Untitled (Sea of Clouds)

The sea of clouds above me
Halts at a wall of radiance
Like a glimpse
Of a painted chapel heaven
And in the blink between
Each pass of the windshield wipers
I can see rain drawn across it
Dark grey lines
Elongated static
Embroidery thread
A veil
To shield me from the divine

Blue

There's a boba place in the mall
Where we used to buy ice cream
And a seafood restaurant
Where there once was
A Sweet Tomatoes. 

But the mailboxes await me
Like a line of ghosts 
Standing at sentry
To the low stone walls
And chipped sidewalks
That pull my thoughts 
As if I can feel in them
An endless cascading vibration
Set in motion against time
Mated to a memory
Of an echo of myself.

I didn't plan to come here.

Though

I'd also never meant to leave.

Now there's new cars in the driveways

And colored garden lights

Yet the neighbor's saguaro
Still stretches its fingers 
Into the endless blue. 

And they still use the number tiles 
With the flower print
And the front door 
My father made 
Two years before he died. 

They've painted it. 

Blue.

(2024)

Line

I wanted her and I to work
But we somehow got our wires crossed
The sparks were there but nothing moved forward
Stuck together alone in a revolving door
A radio dial fluttering near synching
We were never on the same wavelength
Passing each other like ships in the night
Playing some elaborate game of telephone
With mixed drinks and messages
But the words she was saying over our cups
Only began to make sense
The further she pulled away from me
Stretching the cords that bound us thin
Until we'd drawn a line straight between us

(2021)

Red Light

I'm at a red light
The stereo so loud I can barely think
It must be the drums 
Pressing against my chest
It must be your voice stuck in my throat
My words feel drug across sand
Where are you?
And where are you? 
My world is moving past me with growing speed 
     and I feel the rolling bass against my thigh as it 
           presses to the door and I
Where are you?
Every moment we move farther away
I existed before you
I'm sure I'll be

Right here

Burn Away

The sky resembles that trend in movie posters
From maybe five years ago
A hung dome divided between vivid blue and orange
I can see it in the rearview
I wonder if it's because of the brushfires
On the underside of the world
The sky there is crimson at all times of day
Like it was hung with darkroom bulbs instead of a sun
I've seen it in photos
I could stop somewhere and look behind me
Instead of catching glimpses across a spread of glass
But I have places to be
There's always something
I still don't like the taste it leaves behind my back
I wonder how often people do that
Let something fade away
Caught moving forward until a moment falls behind them
When I've parked my car the sun is gone
And I smell the scent
Of something burning

Untitled (Jaded)

There are moments when he is soft and sweet
When he weaves me throughout his heart like fragile glasswork
When he harbors unacknowledged hope for a future he places no belief in
But just as often he is bitter
A syrup derived from the inherent flaws in existence condensed to a pinprick of gravity
Stretched thin and indescribably heavy
I would like to say he grows his sweetness within my soil
A patch of wild to soak up the glow that his own bed has no place for
But what we'd like and what we get are often unmet paths under fumbling steps
But still I summon my colors into the sun
And he
Well he endeavors to not bury me under his shadows
His piercing barbs and entangling constructs don't encroach into my cherished places
And with my own hands I cover my pits in thread of rainbow prisms
A delicate patchwork of glimmering spiderwebs that grow sharp with sinking frost
Paper screen mazes and topiary labyrinths
And from my honed edges I regard his writhings and I know that in truth
I don't hate his jaded cynicism or his churning sorrow
I just can't help wishing
They were a bit more beautiful

Untitled (Letters)

He sends me love letters he whispers to the edge of the balcony
Late at night when the clouds swallow the stars and the mist of rain paints his skin
With the drops of light denied to the black holes facing up
The drops of light he cannot see which make him sparkle like frost in winter
He dreams in winter where everything is white and blank and cold
A cold to quench the unknown thing that sets his insides burning
To halt the machinery behind his eyes until everything is perfect still
In my memories of snow there is only us and a world like a bubble
And everything was alive like dancing and rain and my breath rising into light
And while I ache with the knowing and as he aches for the unknowing
I still can content myself that at the very least
We're both
In our own way
Dreaming of the same thing

Untitled (Notes)

As her bra fell to the floor
It played an open chord
Across the guitar leaned on my bed
And I realized
Why the neighbor boy's 
Callous tipped fingers
Only ever made me feel cold
As we huddled underdressed
Against the late spring frost
And why I found myself jealous
Of that other body in his hands
The one he could make sing so beautifully 
That fit perfectly in his arms
In a way mine never did
And though I'd learned to play for him
Pulling a voice from the hollows
My hands never filled with fire
In the way that they do now
Spreading across the curves 
Sinking into the softness of my mattress

