Star Fall

he knew you were a sky lover
magnified your romanticism
loved you from a distance

was it that July heat that made him
want to crawl inside the mouth of another
did he ever see what you looked like 
in the moonlight of his rear view mirror

it was parked beneath the broad old oak 
that he cast his summer spell
as the radio light made you his
he smelled like young heaven
taming winter with his kiss
decimating your heart with betrayal

you wish the stars would fall on you
they were the most sacred thing
to witness your deepest pain 

 

Goodnight, Goodbye, Sweet Dreams

we had wheels for sky racing
but the clouds always won 
mountains before us to climb
but they built us strong
hungry for laughter
for the movement of a life going somewhere
adjusting to knowing we were the no one's
of this world going nowhere
barbed wire boundaries left scars
and wine presses were visible, but not ours 
too young to be broken
by words on youthful battlefields
didn't mean we didn't realize we were on the 
outside
didn't mean we didn't feel
dancing they said was a sin
but inside us the music was always playing
control isn't love, neither is fear
hearts are indestructible
but flesh always tears
you can't break someone who knows who and what
and believes in all they are
cause we're all made from the same particles
of universe and stars

love you from a distance they say
but their silence tells on them when they never say a thing
that's all right 
we're strong enough for this kind of sting
can't say you know us when you've drifted for years
and we were thirsty and without
and you never cared enough to care
well here's to the good life you never bothered to share
drink up my dear
one day you'll be older and the walls will be
too tight for your soul
everyone that you've forsaken 
will never let you walk alone
in ghost form, their smile, their name, their face
too late now
can't blame, can't erase
so
goodnight, goodbye, sweet dreams 


If you've ever been forsaken, forgotten or left behind this poem is for you.

Love and Summer's End

The love there in the corner with the steel gray eyes, is he yours?
the one you paint your lips the perfect red for, perfume the sheets of your shared bed
tell me 
is he the song you carry in your head
the one who measures your nights with his hands combed in your hair, kissing winter from your hands
you silly summer girl
do you memorize the whispering he beds you with
do you still blush with pleasure because this man of your dreams is no longer a shy school boy
does he sing you awake and rub your body with heat that knows how to make a woman's body dream a dream full of unending love laws that you two only know
do you want to be his fool
love him and erase yourself in all he is just because you can
does he make your heart feel like a tiny bird
as it thunders and comes quickly to life
is your day a jealous lullaby as you get drunk on his scent and close your eyes
do you live half asleep when you're not with him
his name on your breath and the sky a kiss that never satisfies 
you pray that time won't end until you're rooted in his mapped out dreaming soul that loves you like an ivory ghost
is he a symphony of moonlight as it sheds the day's sky colors 
are you his flame, the place his mind and untamed hands browse as you light up the night
weightless afternoons, you and your Summer love
your ribs vibrate as he kisses you like a hungry angel
time apart will only crucify the yellow days of Autumn and you're not ready for Summer to end 

What's One More Time

we've been over this before...

your mother's weakness -
your father's power
your nightmares -
because absence of lighthouses
the ticking in your pillow 
just your fear has won a scholarship 
to teach you you'll never have your hands
around its neck
your silence -
the way you hide when you can't run
your hair in your eyes 
cause you don't feel like smiling at anyone
your novels, your wine and your pens
are crutches, props and freedom
the news is a Hollywood sign you don't worship any
longer, your heart's too tired
your sensitivity 
because you released the elephants 
and everyone got mad for years
your locked doors -
you want a safe ending
exhale
and shatter until
the myths and the rumors and dreaming
don't want you anymore
no, you are not hungry
you're too starved for life to die
and we've been over this before
what's one more time
 
 
 

Sad Romantics

world falls apart
it's all going to burn

nobody's gonna sleep anymore
too many strangers, not enough doors
nights are ours
streets own us

we're dreaming of houses that broke
no where to go
in love with a reckless soul

we're just harlequin dreams
rolling around in mental romantic
occupancy
becoming a yellow love letter to the moon
we split our souls and conjure up
conversations with our guardian angels
asking
what shall we choose
who shall we be
the sad romantics are sometimes
speechless
running the hourglass down
leaving wonder and questions
for our own hearts to hallucinate
the answers we are denied

rock and roll will cure us
the sad mad house that broke us
will burn
but we will never wish to return
we'll be euphoric in our
medicated heaven that separates us
from a living hell
and who needs sleep
oh well

we'll run in the streets and pretend we
are fully clothed and desired
we'll electrify the angelic ones
with barbed wire hair
sad romantics with glass in hand
tear in our eye and nostalgia 
for a lover
we'll live in reclusive asylums 
writing poems about skyscrapers and
pavements 
walk down corridors that shun us
and on shiny streets slick with rain
the light will swallow our lonely footsteps
the sunsets will make us cry
our new houses now prisons
the sky is a dream
and we're all just meandering
we'll sit and wonder
become restless and we were sifting
miracles surely
but they turned into sawdust

one train ride away from mama and
sunshine to another somewhere
another sometime
but the skeletons are already in place
you will never be an angel
and the old books that you cradle
on rainy haunted midnights
smell like the tears of a saint
those tunnels can't take us back
those clocks won't kiss us young again
our bodies will remember
when our mouths forget to speak

and maybe the fairytales have died
or maybe they are in a cab disappearing
around a strange corner somewhere
beneath a winter moon 


I wrote this on a sleepless night in the summer of 2016. It became the title of a chapbook I wrote and published on Create Space. Although my little chapbook never found its audience it was on my bucket list to do. Success doesn't always have a dollar sign, it is the completing what one sets out to do.
So whether you are sad, lonely, romantic or neither or maybe life has taken so much from you that makes no sense at all and yet you are still brave enough to be here and live this life, this poem is for you.

The Taste of War

you shall not talk in bed
no whisperings of prayers
or poetry recitings
you shall not sing in bed
or chew gum or sleeping pills
you may not swing from the ceiling
from happiness or from woe
do not bring your pens to bed
or your store receipts and grocery lists
do not worry that you left the lid
off the jar of honey
or if the milk is out of date
do not think of rain or snow
or somewhere new to go
don't speak please
you'll frighten the tipsy mouse
you never admit you see 
no thinking of food or dirty laundry
or what you'll next eat
forget your debt and who hasn't repaid you yet 
and everything you're not good at
you should not think of the madness
that you're sure you suffer from
or who is out to get you
of all the places you'll never hurry to
or of the faces you'll never see again
not of the mosquitoes that will drain you thin
don't speak, don't think, don't worry for nothing
play your radio low
pull the sky over you
the star spangled one
no wringing of your hands
the memories in them are rented for a lifetime
don't think about your mother's silver watch
in a box
it can no longer tick its way out of anything
or of how you can't forgive yourself
it would be too dangerous 
to enjoy life again
and you enjoy the taste of war
too much to let it end
 

boy

the boy with the blue halo in his eyes
still reminds you
you never replaced him
your eyes would be liars
your hands would be numb
so you keep your kisses to yourself
the boy you remember is still in the forest
of your mind
you never left the spot he released
you on