When I sit a Poptart on the dash
to absorb the early morning heat,
I think of you
and wonder if where you are
is as hopeful as that hesitant sunlight.

If casting spells were in my nature,
I would allow you to absorb everything
good about me through your fingertips
as you work.

If writing charms were my calling,
I would forge you an armor of words,
a rapier of wit,
a soft bed of humor on which to rest
with feathers bravely plucked from the birds
that fly North for you, when I cannot.

If protective charms were, instead, my talent,
I would charm the world to do your bidding
because the fools now think they have something
better to do.
I would charm the sun to shine for you,
the moon to bask you in serenity,
the wind to always smell of rain,
and the river to flow from the mountains,
sweet and crisp and cool at your feet.

If all of the magic in the world did not belong
to your smile.

Staring at the Rain

If every drop on that pane is alert,
aware of its own existence,
does it forget when it becomes
part of something more important?

When the melding takes place,
does the raindrop reliquish first its time,
minutes of sleep and solitude when
loneliness threatens to sink in?

Then, perhaps, gains interests that it
never knew it had?
After all, what is the harm of
watching the occasional hockey game?
Now and then.
Now and then.

The raindrop, without its sense of time,
also begins to forget its location.
All water is one living entity.
Home loses its edge.
Then, perhaps, our little droplet misplaces other things.
Like religion or tradition or gender roles.
Because, in the end, love is fluid.

Things I Do To Forget That I Miss You

Counting the syllables in this line
is like counting waiting room cups of coffee
or Tennessee license plates on the highway
or doors on the left of the hallway.
It's all leading up to, down to
across town to something that's distant future.

-aside-
I asked where you would travel
if the world would let you go anywhere,
but my answer, darling, is wherever you are.
If you wanted, I'd buy a big flower pot
to plant my roots in
and load it into the back of your car.

So, instead, I read endless science fiction series
and write offbeat poetry
and fold laundry and think about the treadmill.
I sleep without snuggling,
converse without laughing,
and eat without being fed.
I'm half-tired, half-mad
and completely lonely without you.

Whiskey and Women

I thought that telling you would be
like drinking whiskey straight,
hard as Hell to stomach but warm and-
fuzzy on the deep end.
I thought that courage was a word
that could be gained in centimeters
and vaulted with speech.

Before I spoke those words,
I was taking shots from your lips,
and they were smooth and easy.
Not green liquor but aged in the bottle
of my adoration.

From what I can tell of women,
a group, of which, you are the pinnacle.
Loving them burns more than
the fumes from the distillery.

Love Poem

I've never been in love
So I have never written a poem about it
Trash cans, religion, and thunderstorms, yes
Sugary emotions, not so much.

So forgive me if I don't know how to describe your laugh.
Not soft and tinkling, a bell above a shop door
or perhaps, a windchime in the summer breeze when night is falling
It's loud and breathy and braying
It's the bug zapper, the sputter of a citronella
rasping like a menthol cigarette.
But when that laugh hits me, I'm in a drive-by on a Memphis night
with a slap-stick gun.
Bam, Sarcasm! Bam! Bam!
until I wear out the vinyl of your laugh.

There are certain things that I am not
That I do not.
And you are one of those.
Only you make it different.

Hapax Legomena

The world is flat and brown and simple.

I get caught up in would have and has beens
Teaching speed to the cars on the interstate
Intricacies and intimacies of human understanding
Hurtling by at break-neck pace
Like a table-top model of the universe.
The world is flat and brown and simple.

Meaning is written in the webs of spiders
Hidden in the mailbox,
Spelled out in cane trails,
Planted, grown and harvested in a cyclical monotony
Of children and age and green tomatoes.
The world is flat and brown and simple.

I have seen secrets in an unending sky
Reduced to an interpretation
Of bright blue and clouds
Hanging above the land like a tormenting god of cotton.
The world is flat and brown and simple.

This road winds but does not end
Turns and twists, morphs and evolves,
But is the same.
The world is flat and brown and simple.

my mind,
it thinks in rhythms and double times.
there is a beat in my head
beyond my heart.
soft and easy doubt.
such silence in this residence.
I grow sloppy for want of reason.
how is it that uncertainties
so mellow at first
can creep upon us in
a universe with no want of distraction?
when I know there is no echo
that can reflect back to me
what I want to hear most from my own lips.
at the edge again of a vast and empty chasm.
where my head will wonder, I know not.