The Wind Will Take You

the wind will take you 

a thousand steps 

cut in

stone

there is now a parking garage

over the garden gate

where we first

met

one-thousand glass marbles

into the midnight ocean

our silence

sink

Two Days by the Creek

how a couple of days can slip by

winter again and pills can let me relax into it

time, a rush of water

I float on my back as the days continue

happening around me

daydream within a daydream

I am sitting by a creek

in the woods

cold light and bitter breeze passing

I curl and uncurl my toes

Heart is where the hurt is

wanting what isn’t there

grasping at emptiness

Yes I need to rest

its a choice between burning up

and slowing down

growing cold

actually freezing to death sounds

awful infinity

fire is the way to go

Somethings I've Seen

The Roses
     elected to form a crystal vase corporation
             and market themselves as
     relation ship executives
Can you unfold yourself
               in proper coloring
          to inspire intimate connections
                                              between us

The Honey Bees are seldom subtle
             in their advances
   toward your milky sweet skin
                      they just want you
                                         till it stings

The Piano Keys
                wait patiently
         to be ushered
into the politest of symphonies
            or
           the sound
             of a fist pounding

The  Cherries were picked
                  five years too late
              already melted to rotten fruit
       and living again as
a three foot sapling
      which does not taste nearly as nice
                               in a juice or jam
               

Road to the Shrine

After breakfast
in the middle of all the things we have to do
and pieces of this puzzle we have to put back into place
my sister and I turned

taking the road under the gate
     guarded by the japanese cedar
             leading up to the shrine at the top of the hill

"Look for mushrooms," I said.
            a search I had started one month before
in a poem i never wrote
      but acted with all feverish sincerity
            this psychadelic treasure hunt
                    this conversation cycling between myself and the earth

God fell asleep in the cloudy morning
                     left his toes sticking out of the covers
        Hazelnut caps and stems that stain blue
The systems of mycelium that spread underground
all the while I was rushing past
        carrying only faith that they exist
until the day when we saw them pushing up
          past the carpet of grass and dew

a whispered word to each kami I passed that day
from the hill top to the little church in the valley
           where we heard
love is not a feeling but an aching of the will
that should always lead to action

In the evening we sat waiting for the rains to come again
I talked with my wife of the journeys
       these toenail clippings of God
could take me on
           Why I would go she could not understand
                 we opened our hearts and hurt
to see such difficulties between us
and pushed on
      questioning ourselves
                    our ideas of wholeness

deciding to leave the mushrooms alone
we left the room
to walk on our own
   
       I sat on the stoop of a pre-fab hut filled with junk where no one lived
         and kept conversation with the neighborly Sri Lankan mechanic
as the rain tapped at our shoulders through the cracked plastic roof
                          He said without a doubt
a world without beggars
is possible
     and of course we will have to do away with most boarders too

And I saw the tree
          the one that had waited all spring to put forth its leaves
now had the modest hangings of foliage
      no one leaf bigger than your eyelid
             and each one greener than the word of God

      sitting on the concrete
      with the other rain drops I heard
the liquid carbon slide
           up the grey trunk
                         and out on tender reaches of the farthest twigs where
it came forth to catch the sun

Train to Sendai

Of all the patterns spilt in red

the fingerprint catches my eye

wandering its labyrinth of identity

in the middle a mustard seed mystery

who am I to be sprouting here this year

but really I was sown over 23 years ago

yeah back before I knew what numbers were

and mustard too

This poem was written with my wife, Jenny, as we rode a train to Sendai, Japan. We took turns writing the lines. 

Barefoot Talk

Arkansas is
where I grew up climbing trees
with skint knees
it is known as a place where
folk might be so  backward as to
walk barefoot

For the most part it has become like the rest of the world
a synthesis of interstate highways
internet hideaways
and interchangeable suburb sets
lacing us up in cotton socks and rubber soles

But some of us still remember what words
the cool grass will share
in the summer afternoon
or the joy of a winter creek
the shift of the rocks beneath

Some of us fear not
the broken glass, black
tar and burning gravel
we have planted in our gardens
Eden is there below
the grit of sand and humus between toes

Dead Morning

Drinking coffee this morning in the rain
will it turn black with bombs
who is making such troublesome thunder, I wonder
will they ever come in and have a cup

Porcelain petals spin down from the
newspaper-grey of branches
into beds where
glass ferns are uncurling, broken

Yesterday I would have been afraid
but I woke here to find my body tingling in death
and the life I knew yesterday spun away by
the clock so that all I have left to do is breakfast