Winter Soul

Short days
dwindling
long nights.

Click click click
something goes
caught in the wheel.

Echos calling
clearing our throat
of cold and colds.

Short nights
I will welcome
your retreat

as do the seeds
chilled in the mud
cells stirring to almost still

short days
farewell.

Short days
dwindling
long nights

here marks the change
the sun I watched die tonight
after now less sleeps

tomorrow
is a new day
another in long chain
of first days
circle after circle
stopping and starting
in a night like this.

Each long run
finds its own rest
then rises again.

Candle in a Room of Flashlights

I'm a candle
in a room of flashlights.

No switch
to turn me on.

I need heat,
I need the real light.

I need more than the flick of a finger
to get my fire on.

No single slide to arouse me all by itself,
no no no,
I need more.

Not trying to be greedy,
it's just what I am
and it is getting so lonely
being left behind,
the only light still out.

The only one that didn't settle,
and skip merrily into the common step.

The Rise

They made
the morning sun
for the early risers,

or for the rest of us
that find no peace
in going to sleep.

Such beauty
no matter our side
we can see.

It able to bring both disparate parts
into solution.

Such beauty
that brings all of
many walks
of many lives
out early many mornings
to fill common desires.

From lights radiated through miles of sky
to all the puffs of random
clouds in perfect arrangements
comes something every soul
has looked at smiled all the same.

Crushing Hearts

For the kids
there is only discovery

even in crushing hearts
or bugs
its all about seeing what
happens

and taking only little steps
from home.

Their love has so few games,
so few requirements,
so few ways to lose it.

Even in stomping the ground
they know where they don't stand
and where the warmth
can always be found.

Watching mine grow
I shed a tear
once in while
to know where they are headed.

All good
but yet
into this world

this world
that we the older
have mended so little.

Rules of many for
home and family
and all the importance
we wrap around words
like good morals
and values

and then leave such
a bad collage
of love and war
and peace and bombs
and knives and flowers
and tanks and shoes
and highs and boredom
and guns and arrows
and holes and bridges
and hearts and deaths
and so little knowing what we really want to do
or maybe just knowing little of why.

Doing all this for any thing more or less than just seeing what happens
makes it no better
in fact worse
when we already know
so
so well
what the hell happens in all we are doing.

They
the kids
have an innocence and a true
not knowing
and need to discover,

but they like us
are taking little steps
into us as we walk out of the picture.

I hope it is
all getting better
with each of them
than we summed.

Not Your Lunch

Close the lid
that is not your lunch
today.

That hunger
is a fuel
all its own

all its own.

Ready to eat
is a fuller state
than feed
measured in possibility
and creativity

or invention by old necessity

Close the lid
that is not your lunch
today.

That hunger
is a fuel
all its own.

Anticipation
is so much more alive
that good thanksgiving sleep.

Chase down
all you want to do about it
all the things you'd fix
all the love unloved.

Don't give in
and become satisfied,
that has ever only led to rest.

Love

Real

can be
and is

this love.

A lifetime of having someone
that will always read you stories to bed.

For there to never be lonely nights.

A love
that past all angers and slights
enjoys a permanent pardon on all missteps.

One
found
in always having a shoulder
to fall asleep on in minutes
when the trying without fails.

To have another's hands and arms
that can still take the world
and push it back outside.

Real

can be
and is

this love

that my children still have
and is the greatest gift I have ever
been so proud of being a small part of.

Want

There's what we want,
and then
what we want enough to have.

There's that life list
your proud to share,

then there's what you end up with
at the end of every week.

I can say grand things
and believe
in many ways to save the world
or just eat,

but too often I want someone else to be the hero
or maybe just often enough.

There are books
on our reading lists
there because of others,

because of what we want them to think
of us
not because
of something we really need to read.

There's what we want,
and then
what we want enough to have.

I walk
hand in had with my family
my partner and two daughters,

and the pictures I take
laid side by side
with all the rest I thought I wanted,

show
on one
real level

I already have it all.

Slim Directions

I sleep
clothes on,
prospects slim.

Or better than slim,
if you can actually go that direction
and have much
to smile
back upon.

At least it is
ever so easy
to sum up the possibilities.

No endless horizons
to stray the eyes on to pondering,

focus in the minimal
and essential.

No,
no
my needs
are more than this,

never mind.

This is like counting the register at an amusement park in November.

Everyone full of turkey
or dreams of
shopping lists,
warmer places,
and gifts to come.
Always everyone full of something
other than what they are,

but at least hoping forward
for happiness.

But still not the dreams of love
that claim the summer
almost whole.

I sleep in my clothes,
this is life
in its most
singular.

Vows servered me well
but into equalizing normalcy
one kind of down to to floor,

but an ooze,

no woo.

This is like counting the register at an amusement park in November.

Every once in while
we get it on and say hey
why
hey why don't we do this more
then the year rounds by and we do it again

never mending
the growing rift
that I hope
only swallows
itself.

This is like counting the register at an amusement park in November.

One easy task,
but so little to it,
that there are few memories to file.

So few memories to file,
yet every year there is another candle on the cake.

and I thought I'd be fuller by now.

Stars

They made this sunset
for me
and I don't care if I am wrong

as it
and the idea feels so nice.
I want to enjoy this
and still go home happy.

I want to walk with everyone else in the crowd,
nameless to the masses,
and still feel loved over alone.

Oh come night
and get everything cleared away
between me and my stars,

send me home with my stars
watching me.

Send me home
clear

and believing
in magic.

Full Speed Ahead

We've built this fortress on sandstone
in good and
dry times,

a castle
out of paper in summer
strong enough.

