Tuesday, March 27, 2012

When the well has run dry


When the well has run dry
it comes without warning.
The tongue swells in your cheek,
thick and livid, so that
your words no longer speak.

When the well has run dry,
you curse Providence for
this damming of the source
of such early growth. You
rail. Yet it is, of course,

when the well has run dry
that the real work begins.
This is the place you give
yourself to the long task
of learning how to live

when the well has run dry,
the daily love affair
with hardy words you kiss
into unlikely soil
to bloom up from the dust.

Monday, March 19, 2012

1967


The Summer of Love,
I bit my baby-sitter.
She was beautiful.



 

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

The most important day of your life - VIDEO

Video from a recent performance - the World Cup wedding epic: "The most important day of your life."  Enjoy!



New school


He didn’t want to go to school that day
The kids were scary, he hated lunch
And the custodian was mean.
At last, his mother told him
The first day is the worst
But it’s a nice place
And besides that
You’re a fine
Teacher,
Son.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Love fell laughing



Love fell laughing into the gulf
between our feet. We burned the lies
to stay warm, those that had lashed us

together, hobbled. Some saw us
as one splendid flesh, to engulf
their own griefs. They were wrong What lies

in us is a hope that belies
all expectation. For both of us
we owe our lives to this new gulf

the gulf, hard-won, that lies between us.



Posted to share with friends at dVerse Poets Pub.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

To be alive


A thousand eager faces hold the stage
in rapt attention. Slowly every heart
unfurls within this sacred arc. We start
by watching from afar, thinking our sage
or cynical remove can keep the rage
of fractured love at bay. But in the art
of light and gesture, we are pulled apart
by words astounding from the poet’s page.

The veil of separation has been torn
with rude abandon, making every breast
complicit in the tragedy before
us. For we share their breath, yet do not warn
them of their fate. Seeing our lives expressed
we ache to be alive, and cry for more.

Maybe we all exist


Maybe we all exist
only to inflict pain
on the ones that we care
the most about, without
even being aware;

maybe we all exist
only to light the sky
and fill each other's dreams.
Neither one seems true. From
these desert years, it seems

maybe we all exist
to each other only
when we chance through the sieve
which asks our heart for "yes"
where it can only give

"maybe." We all exist
firstly to be ourselves;
willing to stand alone
and trust our heart's desire
to plumb their own unknown.