"Half Drowned Hope"

I’m bearing your grief, dear acquaintance -
Exhaustion comes so easily,
Your tired eyes make sense to me.
Taking your cues from the soaps,
You tried to hide the rope. 

"Bloo Berries"

The apples from the apple crisp
are ears for mister potato-head,
who will try to mislead you:
He's really a melon.
His little lips are cherries,
His eyes are halved kiwi runts.

He has a friend named Coconut,

who really is one,

brown and shaggy,
hollow fleshy noggin.

His soft blue eyes
are ripe blueberries.

Mister potato-head often blushes,

Strawberry nose,

Apple crisp ears.

Coconut kept his friend's melon secret

For a number of years.

"Basketball"

Ideally, style becomes substance,

A ballet that revolves on the rim.

Triumph is only relative,

Hardwood equilibrium.

Loose limbs translate motion

Into superstitious spin,

Just past outstretched fingers,

Two points. Retreat and square your chin.

Just as fine as before

I used to wonder: it was great.
I used to dream at a startling rate.
"What does he do now?" is an
Insightful follow-up question.


Crouching in this stone-stiff chair,
Weighing every pin-pricked word,
I fine-tune, always at the source,
And swear I'm still a dreamer.


Yet paths we take get narrower,
From plains to plots to houses.
Barefoot at birth, untied at twelve,
Now we stack our shoes in closets.


Through my window, the city swells,
Flexes, moans at bolted seams.
Edges curl, suburbs slide central.
The strip mall's guts will fertilize trees.


I rub my eyes to smear the specters,
My heartbeat staves off dread.
My elbow guides a wisp of cursive,
I funnel the stream in my head.

Cracking with Spring

The potted plant man beckoned,

And we approached courteously.

And eyed his windowsills of product,

And patiently heard his offers of plenty.

He told us that spring brings him stress,

The roots crack his pots from within.

But people like their plants to be potted,

And they all know where to find him.

I turned my head down and chuckled,

And plucked a leaf from my girl's hair,

And crumbled it in my fingers,

And remembered the tree that put it there.

A Twin

Wide-eyed and composed,

Sturdy and delicate,

Stubborn and unblinking,

Occasionally perplexed.

Always partway at rest.

Anniversary

I like to imagine she danced while she held me,
Balloons fell from the sky,
Passersby watched as I gurgled and smiled,Taxicabs chorused nearby.

The day I was born, the earth's rotationFlung thousands of people away.
Minding their business, walking the street,Sucked up by the sky from the fray.

I felt no disruption, all was kin.The sun set upside down that day.

Brush With Death

Skin so taut that it no longer wrinkles.
We gather around, he lies apart.
Meat on bones consumed, to nourish
Brimming soul and aching heart.

He withdraws so apparently,
Inching back in sight of me,
Shaming my sense of trust.
I fumble comprehension
Of an end that’s so unjust.
He didn't get the chance to rust.

I hope that my appreciation
Of this life we're blessed
Returns and sweetens with rest.
But bitterness prevails today,
Rich and blameless, foggy grey,
Each passing day
Relieves my helplessness.

The King Who Crowned Himself

The team struggles daily, yet our greatest pitcher,
Keeps firing peas right past the dish.
Hitters can’t match him when he’s spotting well.
Spectators are quiet, unwilling to meddle.
He paints each edge lightly and tempts the umpire
To banish the frustrated batsman.
Caught in the moment, he pumps his right fist.
A Tiger walks back to the dugout,
And curses the day that King Felix was born.
It’s passion that drives him, not cameras watching,
But love for the game, and for us, and success.
I’ll cheer him until I cheer my last breath.

"August 15"

A spangled highway curves through branches.

Between two hills on a gravel road,


It finds the parking lot.

Afoot on the trail, the hot sun broadens.
We exit the forest into a meadow


So fecund it smells sweet and heavy.
Person-high underbrush droops in the path,
Brushing, scraping our legs.

A bear-sized dot barely moves far above us,
Two thousand feet up on the carpet of green.

Its paws must bat flies from its warm furry face
As we do from our red sweaty noses.

I’m glad that the bear is so far from our passage,

But I wish I could see it more clearly.

We summit the mountain, which, glacially carved

With blocks of profound geometrics,
Resembles a stone god’s early art project.

Chasms of granite fit right into scale.


I leverage my arms and descend,

Touching my feet to the bottom,

Chasm filled with dirt.
Standing inside it is easy,
Hugged by walls snug and shady.

Up here, see freely in every direction.
Valleys to peaks, and the slopes in between.

A stately white range encircling,
Dignified beyond all compare.
No rumors persist in this thin atmosphere,
Finally everything's fair.