mud season

my first home had a purple door

i left it first

but my parents 

left it more;

new shingles

painted trim

banished ghosts, nobody

will ever know 

how my sister flooded

the entire second floor

how my father severed

his hand 

pushing on a pane of glass

on my purple door

walking into mud season
(the wood was swollen)

and i am sitting here

behind a lover's purple door

the house is gone, and 

it is mud season

everything is melting

wood is unswelling

and the new owners

of my first house

will never know
the history of our love

things are no longer swollen

but they are warped

500 and 600

250 and 300
don't love me anymore
and neither do the birds or the bats
my guitar is a seagull so that, too,
stopped loving me by falling out of tune
the north pole doesn't want me
or i've smashed it to bits and moved on
run to the south pole with
a penguin sweater
that the spirits don't recognize
or compliment me for
i make love to 250 and 300
so diligently
swallow like a good boy does
but they laugh and leave me empty
wondering if all i need is a vaster love

not knowing

not knowing you
only the comfort of your hands
and its coincidence with the easing
of this abominable winter
there is really nothing to do
but pretend that i am the praying type
and offer that in place of
the things that godless folk give
when they are feeling empty;
when they need desperately
for someone else
to be full.

failure

winter is one long month
that eats all of the vegetables
gets healthier and healthier
while the deer
and stray rabbits
pretend to enjoy winter sports
and secretly starve
for lack of margherita pizzas
with spinach and mushroom
house salads with
blue cheese dressing
omelettes, quiches
carrot cakes;
all of us, the little mice and
big big moose feeling our hearts
slow down slowly
barely perceptibly
until we wonder if we are the
hibernating type or if we are just dying
from the outside in, like glaciers
we go on wondering this
dreaming of precious nibbles
until the last surviving critter
wakes up suddenly
to find that winter is gone
it has died of gluttony

bluejay

the melt of spring
brings to mind
a reverse-journey
our autumn tumble
all of our love
pouring down the riverbanks
ocean-towards, deep blue
escaping our mouths
being sucked up by flowers
cleft and swallowed and
turned into meristem
pollinated by a bird
that will ever only know half of me
if you thought the poetry would end in spring,
you were wrong

zosia

of the five or six people
at her wedding
three or four knew her well
two or three still send her
text messages that say,
"hello, i miss you"
one or two are graced
with a reply:
"it has been a long time
i am in colorado with my husband
who no longer has a gold tooth
and we are remembering
the cosmos and each other"
or perhaps:
"i miss you, too."
a thought drifts by, eventually
that maybe she has forgotten your name
or replaced your face with
one of those faces that has hurt you
that to remember you
would feel like a broken allegiance,
to forget you would feel
like the setting of the sun;
replaceable beauty, working
day in and day out
to remind her of the cosmos
and you have been one, two, three, four
and five or six times a fool

slow clap for disaster

the sound of applause
is the sound of you walking away
echoing taunts on a clear blue day
keeping me in bed for too long
making it hard for me to eat
the sounds of applause
is just another way
to know that i have made
you laugh, simply
by being honest