I want you to feel the vibrancy of THIS moment

I want you to feel the vibrancy of THIS moment,

and sure, I may not be cogent,

but that does not detract from the potent, the soul net,

of these stitched together thoughts.

It may be the alcohol but my skin is caught,

______

hooked on your bait.

Thus we are both fish and fishermen,

I with my sinewy net,

you with that lascivious hook

and it takes no amounts of books

to know that these heavy-lidded looks

are magnetized. We do not tantalize no,

that was left at the sober door.

Sober clothes hit the sober floor.

So too did this post hoc poem,

flown from my grip as soon as you gripped my gaze

leveled those earth eyes through my fog haze.

And then we were fish, slippery and wet,

caught in each others’ snares and nets,

skin prickled from hooks, looks, feverish stares,

until collapsing we gasped for air.

The air – it is vibrating. Humming between us.

Fish and fishermen shimmer into blackness.

Time slides like oil in water

Time slides like oil in water

our lifetsyles are immiscible

here

in lipid slick seconds

the world swirls about us

all rainbow sheens and oil drop puddles

step right a droplet

and we float gently

sunlight glittering in our wake

If I could flit

between our densities

turn each molecule over in my hand

tweak their hydrophobicities

I would mix oil with water

I would blend our Time together

and sit with you in a galavanting bubble

looking down on all that glistens below.

Misfit

You are not here to provide some

Status quo, head low, placebo existence.

You see, misfits fit the parts that we didn’t know we were missing.

We’re the ones lingering on hollowed out hearts,

Because that cardiac echo of “let go, let go”

Only needs a fraction of a contraction

To change to “let’s go! Let’s go!”

Because when the puzzle believes

It has conceived of all possible pieces,

When they think they are complete

When my God they are

Replete with ignorance,

We need to show them,

Throw them for a loop,

Stoop kid get off your stoop

Open your eyes to the lies,

We are more than just suits and ties

Or tattoos and knives

We are the young truth called youth.

And we may be a peg leg

But you need us to stand

And we will stand

Hand in hand

Hands reaching into that bleached

Heart of America

Beat the rhythm of our poetry

See your dollar idolatry

Because if we are all truly free

You and me are not some

Nameless and faceless

Denigrated scrap of tasteless

NO!

We are the light

The change

The spark

The hope and I hope

You are listening,

Hearing, feeling

The snug fit of

What you didn’t know

You had missed from

This here misfit.

I love you the way snow falls

I love you the way snow falls

softly, with a quiet murmur

suffused with a gentle rush

.

I love you the way rain mists

a cooling of the brow

a lightness of being in a

world removed from time

a universe only in our shared breath

 .

I love you the way rain falls

fierce and unrepentant

flooding in its intensity

delicate in its individuality

splashing playfully

 .

I love you like falling from the sky

where you kiss me to the clouds and back

and sighing through the atmosphere

we whirl down together in

half-cuddle half-dance

.

Falling in love with you

is as easy as letting go.

I am a gumball machine

I am a gumball machine.

Put an emotion, any emotion, there- in the slot.

Watch as the idea drops from the bulbous head,

whirls ‘round and ‘round and ‘round…

Here.

Open your hand.

This blue one is for you.

For the sadness of seeing me when I look into you.

It’s so shiny, isn’t it?

They all come out that way:

vibrant, with that magical candy sheen,

no matter the color.

Go ahead. Bite.

Now try this one, the yellow.

For the glow of sunshine in your hair.

See? No, huh.

Try this one, red,

for when we laid in bed,

had a conversation with no words said.

Ahh, now you see.

All of the ideas that tumble from me,

blue, yellow, red,

all shiny, all sweet,

why, they all taste exactly the same.

I give you the only thing I have abundance of.

I coat it with words,

make it shine and gleam,

but it all tastes the same.

They all spit it out in the end.

“Social” media

Let me riddle you a conundrum

hum a rhyme down your eardrum

and wait while your cochlea confides

my puzzle to your mental insides.

 

Ready? Harken close my dear,

and answer me what you now hear:

Why are you so terribly alone

with half a thousand friends on your phone?

 

What loud void do you hear in the silence

when batteries die and thoughts will not rest?

How is it that we are so intertwined

yet our souls ever feel confined?

 

Please, if an answer you have

let me know.

For I have walked this digital realm

too long to let go.

Depth

I have a tendency to dive head first.

Shallow friends make my head hurt.

But you,

when I dive into you

I have to stop and come up for air.

I can explore the depths of your iris for days.

Listen to the lilt and timber of your voice for fathoms.

Sometimes, my lungs cannot take the pressure,

the air pushes up my trachea, and tickles my vocal chords

into “I love you.”

There is a spider which builds bubbles with its silk.

Uses air and gossamer as a submersible.

I am laying down a thread behind me as we go,

you can see it along the Charles, winking in the setting sun.

One day, I’ll spin a bubble from it,

sink slowly into your eyes,

and find your depths.

The place where sunlight no longer dapples.

I’ll lay on that ocean bed…..

then pluck the thread.

Vibrate loose my bubble

collapse the submersible

and lovingly, willingly,

drown in you.

Petrichor: home, soil, and rain

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Free Association.”

Take my brain and mushroom cloud it

split neuronal atoms and watch them dance in spring sunbeams:

---

We lay on emerald and watched titans undulate the clouds

like they were winter rugs brought outside to air.

The trees, old matrons heavy with care,

swayed rushes of antiquated maternity.

Wintergreen contrasts of snow on spring growth,

a blooming violet glittering with droplets,

bending subtly under the life-giving weight

and all the more beautiful for its burden.

We took off our shoes

squelched in mud puddles and

recognized our oneness with the world.

I pointed to the tallest tree on campus,

remarked how lovers may have inscribed their names

and though bumps in a ring of rings are the only evidence,

it is just as true a moment as it ever was.

Salt and snow

Summer, 1990.  

Gold sets a river in North Carolina afire.

Writhing joyously in the flame,

a thousand ephemeral vapors transcend

rising rising

whispy tendrils reach, embrace, and dissipate.

But I, I found my way to the heavens

And that which is me

crystallized around my core

tenuously blossoming until

diamond bifurcations burst

into stunning symmetry.

I surrendered to the seraphim stratosphere

and reveled in gravity’s caress.

Falling is flying when you’ve never touched ground.

So it was clearly fate

when I suddenly stopped

and you were there.

Crystalline and kindred

rough and resplendent

you, you melted me.

I taste salt.

My thoughts on religion:

My thoughts on religion:
Interplaying neurons wiring and firing
Conspiring and desiring
To place meaning not so demeaning
Upon this interlude
As if deities on qualudes
Concluded that mood and manner
This rude candor should st-st-stammer
Be hammered, pummelled,
Drummed, thrummed, into
A hum-drum-ho-hum down-and-done
Manner of life!
But my thoughts careening,
Fearing and steering clear of that
Headlight deer we call death.
And no I’m not deaf I can hear
Those prayers, pastoral cares,
But don’t share your soul snare
Because they don’t care.
Gods, politics: corrupt
And I WILL erupt
I WILL NOT sip from your cup
Blood tastes like iron not wine
You are not divine
And what is mine is mine
Here in this body
This body
Ain’t nobody’s and it will be nobody
When this body is no more
Deep beneath the floor
Once I’ve settled score after score
Internal demons no more
I can’t fight any more
Let me rest when I’m done
Life is a battle to be won
And I am one with the Holy Son
Because all that is divine
Resides within the human mind.