To An Old Lover In Egypt

I read you are in Egypt,
and I am jealous.
I see you standing under the sun of Ra,
squinting your blue eyes at the timeless horizon.
Do you think of me, and my flesh,
While you dust ancient bones?
Does Aida still echo through the Memphis temple?
Once when we lay together,
I was afraid you would go away to Alaska
Alaska big and white.
I never saw you in Egypt
but it seems like you now.
I can see your fine brown skin
covered with the sweat of Ramses.
Do the women of Cairo or Alexandria
suit you?
You are a walking puzzle
and now you match your outside.
Kiss the sphinx for me,
and smile back at her
like you used to in your sleep.

What Days May Come

What days may come,
to keep us far apart.
What good is a dream,
when it breaks your heart?
Time moves along
always so very slow
and I wonder where our path
will go.
I don't know why
and can't begin to say
but I need your arms around me
at the closing of the day.
You have a hold on me,
like the full moon pulls
upon the tide.
I wait and keep looking
for the brighter side.
Yet every night I lay down alone
and realize
you're never coming home.
There's a crown of feathers
on the pillow where your
head used to lie.
I feel your arms around me
as the stars begin to rise.
But then I realize
it's only the ghost of your
good-bye.

May Day

Today is the day

we should think about

all

of the

people

who work so hard

to make

our paths

easier.

Those who work so

hard.

So far from

home.

Dreaming of some days

and better times.

While they labor

in countless ways.

Diner Song

Sometimes I wake up,
in love with the world,
every last scrap of humanity.
I want to kiss the
fry cook with the neck tattoo
and hug the waitress
with her shy second language smile
as she pours my coffee.
Dance with the ball-capped truckers
and red-necked farmers,
the widows with their paper-backed romances for company.
I want to take them home
to my kitchen and
smother them with love and gravy
so thick they'd never want to leave.
But here we all sit
together and alone
having breakfast in America.

Number thirteen

Last night I lay
on the banks of the
river of sleep.
Trying so hard to
dive in deep.
Watching the stars
float by.
Coming to the surface again,
to dream only of
kissing you
in the wind
and snow.

Number Eleven

Sometimes I get so lonesome- but I'm not sure
for where or why- just like old Hank
who sang that song- I get so lonesome I could cry.

But I get lonesome for the road and spaces inbetween
I get lonesome and homesick for places
I've never been.
Sometimes I get so lonesome and sad and
awful blue- but not sad enough to turn back
on my road to stop and look for you.

Like old Hank on that sad highway
he was alive in Lubbock and lost on New Years Day
alone and cold in the back of a car
I think I'd like to go that way.

Sometimes I get so lonesome
but just for land and sky
Sometimes I get so lonesome
I could just breakdown and cry.

Unbidden

The Language of birds
secretly whispered.
The hidden romance of desire,
flutters unbidden to
the heart.
The breathlessness of flight

Floras por Los Muertos

Marigold petals, bitter stain,

my memory- calloused fingers,

savagely dead-heading,

the withered blooms.

Pinch and pull and pinch and pull.

The heads thrown below- in disapproving silence.

Acid yellow smell keeps even the bugs away.

Marigolds in

white- milk- glass shaped, like an inkwell.

Stolen from an Arkansas grave-yard.

Her things.....

the grave robbers' daughter.

So now I pick the bones, scraps of wing,

and the bricks and lace of old buildings.

Take my stones and feathers and sand,

and grow flowers for the day of the dead.

Bathe my hair with cammomile and calendula,

the same for my tawny skin.

Rinse myself in the petals' hot water

Sun running into my ears, from the kettle.

Soldier Boy

So I'm waiting at the gate
for the dawn to unlock
the cold gray sky
The guards are always late.

The gravel faced doctor
shrugs his shoulders.
They never have much to say,
down here at the old V.A.

Grandpas' hair is white now
all soft like new snow.
His legs shake, he turns to go
as he wipes the touch of their
careless hands away.

The young men with empty eyes
are waiting mute and lame
even'tho they're here now,
they'll never be home again.

Faithfully families wait,
'cause that's what families do,
but who can mend all the broken soldiers?
Brave hearts, strong, and true.
Just boys most of them,
now all the warrin's through.

Empty eyed boys, their bodies,
half -blown away.
A young wife sits beside him,
a baby on the way.
Now they're down here fightin' for treatment,
and overdue back pay.
We pretend not to hear them,
down at the old V.A.

