No Perfection

Today is a day like any other day in my postage stamp yard blinding with white sun
Iridescent hummingbirds, royal purple petunias, green aphids and rusted rose leaves
Exist side by side
Floaty butterfly's are in decline while the ants quickly take over carrying their precious
Jade like aphids from leaf to leaf spreading disease while they make sweet milk for the colony

My life is expecting perfection; No fuck ups allowed

I could have been a flower or bird or aphid or ant
but stuck in human form
watching—weighing—wishing
There is no perfection,
Only the acceptance of its non existence

On Reading Love Poems

a human heart reaches for connection
however brief, out of solitary exposure
a bridge emerges from the mist.
we set foot on uncertain boards
without any sense of purpose
the curtain stirs in the heat of promise
not the safe tomorrow, that never comes
“she loves me, she loves me not?”
why ask?

14th Year in Cherryland

In the summer of their 14th year
that warm endless summer in Cherryland Park
his steely blue jeans melted 
against her soft brown corduroys like hot metal magma

pushing her hard into the fresh cut grass
exciting her allergies
causing welts up and down her naked suntanned arms

Red lacerations, later to be explained away with

                     I dont knows

Absentmindedly itching the swelling cross-hatching's
until they bled
all the while thinking 
of his tongue
and how cold it felt in her mouth

Given Enough Time

there are fourteen crossings
between here and there
pick one, just one
you will, of course, regret your choice
you always have,
given enough time
we all do,
given enough time
but today is your lucky day.
this you will remember
until Thursday becomes Friday
by the weekend your joy
will begin to thin and
the face in the mirror
will question certainty itself

The Art of Closure

Walk
Don't run when you see the signs:
eyes that never really look at you
a luminous body that does not glow
words that speak of nothing

If you are young it will be hard
to see and read these signs

Age can help define
and justify the leaving

Walk
slow but deliberate;
if you run you will get away
too fast and wont learn the lesson

On the other side is
light and sound and air

Ice Blue Eyes

a single face among faces
in a crowd on the street
ice blue eyes, coffee colored face
my heart stopped
         an instant
then the blood began to flow,
         in earnest
she knew she had this effect
both on men and on women
but didn’t understand why

I didn’t look away
as almost everyone did
she didn’t blink, searching my face
for some indication, some sign
maybe I had the answer

El Capitan

Arranged idly on his face
two staring orbs of clouded blue

His hand confessed to nothing
while it pawed the ice cubed air

Down below his palsied feet
danced to a happy tune
only he could hear

"turn up the volume El Capitan"
he sang into deepest echoic space

His lift off was successful and now he was free

The Rubber Glove

“You pointing your finger at ME?”
a quizzical look on my face
“You pointing your finger at me?”
in my best imitation of DeNiro
while the doctor, smiling,
snapped on his rubber glove.

Raynaud's Phenomenon

With one small word 

all the goodness had been wrung out of the day

Her secret silver hair now covered in hennas of tobacco brown

and at other times natural brown or natures brown

 When wanting excitement

black or very black

Now hung lank and languid over the computer terminal

 Raynuad's blue fingers scratching at the keyboard

searching Google for the meaning of life

He walks by and coughs

her fingers keep moving

she does not even look up

Silver Seagull

The pure silver seagull
wrapped its wings
around my finger
“it’s your totem,” you whispered
     (we were into totems in those days)
as you handed it to me
it turned out to be a going-away present
I never saw you again
and thirty years later
I discovered where you escaped to
wrote you a letter
which you never answered

Angry Birds

The love of my life 
was carried aloft 
by a flock of raging white seagulls

A desperate grab at his sibilant hand 
met only the empty air

He unwillingly floated 
and pierced my eyes 
with his knowing Vedic gaze 
then, he simply sailed away

No time for last goodbys
No time for I'm sorrys
No time for his tonal touch 
to let me know, that all would be well

Those seagulls
Those seagulls
Those seagulls are stronger than they look 

and what has been lost
will not be found 
now that it has been unbound

The Rush

An unexpected appointment,
a hurried rush,
squeezed into a fragment of a lunch hour.

You pick me up in the truck.
We exchange words, jumbling out without thought,
purging events of the morning.

In the haze of sound,
I feel the closeness of the cab walls,
caccooned next to you,
the two of us alone without our daughter,
the love of our lives,
for the first time in months.

And your words flow over me unheard--
so sorry my love--
because you have suddenly become brighter, luminescent,
and I marvel at the blueness of your eyes
and your olive skin burnished by the sun,
and I take your hand in mine.

Golden Gate Park

We have made our way into San Francisco.

All around us is hushed.

Those sounds do not sing,

your eyes are not blue.

Hold my hand Reptile.

Walk our storied path to Golden Gate Park

and try to remember

when I ever loved you.

The Game

The Devil resides between layers of chocolate cake,
moist, yielding, the promise of melting in my mouth.
Hunkered down in creamy, dark ganache,
he knows I am weak.

He lurks down dark alleys and lonely streets,
shadowy, making noises unseen.
Dredging up feelings of fear and uncertainty,
I hesitate, cower, and turn toward more traveled roads.

He waits beyond steep mountain curves,
sheer and achingly beautiful.
I grip the door of the car harder, looking straight ahead
as he laughs at the scenery I have missed.

It is all a game to him,
To overcome or be overcome.

The Devil

I sometimes feel the Devil
rides across Planet Earth                                                     
looking for points of easy entry.
Like a hacker probing the system for flaws               

looking for the unlocked backdoor,
Diablo works day and night
to access our vulnerabilities.

I, have been made dimpled from all my probes.
Skin stretched from point to point
in a constellation of scars.
Just as one puncture heals another one appears.
Satan knows well my systems peculiarities,
and exploits them quite elegantly, quite easily.


The world seems to be splatters and dots of red
and I wonder when enough blood will be spilt.
Attracted to weakness, The Prince of Darkness
(seeking his own safe place just as mortals do)
flies to the house with the Crimson porch light,
crouches in the corner, and silently waits for me to walk by.