's smiling down on us.

---

Someone once told me that the greatest writing you would ever write is a love letter. I think this is true. I could write hundreds of love letters and poems and never capture the feeling. It's elusive and warms to the core of your soul. There is something earthy and wholesome and something outworldly. Like, you say to yourself, what is this? what is this feeling?

So, inadequately, I keep writing love poems, like so many poets before me. We try again and again to capture the feeling, writing hundreds of thousands of millions of words dedicated to one feeling.

--

a man.

a man looks at his wife and thinks, i want to write harmonies about you. i want to strum the stiff strings of a guitar into submission, into a soft croon of all that makes you, you. i want to make a rhythm like the sound of your heart beat when you tell me you love me. i want to write lyrics floating on the edges of a blue jay's wings, soaring through the sky, eclipsing on the sun. let it emanate, glow, like the sweet taste of dew drops on honeysuckle, savored on the tongue like the raspberries that stain your hand. let them entangle like vines on an old schoolhouse, mystify like fog in the morning. so distinct, like the whorls and swirls of her fingerprints, delicate and beautiful when i hold them in my own. i want the sound to echo like the rumbling thunder of a humid summer storm, make you feel the song in your bones like the distinct chill when you're running running in the rain. i want the words to enrapture you, oh my oh my, like lightning striking you. a man looks at his wife, and thinks. if only, if only i could. for now, i shall hold your hand and tell you i love you. i hope that is enough.