He Observes A Dog's Dreams

Last night was the first time
I caught our dog dreaming

His chest inflated
Deeply,  quickly
His legs spasmed
In a sleepy parody
Of running,  chasing

It was not,  however, the first time
I caught myself dreaming
Of you: a couple hundred
Of all the others: several hundred more
Of happiness: countless

My chest would rise
Imagine your smell
Filling my nose

And my heart would race
Running,  chasing

But though I caught
Myself and our dog
I'll certainly never catch you

Portland;

city stitched together by bridges

I am a thread fallen from the loom
I have no shuttlecock nor needle guide
And
There is no sympathetic eye to hold me

To pull me through

To bind my soul to yours

And still your bridges       

Stand as false promises

Chowder (4/12/11)

On the stove
Onions melt to translucence
And potatoes bubble in bacon fat

Across the kitchen
An uneducated hand
Clasps a clam
In its palm
Hovering above a bowl

The hand's accomplice
Holds a short knife
And pushes the blunt edge
Into the gaper's mouth

The blade presses
And twists
To open the shell

Which snaps
And a broken piece
Falls into the bowl
Filled with clam juice

Still struggling
To extricate the gold
Meat from the shell
The hand presses
And twists

The thumb slips
And a crimson blossom
Grows on its tip
Stinging from the sea's salt

"Night" Reflection

Arbeit mach frei
Working
(to death)
Will set
you(r soul)
Free

Empty yourself
Until you resemble
A ring without a finger
Until your atoms separate
Like smoke in the wind

Lose yourself,
As the world has lost you,
In a mass of loose-skinned,
Skeletal spectres.

Lose yourself
As you acquiesce
To being a felt star,
A number,
A scapegoat.

Live on
As a smudge
Of charcoal -
The only product
Of this factory.

Glossophobia

I have lost more words than I have yet found;
Lexicons that shift like tectonic plates
Consuming swathes of text as magma sates,
Buried in heat like echoes underground.

Fickle attentions savagely forget
That which falls outside the memories reach:
A wave that crashes with no sight of beach
Or a fish cut in twain by the mind's net.

What it is I hope to say slips like smoke
Twixt clumsy fingertips that hope to grasp,
But fumbles as one would with jewelry clasp-
A wicked confusion that begs not be spoke.

Yet speaking would be the death of ache,
But, lacking proper language, should one speak?

With/out

Without you
I am merely
A cloud
A loose
Accumulation of dew
At the whim
Of wind
Likely to be lost

But with you
I am anchored
A kite
Colorful
Dancing on the wind

Your presence gives
Each of my movements
meaning
Just as your presence
Gives my life light.

The Shelf

You have placed me
On a shelf in your heart

But somehow
That shelf is beyond
Your arm's length.

Sowing

I have always thought
That love  grows
 from the garden of friendship

In my heart the soil is fertile
And -whether you like it or not -
You've spread your seeds
And smoothed the dirt

In my heart the seeds
Have broken and pushed out
Into the light

But I have tossed my seeds
at your heart
And without my watch
I fear the birds have stripped
The ground of my prospect

Though my fields are verdant
And you may luxuriate upon them
I only want to run in your pasture
But it is still just barren dirt for me. 

Heart of Rock and Roll

More often than not
I know what to say
But for some reason
When it comes to you
Words allude me.

I can see your beauty
I observe both the delicacy
And the brashness
Of your movements
Your words, your thoughts

But I fail to pour
These observations
into a vessel
Where it can ferment into poetry.

But watching you
keep the beat
Along with the band
With your hand on your heart
I wish I made music
You could love like that.