The Limits To Your Love

 There's a limit to your love 

a coldness in the fitted sheet 

between us 

an eye-roll instead of a

sparkle 

no twinkle left for Daddy 

we watch our hands get washed

of the soil and dirt and clay 

of love, the place for it 

to grow, and what's left - 

what's left is the steel-

brushed sheen of metal 

the valves of a heart so hardened

that it has forgotten that it's not

supposed to have hinges 

that, instead, it should dance

and flow like the wisps of a

ballerina's dress, like the 

luminous tentacles of 

a jellyfish, electric light 

in a dark ocean abyss 

- each mechanical 

pump and pull another automatic 

sunrise, another two-dimensional sunset 

tightened by wires and gears and motors. 

I search for the switch on the side of 

a wax candle, trying to remember how to make light. 

Litte Woodrose - 1

 One 

I can still remember 

the first time I walked 

in the forest in Oregon

It defines green, more

green than Ireland or

than money, more green

than the ocean is blue.

I still remember the first 

hike on the path that 

we had never been on before,

we didn't know the curves

My son could barely walk 

and now, the forest is much 

smaller, calmer, tamer

No unknown stairs or 

crooked corners to lose

children or lose ourselves

just a small loop, like a high school track 

surrounded by houses and cars

and women sitting in the window

mocking me with their legs.  

To Forgetting

 My profound promise to myself

is I will never spend more time on a 

poem than it takes to remember it 

I have a bad memory, you see, 

and even in my 30s, I don't 

remember writing anything 

so I, and most likely 

only me, will find this 

little note and I 

will have no recollection

of writing it, what 

a joy it will be to 

find again, to remember 

the syrupy thin saliva 

in my young mouth 

and the thin viscosity

of my blood, full 

of sugar cereal 

and the hope that someday 

someone, who isn't me, 

will read this 

2024

 What, if not the dull vibrations of some offshore oil rigs or the occasional nooners with a married neighbor in the family changing room at the local YMCA, if not the undercooked boiled eggs at the all-nite diner near the airport, not the snot bubble on the nostril of an eight year old on the city bus and definitely not the chewing gum under the seats of the Griffith Observatory Planetarium; maybe even not the eyelash of a dead grandmother accidentally pressed between the pages of a paperback, stuck in boxes beneath a beach house in Santa Barbara, is left? 

 Left are the ever-present pidgins like the adopted and orphaned cousins of doves Left are the pallets of toilet paper in surplus from a dimly diminished demand 

 Left are the rights of those who didn’t have the lawyers or the insurance or the language enough to say the kind of care they need or even the epitaph they deserve 

 Left are the ones who didn’t live long enough to write their stories or who didn’t write well enough to have them read or who didn’t teach the children to read so that once they died so did all evidence of their lives 

 Left are the nameless shoes, the plastic bottles, the double-A batteries, the mountains of jacuzzi tubs and Toyota Corollas and flatscreen televisions 

 Left are these words, as a temporary tattoo on the mind and heart of yours, who will put the record of my life on every time they read it or think of it and let the taste under-boiled eggs or the YMCA or my name touch their tongues for a moment, just once, once again.

Glued Shut 

In the garage, when cut, 
My father would superglue his 
Wounds shut instead of getting 
Stitches and the wound would 
Wantingly work out the glue for years, 

Now, I wish he got those stitches 
Because, though I spend little time
In the garage, stitches heal cleaner;
They wouldn’t stick to my wounds 
Like the superglue shutting my heart

Oh that’s all 

Innumerable imaginary decadence like a party that is in the 34th floor of some nameless New York office with widely windowed berth 

The discomfort of knowing that you will never be invited to such a party, and that the reason it remains nameless is because it’s not your place to be 

A combination of cleverness and introspection balanced between 

the left side of the page and the right side 

of the page a fulcrum on the spine 

To lay with the crossed and furrowed brow — to lose years a city in France, or a small stream with a trickling waterfall just outside of Kyoto; 

I prefer these imaginary vistas to the bustling, hot and champagned corners of the 34th floor party

Though I may only prefer them, because I’ve never been allowed, even in my imagination up the elevator 

It’s time to find peace with my solitude to —find peace with the idea that may be the Japanese waterfall in my mind 

is enough 

What Of The Loss

 But What Of The Loss 

Those of you who have never had 

A parent die, or a child die,

A cousin or lover 

Or even a pet goldfish parish

Know not what it means to 

Savor the days beyond them;

To feel the surplus pool up

In your heart – the true overflow 

Sometimes, I imagine that I’m gone

And God or whatever says, 

“You’ve been given one more day 

on earth, but 

It will just be a random day in

The middle of 

Your life.”

 And without a second to 

Anticipate or appreciate, I am 

Back in this moment – this one – 

Sitting on the subway at night or

Flossing my teeth with mint dental floss or

Running my fingers through my 

Daughter’s hair, even watching 

Baseball highlights on my phone

Held in a cheap stand 

Next to the warm, soapy dishwater

As I try to get the soaked muffin

Crumbs from under the edge of the 

Muffin pan, and then, right then 

I cry and cry and dance and scream 

my hand again in the glove of life; 

I plunge my face into the dishwater,

I push my nose into my daughter’s hair

I kiss the man on the subway on the mouth - 

I swallow the dental floss. I bite into my own

Flesh to feel the pain, 

to taste the blood, 

To feel and to taste and to remember what it 

Means to feel and to taste once again! 

Even the old ship with barnacles 

And a splintered deck is still at sea; 

Alive again, alive again, 

That’s what the goldfish wants 

That’s all my grandma wants 

And we have it. We still have it all. 

Nine Years

 Nine Years 

It's been nine years since

I played music with another person,

me, with my legs spread open, the snare

and hi-hat and floor tom

him, with the Fender guitar

protruding from this groin 

and we make eye contact 

when he plugs in 

he swipes the strings with his

right hand, and the sound 

makes the snare reverberate

between my legs 

tight pants, loose shoes 

unshaven and untucked -

we wail away at old 

rock n' roll standards that

your grandfather used to listen to - 

Green Day, Nirvana, Underoath 

the sounds so swampy that 

our eyebrows stand on end;

it's been nine years since I played 

with a group of men - electrified and

I still don't needing no pill to 

get this energy again