Dearest

i call you this, for no other so fits the word,
and because no word suits you so, my other.

i am glad to have found you
words are easy by you, and for you.

we'll pass a streetlamp twilight
true in the brace of each others whispers

let us trade like dusty camel riders
waiting out speckled blurs of storm

i offer you the crux of my arm,
the murmur of my good company and will

and of you? what would i have from you?
only a corner of your heart to warm

i am glad to be beside you, for then,
my heart is right, and will right you.

and what other word suits you so?
because as no other, i call you this,

dearest

- 1999

Day's Ellipis

Petite white parasols stroll on the night,
What elegant patterns they weave.
Like a chatter on the breeze,
Sensing, a spider's leg in the air,

Always blown past your fingers.
Taunting faeries unveil the night,
Dancing out the warm summer.

When dandelions bloom from new seeds,
Katydids cease their nightly serenades,
And my fireflies expire in a jar.


- 1998

Did a few tweaks. Take that, past-self!

518,400 + Seconds

Sage and hickory sprout in my lungs,
As weariness crowds both flesh and heart,
Settle me, let me dream a breath,
Silence be warmed on memory's hearth,

Treading on daydreams with dandeli-umbrellas,
Let me one duet with my dove.
Seemingly, drippling on leaf, and dreaming me,
Hoping a twilight, doubting a dawn.

Clinging to a plume, a sane chord,
Heart dying to a darkening pulse,
Fearful forever of holding and being,
And losing to the endless distances,
Dreams . . .


- Definitely 1994

One of my favorites (I hope that's understandable). I absolutely dread the reality that I cannot equal these earlier efforts. I know for a fact this was not long after I started the Leonard Cohen drip-bag through a clutch of mixed tapes that would rattle around in my bookbag, all day and most nights.

I remember being very fond of the scents of pre-dawn summer days in that edge of suburbia where the dark woods are within view, gardens are English by necessity rather than design, and the scents bitterly overwhelm all other senses, as I started the long walks back.