The way death should meet all things big and small

mounted on flying,
invented creatures
crossing distances to

hold hands with
the very first memory
they have of being alive

laughing at the
wind that plays
with their hair

confident that they'll
remember such dream
whenever time comes

to open their eyes.
Death should come then
and watch their sleep.

Going

Two boys climbing a tree this morning,
on my way to the market.

A father watching the two of  them closely.
A mother watching the three of them lovingly.

On my way to the market,
the road I have not taken teases me.

Fortune

Of all things we own,
why do we insist on
time spent with the ones
we don't?

The water in rivers,
the top of the mountains,
a place in someone's bed.

how fortunate it is
death comes to some
sweetly through your lips
crawling slowly
down one's legs.

Kill the messenger

You come into my life
too late
to understand
the pulse.

A hundred times
this world
laughed
at my dreams,

a hundred times
it surrounded me
with pain
to toughen me up.

I stand alone.

The slightest intention

He saw it on my full stops,
I say things in punctuation.

He came and brought quiet
to my endless confusion.

He crams me,
I devour him. 

We make meaning from
the slighest intention.

The first storm

For every nautical mile advanced in the dark
I am the captain of a new paper boat.

Because I am often unable
to tell merak from polaris,

I move my heart farther south
in the cartesian plane.

Then I falter, I am reminded
these are not my waters,

I am far from home,
I wouldn't survive the first storm. 

On a train

I had a dream
that we shared a wagon on a train
and you didn't see me.

Growing old,
I refused being a wound
to become shelter,
I passed up being a whim
to become a morning.

This world is full of distraction.

Oblivion

Oblivion is a place
where no one tells stories.

All things forgotten
cease to exist.

This house is just a house.
This man on the mirror is just a man.

By holding my hand
you teach me a memory.

Let us write poems that
shall outlive us.

I wasn't hiding

I have tried and been
true to the path.

I went in the sun and
let it burn my skin,

I let it burn my skin.
I wasn't hiding.

Kintsugi

He thinks I should marry you
despite the distance and the age
difference and the fact we always
fall in love with people who do not
deserve our time or attention,
but never with each other.

He thinks I should marry you because
when in the history of cinema have
two people not gotten together
after the boy plays his guitar to the girl
singing at his best the lyrics of a song
he barely knows just to impress her?

He thinks I should marry you
because he believes, no matter
how broken two people might have been,
they can be fixed with gold and resin,
like in kintsugi, and what once looked
ugly and sad to someone's eyes,
can get its beauty back by being whole again.

The person I don't want to lose

These days I make memories

from magazine cutouts 

and glue.

This world attempts to

drive you out of my mind,

the passing of days.

There is work to do

there are places to be

but just a few hours to dream.

When I cross the house

in the dark to have a glass of water

you're still the person I don't want to lose. 

How I heal

I lose you
when you choose
to leave me out
of your life,
but you too lose me.

You know my mind
is on you now,
but where has it been
at three in the afternoon
every day this spring?

You've been around,
you learned
how to hurt me,
still you don't know
how I heal.

The things we are not saying

At three a.m.
waking up from
induced sleep

I like it that you
are the first words
on my mind.

talk to me because 
I'm in an awful bar,
you say.

I'm waking up
 from fever,
 I say.

And we laugh over
the things we are not
saying.

Into the abyss

When in a dream sleep
the things I've been willing to tell you.

Have we been real
because we could touch each other?

If we disappear now,
will you find me in another life?

Love is
the last word into the abyss.

three hundred and sixty five

Night will forgive me
for the noise.

I name your hours
and walk around the house

trying to repeat your steps
in a parallel universe.

There is quite little space
for such pain.

I lock myself in the bedroom
but I don't know how to pray.

I've given your name to
three hundred and sixty five days.

I send these letters into the void

I.
My dear, I write to you
from a sleeping house.
we own a cat now,
or he owns us,
for as long as
he wants to stay.


II.
There is so much of you
in the rain tonight
I got myself ill from walking
in the weather

(it was totally worth it,
it was as if you held my hand)


III.
Lovely,
I send these letters
into the void
and hope they find you.

Care

I write so you know where my heart is -
it's in your black jeans front left pocket.

Hand wash in
warm water.

Do not bleach.
Dry in shade.

Do not iron.

Not this day

Eventually you'll win.
You'll hit me so hard
I'll give you up.

Not this day.

Novikov Principle

There must be a trick
to prevent your bones from being smashed,
your heart from being dissolved,
when going through a wormhole.

It's all of a sudden,
I'm whole again.
All of a sudden,
back to the last time
we saw each other.

Because I know now you won't say goodbye,
I know  now you'll make yourself unreachable,
I know now you'll always come into town
on a tight schedule for the next five months
(or years),

I see you.
For the last time.

