"I am the shadow"

I am the shadow
between music notes-
the trumpet player¹s breath
in lick-your-ear-out jazz-
the pause-ridge running
through the brass wails-

I show up
when our eyes match
three tables and four glasses away-
I am the look
heavy as the smoke air and
deep as a pianist¹s heel
into the floor-

A finger around a bottle-rim
a gap in the lips
I am the feeling in the hollow of your stomach
as the low note slips out from under you
and you stand on silent feet.
©2000

The Message of the Poems

I did manage to establish
a polar-opposite,
a visionary-wilderness
to this point of despair.

I will distribute them through flyers.
I will fly over the city,
strained in intensity
handling the air my packages of sound.

Will they reach you some years
in a poetic-attempt?
Too dependent,
somewhat unclear?

A justification below
rather than above?

Into the myth of tomorrow,
the brink of next year

Accept their unique identities,
units in time,
their weak-spots
their tangents

Absorb their temptations
their preoccupations

Their parents scrubbed
and disharmoniously brought together,
they grew out of dissatisfaction,
quarrel after quarrel

They encompassed the present-day scene,
They, we can trust as ourselves

Like journies layered in meaning
universal compassion
groundwork

Yet they will not prevent the apocolypse
from finding everywhere

For mine, too,
was the reaching of many hearts
too hard to know where to put them
©

"a day"

it was a clear morning
like poetry.
and people asked,
modern poetry?
the kind filled with i's
looking around?
no longer simple,
attentive to change?

i went down a ladder
to early afternoon
there were beautiful people writing poetry
they must live forever
embryo through eternity
growing their hearts

it turned a powerful night
like language
pumped with oxygen
through human air

a moon
a star
and i
were there.
© 2002


"Morning"

morning
is a statement
like again

like now
from now-on
new

it arrives
on your doorstep
dressed head-to-toe in blue

it is the inhale
before the exhale

it has news to tell later
but can wait

for now it is all stillness
and sky
© 2002

"Hothouse Boyfriend"

I keep picking
sunny boys
with bright faces
and tall backs
for the vase
on my kitchen table-

watering-can boys
that brighten rooms
with their blooms

only later
to come home
to find piles of
I-love-you-I-love-you-nots
scattered on the floor

I keep cleaning
up this mess
vowing
next time
I'll choose a cactus
or some inconspicuous thing
grown on a rock
that knows what it is
©2002