Untitled (Gold Dust)

I showed him my fingertips
Covered in glittering dust
Remnants from my efforts to clean the rock collection
That sits on my shelf
Gathering decay and memories
 
And I asked him

Do you know how to pan for gold?
I'd told him before so I shouldn't have asked
But I wanted us to remember together
So I could, through him, remember my father
Telling me how the gold is heavier
And sinks deep
Settling into the grooves when everything else doesn't
When all the lighter things move on
Washing away with the water

Though 
I knew the shimmering flakes
Among the dust and cat fur
Were really only mica
The antibiotic I've been taking
For the unnamed rot growing inside me
Leaves my piss more yellow than those gently shining shards
It’s the whole reason I'm cleaning anything
This desperate but unbelieving hope
That I can scrub away this sickness
 
So that maybe when the morning finds me
I can leave it behind
 
Like waking from a dream

So it wasn't like I thought
I was showing him something special
I really just needed
A small bit of magic dredged up from the depths
Something sunk into the folds
Something with weight
Something special that I could show him

(2020)

Observation 10

Observation:
The neighbor's tree hangs over our yard
A cascade of blossoms like a waterfall
And when the wind blows
It rains in white petals
Dancing over the heads of squirrels
Who dig at the ground for seeds
Unmoved

Observation 9

Observation:
In line with our natures
We made a perfect cave for ourselves
Solace wrapped in darkness
Dry and full of such soft things
Warm blankets bathed in fresh cold air
I shift my covers and they crackle like fire
Light flaring and falling in the space of a breath
Alive in the time between heartbeats
It's such a ghost of a thing
That it possesses me completely
A whisper of magic as small as the sky

Observation 8

Observation:
I love when the sky looks like this
When the day’s final sigh
Fogs the celestial glass
With a blushing band in the west
The color of orange cream soda
Swelling into the encroaching blue
That velvet blanket is already adorned
In twinkling opaline fire
A funhouse mirror
That changes the above and below
A reality reconsidered
A magician unfurling his cloak for the prestige

Observation 7

Observation:
His hat declares him a corporal
And his left eye is the rebel flag
He says he had a heart attack
And he left the next morning
The doctors said he’d be back
That no one wants to die
He says that he’d already been saved
Back in Vietnam
But if he’d known how things would go
He never would have let them

Observation 6

Observation:
The shopping cart
That I first saw on the lot
And then in a dumpster
And then in front of a different one
Turned down and out of place
Is now tucked behind a wall
As if it is hiding
Ashamed
Or wounded from neglect
A rat rises from its basket into the trees
I thought we were alone here

Observation 5

Observation:
I went outside without my phone
I want to say I noticed the grapefruit colored sky
Or the knots hanging from the branches of the neighboring palm
But these things were already in my vocabulary
In truth what I noticed was how the drone of the cicadas
Merged with the thrum of AC units
And heavy traffic in the distance

Observation 4

Observation:
There is a smooth stone
Outside my apartment door
I notice it every day
Crystalized fog
Polished by unknown hand or process
I could take it inside
Feel it cool in my fingers
But then
It would not be there to greet me
And I know one day it will be gone
Just like before it arrived
But that’s okay with me too
There is still time

Observation 3

Observation:
Down at the end of the lot
There is a bush bowed in a circle
Like an ancient sea shell
I’ve seen it hundreds of times
But had never seen it
As I looked a car entered the highway
From the side street ahead
Making a perfect point of life
In the center of its curves

Observation 2

Observation:
It is golden hour
The grass is frosted yellow
By the fading sun
A dog walks into the grass
And contributes
His touch of sparkling citrine

Observation 1

Observation:
A homeless man sleeps
In an abandoned parking lot
Curled up like a child
On a pile of mattress
His skin dappled by sunlight
As dozens of cars pass

I miss him

I might admit to a feeling of uneasiness
If I was still capable of such things
If I could scrape free the blind from my eyes
Or raise the veil that clouds my thoughts
 
I miss him
 
His body is the cup my feelings spill into
Yet each drop sinks
into a spiraling void
Endless and irrevocable
Twinkling like stars in the darkness
Until burning out
 
There is a flicker
Like a flame on the tip of my tongue
That I could fall bodily into that
My entire self consumed inside of him
Burned alive or fading out
Emptied of context
 
