Potato skins
shedding on the floor.
Onion rings around her eyes.
Milky tears overflow from
the sink onto her lap.
Somehow tonight,
we manage to cook dinner.

Across the Hallway

The sounds
of sobbing
in a room
so far,
kept awake
my dreams
of still
loving her

The light from the window
in the far corner
flirts with me,
and I blush
for the first time
in a long long while.

Upon dropping it the second time,
the vase cracks in places old and new

An ending brought on
with no end in sight.
Turn around my friend,
turn around.

Just a few hours
till a new flower blooms.
I wait in the basement
to destroy it.

Compound Interest

We've made the mistake
of letting each other
in to our lives
to make mistake
after mistake.

So much about us
depends on what I
choose to do next.
I wonder how you can stand it?

Skin unfolds
in a bed with you.
In a car driving away
my minds turns
to other things.

How is it
that we could have curved
so much
the straight lines
of our lives
to intersect
here?

I left you
in bed and by
afternoon,
I had counted
six
long hairs which
were not mine.

Every morning it is the same -
I awake to her sleeping
and then leave.

The morning yearns for coffee,
and nudges me awake.

Sourness diffuses
across a room,
filling every pause.

The Children of Sugar Loaf Mountain

Trail maps
folded into
tiny paper airplanes
litter the path
of my ascent.

A young boy sits
in his driveway
washing his shadow
with a soapy sponge.

Disappearing Trick

She washes herself
in the bathtub
scrubbing at skin
until it melts off
and slides toward the drain.

Epidemiology

A young man plagiarizes himself,
makes tiny illegal copies of his thoughts
and spreads them out like a virus.

Reminders of Loneliness (1)

A bottle of cleaner
collects dust by the window

Reminders of Loneliness (2)

A basket tips
its emptiness
into the room.

Reminders of Loneliness (3)

A pair of shoes
tossed to the corner
huddled close to each other.

Cast Iron Skillet

At the end of another week,
sadness looms over the fact
that we've gotten along so well.

Today's News

A son is out beheading dandelions.
Two lovers are opening champagne.
A ball is rolling in the street.
A man is hanging himself in the basement.

He found a piece of her
stuck to the edge of the sink,
and stalled
for just a moment,
before washing it down.

The Dig

A young man is burying his father,
heaving clumps of dirt over his shoulders,
thrusting a shovel into the ground.
His arms are tired.
Clouds are rolling by.
He can feel the sweat between his fingers
and on his forehead.
He thinks how he is becoming like his father,
and turns to dig a second hole

Along a road

She and I carry cement blocks
back and forth along a road
back and forth along a road

Speaking of what is not spoken about

She spits up her disgust
until the kitchen
is just full of it.

Without a mop
or a bucket,
we watch over days
as it begins to turn,
wondering who
will be the first
to say something.

Just today
the unexpected
was expecting me.

Threads

She is a long string dangling,
twisting round and round.

I struggle to find a face.

Origami

I watch
as a young lady
folds herself in half
and then in half again,
hoping
that she'll disappear.

OCD

I pick at this pineapple
like picking at a scab,
wondering what juices
lie beneath.

It simply fades away
in the efficacy
of sleeping it off.

I wish
I could stay annoyed
for longer

She bites
into the granny smith
in slow motion
as if she was tearing
the flesh from his head.
She lets the juice
run down her chin
and drip to the floor

I wish things were different...

How ironic that you would speak
those words to me now,
for it was years ago
when we first met
that I said
that those words would mean
it was time to
say goodbye.

Words sprinkled into the air.
They settle like algae
on the surface of pond water,
blinding us to what lies beneath.

From the bed
I watch her undress
and then
settle down
like herbs in a teapot
Her limbs move
like the slow unfurling
of tea leaves.

What was at first
just silence
through the woods became
the voices of many cicada
bemoaning the one
I was crunching
underneath my foot

Buried Together

I will tell you
that in life
I was no less rotten.

She was
only to spoil
after years
of my refusing
to love her

A slug clings to the walls
of my lungs

A forceful tug
and inch by inch

the salty creature plops
from my mouth
to the floor

The boundaries
of a brisk water
bending green pines
so near
to a wisping sun.

On the couch alone

Sadness peeks around the corner
wondering if I would mind the company.
I am to shy to speak up...

The page turner

While she yelled at a face
(which was his),
he thought to himself
how she had always turned
to the last page
of all of the books she read,
so that she could experience
the end
from the very beginning.

He wondered if that, too,
was happening now.

Turbulence

Every morning they find him
tangled in a tree
like folds of a damp newspaper.

I am going to try an experiment with how people engage with the content of my blog. Here are five (short) poems that exist on my blog from May. What I would appreciate from anyone willing is two things - your favorite and least favorite poem of the five, and more importantly an explanation as to what you think it is that makes the better one better, and the worst one worst. Thanks to anyone who contributes (and I promise to return such a favor for anyone willing to participate on their own blog with their own poetry. make sure you let me know)

1) Pearly Whites
2) Destruction of Lunch
3) (Untitled)
4) Concentrate
5) Her Favorite One

The exercising of frustration,
so strong from the hours
of sweat I've put in.

Can I possibly post more than 77 poems in the month of august?

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.