A farmer waters long green lego blocks
and builds a spherical sun with yellow.
He sweats blocks of lego sweat
and toils in blocks of heat.
A passing block of bird
dropping white blocks of
excretion on a farmer's block head.
He wonders when he will be able to block
all of this out from his lego head...

little blocks of doubt float upward.

Red and Green

A man stood at the edge of his garden,
whipping rows upon rows of tomato plants.
When the man wasn't looking
they uprooted themselves from the soil
and trotted off toward the horizon
where they were reddened by the sun.

In the flower is the earth,
all ground up and then spit out again.

Silver Lining

An old man awoke to his mouth
devouring his own face.

As pieces of himself
fell from the bed,
he wondered why
his blood appeared
so silvery.

He concluded that it must be
the silver lining.

She sleeps.
Oh how she sleeps.
In the whispers of forgiveness
cradled far from me,
she sleeps.

A Patient Lover Awaits

To the snail I have watched
make its away across my lawn,
where are you going?
are you meeting your lover?

From a park bench

I watched
as she emptied
corruptness
from her
third story
window.

and also then
as she turned away
before
it splatted
on the sidewalk
below.

Luminosity

In any day with you,
hidden in warmth,
is the sun not rising
but approaching.

So much travels
from her face
to her neck
and then

deep down
into her shoulders.

Crying over a game of Sorry,
we quickly moved to Chutes and Ladders.

Sour Grapes (slight return)

I ran to her
partially dehydrogenated
body
baking in the sun.

Pieces from the Whole

Scent of rain so wet with you.
I can remember depositing my love
in the banks of that river,
watching it flow far far from me.

My wrist snaps off
and crawls away.
I wonder if it will
make friends
or fester in a corner
somewhere.

Like a stalking buzzard

I hold a mindful in my hand,
wondering if the trap
of spill fall I've set will spring.
I wait like slow motion teetering

He disappears in a puff of logic.
So much for cause and effect,
Mr. Conlin

While taking calls on his cell phone,
the ice cream truck man
calls to children with his song.

I have surrounded myself with mirrors,
hoping that the last bit of hope I've held onto
won't escape without the chance of reflecting back.

An old man suffered

Poked and prodded until
he was just a turtle -
long, stretchy skin
without a home.

Subtle is the warmth in your embrace
like a fog unsure of its descent from above.

Labor Contracts

We have two problems
with our little construction project
over which we disagree.
I say it's the ladder,
but she says it's the foreman.

Alone (in a dark room)

Silence within the darkness.
In her mind,
a shadow illuminates the way.

I tell you
there's something
about
that flat tire
rolling along
the street
which reminds me
of myself.

Quick

Grab
the fire
extinguisher.

Forgiveness wanders in -
a croaking frog calls for attention

I saw a blue ribbon
falling
so graciously
managing somehow
never to reach
the ground below.
Yes, I saw a blue ribbon
and thought of you today.

On a bench
so near to violence,
our silence
was the very
worst kind.

Mistress at the breakfast table

Cereal no longer talks to me.
We used to exchange words
between the first and final
slurpings of breakfast.
It has found another lover,
someone else to suck up
the last remaining drops.

On my way to heaven -
A floating decimal point
mistaken for an angel

The clock juggler

never ceases
to amaze me.
Crashing his clocks
upon the sky,
I wonder if
he ever stops
to think about
how careless
he's been
with time.

Waking this day,
I took a hold of time
and slammed it
against the bedframe.
I watched as a chunk
of morning fell from it.

In the courtyard

Clanging bells
celebrate
noon's otherwise
unnoticed arrival.

She searches
for her own bells.
There are none
to be found.

Choking

Voices stabbing over lunch.
Clusters of personality
coagulate around a table
as I try to keep my mouth full.

Home Sweet Home

We waltz through the walls of our home
passing back and forth through drywall
hoping we'll get caught in between the frames
of our home sweet home.

There are nights
I fear
I'll catch
my skin
trying to escape
while I sleep.

I complain
of the sour
taste of grapes.
She says,
You are what you eat.

Table Talk

Lights flicker in the kitchen
above our sad
whispers.

My only smile muted by
the buzz of
electricity.

A sweet deal

Black dog
by my side.

I agree
to
pet.

She agrees
to
wag.

Lazy sunday
abides.

The pile

words pile up.
congested.
infused with
the sacrifices
of lost ones.
compelling them
forward. past
erasures and
omissions. telling
tales of their
own obituaries
before the funeral.
processions of
image tumble
upon on another.
splattered with
blood and irony.
emerging with
no form. they
never had a
chance
to breathe.

Waiting

There is no coffee this morning.
So I spill onto the floor and
slosh around uselessly for hours,
hoping someone might slip
and fall and accidentally embrace me.

I swear to you that the
hair on her back rises
when I enter the room.

Hiding in the closet -
she said
he was no blessing
in disguise.

Palindrome -
I wondered why
it wasn't one.

People, people, people.

Walking away
he said to himself
the only thing worse
than people
is lots of people.

Morse Code

I remember when
we used to
tell each other
I love you
on the tips
of our fingers
in morse code.

In the long
and short
pauses of
our touching,
which my hands
have not forgotten,
I still wake
to those rhythms
now and then.

Overgrown cucumbers -
She asks if we have
outgrown our home.

July Weather

It's a matter of
opinion

(for now anyway)

whether our
efforts

(and there are
few)

will weather these
storms.

Dirty Jobs

Poems written with vomit.
The poet spends his days
mopping things up.

Early Spring Planting

We went out to the garden
and covered ourselves in dirt,
hoping that something
good would grow from us.

* Exodus *

an asterisk of ants
carries eggs

from the nest

I saw a bird
(or was it two?)
each perched upon
its very own shadow.