But he is a winch that pulls me back
 
I want to wind my fingers through his hair
the way I want to twist myself
into the patterns of his thoughts
Make a space for myself against his heartbeat
 
Imperfect
 
And now it's past midnight
But I'm dreaming awake
The miles between us
Begin to feel like my intestines unraveling
And I know I should sleep
But I'm going to him
Into the sickly night air
That dampens my shirt and thickens my breath
 
I feel like I'm underwater
 
I hear a buzzing
Like a blown out speaker
Twisting and chittering in the stillness
Above the droning cicadas
A dragonfly beats himself
Against the plastic dome
on the light above the stairwell
As if his body were tethered to it
Failing to break free of it's gravity
 
And from where I stand
I can see the floors above me
The lights for each floor
And dragonflies
Beating their dissonance
In a chorus like electric currents
 
I trace my eyes upward
Light to light
Until they disappear from view
Lost into inky sky
And a feeling climbs up the back of my throat
 
A second spanning countless moments passes
And I swallow my held breath
And continue to my car
 
He's waiting for me
Out there in the empty hollows
 
And it's time for me to return


(Written in 2013, maybe?)

I want to write a poem

I want to write a poem
          about
the sweet
      softness
that was waking this morning
    The sun drifting in
                                                                                    
                                             a gentle kiss
I could wear on my skin all day
    like sweet
perfume
                               a lover's lingering salutations
                                             my heart light
A morning with eggs 
    and toast
          and hot coffee

                so sweet

                                The mug warming my fingers
                                      both nostalgic 
                              and constant

I feel my strings
    vibrate 
their rising chorus
               a body so strong
               so capable
               resilient and
                                                                                                    
                                                       unfaltering 

And I could think
         how sweet
all of
this is.

I want to write it

I want to write it
I want to write it
I want to write it
I want to write it
I want to write it

Typewriter

The man on the corner of Market and Castro
Had hauled his typewriter into the cold summer
I paid him a few dollars for his work
-Would have paid more if I'd had it 
And watched fingers perform practiced dances
Invoking clicks and scraping whispers
As something spilled from those metal insides
I can't recall his face now
Never knew his name
Even lost the thin paper that he'd handed me 
Have forgotten every word that stained it
-Gloss black and the smell of ink and sun
That thing that was for me and me alone
I yearn for it sometimes
The words I lost or the summer I left
Memory and poetry fading to white
-Was it the snow, the moon, a hollowed face? 
I carry with me broken shells and cicada husks
But remember how it felt to hear their sounds

Still

I went outside today
It looks the same

Still

It blends like watercolors
The sky into the grass
Foggy and gray, thin and pale
My words hang white like ghosts

My thoughts have left lines in the rug
While I've waited for the snow
To bury all the places I've been
And turn them paper white

Still

Tarot

I don't believe in the tarot

But if I did I would say
That my father
Saw his death in those cards
And that my mother
Sees the future in flames

But I do believe in a card

Seventeen

Not for how
It fits in the hand
Nor for a love
Of occult mysticism
Or the wish
Of a more magical reality

Though

I do wish

And I pine for the loss
Of something that feels
Like a more magical
Reality

But I do believe

In what it means

In the reason so many
White girls get it marked
Into the skin of their hands
Their necks
Behind their ears
Next to the dreamcatchers
Mobius symbols
And flying birds

But I am not them
I cannot fill my body
With stars

But I do wish

I could swallow them down
Breathe them in like light

If I only had the will

I don't believe in promises

There's no destiny
That plays out like a movie
A book that you can open
And peek into the chapters ahead
To make sure your favorite character
Is still there
Still has words
Left to be written

But I believe in the stars

A map that reminds you
That you're a part of everything

A compass that tells you
There's more out there than dark

But only

If you keep going

The only things
That the stars hand deliver
Feel like a burning inside you
And never seem
As beautiful as they were
When they were viewed so far away

They say
You'll have the light I gave you
But you have to find
Your own way

I believe in
Finding your home again
In finding yourself again

I believe in a path
That walks your feet forward

I believe in a light
Where the winding cavern ends
That holds all the potential
That anyone ever has

I believe in a hope
That says
There's still a chance

Things can still change

(written 10/29/20)

Untitled (Summer Song)

It's not every time
But sometimes
I'll hear that song play
And my heart will ache
 
In the gnawing way
That branches grind in heavy wind
Like tectonic plates and ice flows
 
In the fluttering way
A mouse's heart beats
When it's curled around its dreaming
 
I'll think of a person
That only exists in memories
 
The wet heat of summer
And the sun in their hair
Already beginning to fray
At the loose ends