They went full of hope and freedom,
to settle up, a score to pay.
They left their souls behind them
on a battle field far away.
We don't hear them cryin',
down at the old V.A.

So tell me Mr. Senator,
what ya' gonna do?
How ya 'gonna treat all the soldier boys,
now their war is through?

So come on down here,
and wait with me a while
watch the burned faces try to
learn to smile.
Listen to the echos as the mothers cry
in dismay.
Come spend a little time sir,
down here at the old V.A.

Homeless

Four walls to hold me,

it's an easy kind of peace,

that always seems to elude me,

a restless heart that cannot cease.

For some it's a vacume,

a small and breathless space,

for when does a home become a cage?

cornered in time and space.

Being Schooled

The ones who taught me,

you don't have to be cut to feel like,

you're bleeding or torn apart inside.

The ones who showed me in the small,

hours of the morning great joys can hide.

That a sigh can speak a thousand words,

And some have nothing to say,

Even though they can talk at you all night and day.

The ones who taught me love and pain,

are really all the same- it's just two edges of

the same sword,

full of loss and gain

I've heard that darkness has a face

that reaches far beyond it's grasp.

And that on the road to being who you are,

it's the journey, not the path.

Moving On

You must have come in,

to the garden late last night,

so silent and hidden from sight.

Turned yourself outside in,

and silently slipped away,

leaving your skin.

Hallow eyed and empty grin,

shedding your ghostly shroud,

ready to begin again.

This Way Please

"Mysticism occurs whenever a human being

sees the separation between the natural

and the supernatural,

the temporal and the eternal,

as overcome."

Albert Schweitzer

Waiting

Well the Devil's finally let me be, after
all that dancing by the deep blue sea.
The hammer dropped,
but the bullet never came.
My ghosts of midnight still
come round to call out my name.
So now I'm waiting, waiting,
playing the age old game.
Walking on the edge,
where the beauty is so rare.
Shedding selves as I move on,
down to my bones without care.
But my demons follow close behind, and catch
my tracks it's true.
I'm headed halfway home,
not good for much, but
that's only half true-
'cause all that I'm good for
is waiting for you.

Lost in Time

Today the bluest eye took my breath away,

so true, so strong,

so proud,

hills sing in indigo and flame.

A silent rapture of spring,

and a hope of tommrow.

As far as the eye can see,

the flowers cast their,

carpet of life.

Number Seven

And so it starts- it seems we're always told,

how to stand, how to speak, and what's important to hold.

What to pass and what to keep,

and how to stay within the lines,

everything so precise and carefully defined.

Never forget to invite wildness into your heart.

Not everything is easy-and somethings hold apart.

Not everything is ordered, sometimes you have to

color outside the lines- to make

your life your art.

"The subject matter of poetry is not that "collection of solid, static objects extended in space" but the life that is lived in the scene that it composes; and so reality is not that external scene but the life that is lived in it. Reality is things as they are"

Wallace Stevens

Number Twelve

Between lunch and laundry,
I've a thousand words to say,
a poem rattling in my head, I've told to sit and stay.
Between lunch and laundry,
and folding each tiny sock,
my Muse drops by to remind me,
to get it while it's hot.
Between lunch and laundry,
there's one thousand things to do,
the doorbell rings, the cat meows,
there's dishes and there's you.
You always to remind me,
that life gets in the way,
but you can't put it down,
you can only ask it to wait,
and hope the words can stay.
Sometime between lunch and laundry,
I'll find the right word to say.

The Question

The Child asks me,

"which is stronger,

the flower or the bee?"

As if I know.

I wonder for a moment

caught in the question of the innocents.

Which has more power, the plant that can crack

the stone?

Or the gentle bee

dancing among the blossoms,

that owe their

very life to the window pane wing.

When weighing the moment of

of the childs' spring wonder.

I reply as I often do,

"what do you think?"

Number Eight

I want a beer with Bukowski,
and dose with Uncle Bill,
to ride along drunk with Jack,
just for a thrill.
I want to kiss Allen G.,
just to make him cry and then run,
tell all the boys- but the beats have
passed me by.
I had my turn on the bus,
and skipped and ran away,
oh I had my rainbow fun,
easy back in the day.
This morning I am drunk with words
and I want to hold the poets hand
but I am dizzy with the muse upon my head
and don't think I can stand.
I want an old hotel room on a lost highway
with snapping neon all pink and blue
I want cigarettes and rum
and old sheets stained with love,
and you.