There must be a trick.
I haven't been taught it.

(Shared with Poets United)

After you fell asleep

A thought of you
halfway through
my third class.

he may be watching 
the sky from the library window,
the thought.

Later a poem
about a boy who will
never fade.

you left us all with things
we'd remind you for:
a night exploring the yard,

a secret recipe for a dish
we'd be unable to bake,
a conversation in the dark.

I said it to your face
right after you fell asleep:
I give no one else this heart.

Forever the orange clouds

all the sorrows in the world
are in the sky tonight.

living isn't easy.
falling in love.

the eyes who can see
under a person's skin.

a heart flying the highest tied to a kite tail.
forever the orange clouds.

being able to forget
the names of the days.

Sticks and clay

It's not as if I was going to die - he said.

And I remember wishing it was.
Because death was something I could deal with.

I wanted to tell him he was someone
I'd like to spend a lifetime with.
But I never knew how to ask.

Then, he parted to find out what the world was made of,
what life can a life be when you
have to build yourself out of sticks and clay.

I stayed out of the way. 

Lavoisier

Because the world doesn't stop spinning,
things are never in the same place.

This which used to be anger now is silence.
This which used to be joy now is sadness.

This which use to be hope now is pain.
This which used to be love.

But you trust Lavoisier,
nothing is ever lost.

Because the world doesn't stop spinning
and you're in the world, you too will be changed.

Dreams and fish

A wall. I see a wall
where there was
a garden
once.

Lillies shared space with daisies and dreams
one could always read in the fountain
among the colorful
fish.

I was so young and foolish when he told me the story,
he surrounded me with endearment,
helped me shape the
landscape.

Now I'm older, he left, I have different eyes.
Lillies and daisies are all dead.
Dreams and fish are all
gone.

There

Loneliness

has been

the most loyal

friend  

I've had

and still we are
so uncomfortable
around each other.

What the heart wants

You move fast,
at a steady pace,
always farther

from the universe
I can touch
or hold against my chest,

When I find you nowhere,
I'll tell the story of
how I've been emptied.

I go over all the things
lost or gone the past year
night and once again

trying to retrieve
every memory of you -
dusty or broken

so I know where they belong,
so they can't be erased
or overwritten.

Challenge

Here's to counting out my weak spots
and bleeding them out.

I dare you,
whoever you think you are,
to touch them,

if that's what it takes
for you to believe me real.

Brave

They come all the way
across the Indian ocean
past the Cape of
Good Hope
and beyond it,

her head and
heart,
to find solace
in the words
I write for you.

She presumes
I understand the patterns
people who part
imprint on the souls
they leave behind.

I don't.

She eavesdrop
as I talk to you
in each and every line,
she knows my fears
and still finds me brave.

I'm not.

Except in my dreams,
when you come close and
I'm embraced
by your presence.
I'm invincible then.

Resilience

I grow old on my porch
watching people go,
unable to tell them how much

I would like them
to stay.

A new road has been opened
for your feet to walk by
and today I'm so happy for you.

A year ago
I wouldn't have felt this way.

Departures

Now I'm not interested 

in the feeling tha betrays me

or that one I could betray. 

At two in the morning

my heart is tied to rails

and I hear a train approach.

Now I'm not concerned 

about the people I've lost,

about the bitterness or the sadness 

of random broken bonds.

Now my mind is on you

sitting on a train headed somewhere,

you I could not teach anything.

Now I raise my voice.

At two in the morning

you can't tell it from the

train steam whistle.

My heart tied to rails,

you

sitting on a train headed somewhere.

Music is the other feeling

Sometimes this world
gets me so tired I sit
with the stars for the
silence I fear.

It scares me because
it means having to deal
with the noise inside me
I let no one else hear.

Gratitude

this soul
that belongs to the sea
has done things for me
has done things for me

this soul
that belongs to the road
has lightened my load
has lightened my load

(Be grateful for the  lives of all people crossing  your path while walking their own)

Birdwatcher

Night opens a hole in my head
and fills it with thoughts of you.

Today I do not exist.
I grow up and weak,

I have collected
one hundred unfounded fears.

I cry over inevitable things,
over the future I cannot read

changing at the speed of light
while I'm sitting here.

Then

You'd know me if you knew them
- the things I loved
from afar

the roads I had not to choose,
the people I had to
leave behind.

Yes, you would.

Ich

Draw the line and
I won't cross it.

I'll sit this side
writing dreams
in the wind

drawing charades
on my arms
and legs.

Jump

He had been trying to tell me something
I just fully understood when I
found him on the carpet, dried up.

In Gloucester, three years ago,
a goldfish survived for thirteen hours
after leaping out of his tank.

He was discovered and brought back.