Now the rains that would normally grow
everything in sight
are washing away all under cloud.

There are great times
when we can have so much
but if we've paid no attention to the ground below us
we will become one with it.

I can see doctors,
read good magazines,
books cover to end,

and still
my house sits
on the foundation that it sits upon,
barely settled
at best.

Where is my purchase,
pill, test,
diagnosis, bid,
or any some resolution or another,
there has to be something to buy to fold all this into
and hide it away.

I am not sure who are the lucky ones,
those starting to wake,
or those still dreaming.

We have great bridges
attached to poor moorings on mountains
doing what they always do over time.

Old ones wearing away,
new ones going up,
none staying where we thought we had them pinned down.

Our eyes see so little of year after year
and so much of just today
a gift with its own curse,
like every finger on my hands
and the touch I can put on your back to make you forget
for tonight
at least.

We've built this castle
on the poorest shore
moving in wind alone
and now uneven
all our tables pour left,
don't drop anything round.

If we've paid no attention to the ground below us
we will become one with it.

And here we come,
still
mostly unaware,
but full speed ahead.

The House I Have

The house I have
could be taken
in hours of flames.

Yet has stood the decades gone,
storms past
and blown by.

The security it stands for in mind
ill placed.

Just the right wind or shake of earth
could send the permanence it is has
to flight, and off into the air,
as the wood and brick wrestles on the ground
never to reform.

It would be that easy,
and that hard.

That hard to build
decades of memories

see the walls stand through heat
and cold and wind
and rain and hail

and to then
fall in just a day.

just that sort sequence
that harms us so
that we are forced to grow
in ways never chosen.

Harder Love

 
How long,
long do you help others?

How long
before you are no help,
how long before the cost to you outweighs you?

Love,
family bonds,
just because we should.

All good reasons
but not to lose two.

Not to lose two.

Sometimes those we owe
still need to follow their own anchor,

once you've given all the help you could,
once you've given decades,
lifetimes,
all of a parent's heart,

or all a brother can do
to stay indifferent over hate
even if that felt like, to both, to be a lifetime of avoidance, all no better.

There is love and there is keeping the cycle,
going round and round.

There is love and there is making no difference.
There is love and there is hurting through letting be.
There is love and then there is always love,

but how long
before the boat in use is a nod to swiss cheese.

How long before,
if it is ever going to float,
the owner needs to turn on the pumps
and plug the leaks.

How long before,
even if they and you and those you already know can't,
does one go before getting more help?

Too long.

Almost always we all go too long,
far too long,
a too usual too long.

A too long watching other lives live less.
Too long dancing poorly around a problem,

when we should be working in a larger group
to choreograph a starred performance,
and all making it into something
somewhere new.

Something somewhere
somehow altogether new.

No work is without its cost.
No work is not without a chip in the comfort of now,
but living a slow heart-grating peace for sake of not risking worse
is to ensure nothing better ever comes.

But how,
how to find the shoulders
needed to lean upon?

Remember living the what is
is to ensure nothing better.

To live for a nothing better
should be only for the best of times,
if even there.
Everything else is a process
and processes and people die
when they aren't moving.

Love,
live,
but keep
it growing.
Keep it growing
or it ends in regret and despair

keep the love
but make it grow
before it burns out.

Make it
grow.

Winter rains, welcome home

It is a sunny
warm early fall morning,
the aftertaste of summer.

By noon
the clouds large
tall and slow
come to clean it away

filling in with white cotton
all along the ocean coast
sparing the sun still on the land and to the east

The ocean falls to the advance
then by the time I could start to imagine the smell of dinner
they took on grey,
a dirtiness kin to the mud they'll leave in their tracks onshore.

telling in the walk quietly with a big stick way
of the weight they're carrying
carrying to us
to us and our dry land.

They come
snuff out the sun

They climb
they stall
stall going over
hitting land after a long low ocean cruise.

Climbing over
over the mountains

Stalled and squeezed for us
sending new blood down

new blood down the streams
down the streams towards the ocean
towards the oceans and down around the land

around and through the land
and the roots of all the dry summer trees
the dry summer trees waiting for another spring
waiting for another spring of quenched thirst and sun
sun warm and alive

content and full of purpose
full of purpose and means
purpose and means to make it to their goal
to their goal and growth well spent
growth well spent
spent in warm sun
sun warm and alive

so much nicer to make any mistakes while well fed
while well fed you can still learn
still learn the difference
different between a day thriving
and a life surviving

Welcome
welcome home
winter rains
welcome home and lay down
lay down the first blocks of our coming spring
our coming spring in sun warm
sun warm and alive.

Believe

It is so easy to
believe
in an idea.

The actual things
are imperfect
and actual

cracks obvious
beginnings and endings defined,

but an idea

an idea
can mean just enough more.

Can blend over into all that matters to you
and still fill different hopes for me.

But the actual thing
is always less,

always a compromise
between how good it could
and how much we really needed
or could spare for something new
spare to make something new real.

An idea still holds all your expectations potential
potentially fulfilled
considered and intact

but the actual things that come home
are only what they are.

How to live
in and for
part
and fed of

alive
by an idea
an idea more
than I.

So easy
to believe

and so easy
to forget to.

So easy
to lose that state
where we live happier
than in our actual lives.

So easy to forget
to live like we mean to be,

to live like where we are going
and not where we are
or have been.

So easy to believe
so easy
easy to
forget.

My Own Cement

If my own cement
is fluid enough
yet thick enough
sufficient enough
but stable enough
I can avoid.

Avoid all
avoid the problems that will out live me.
I can stay stuck in this mud
wallowing through all this
all this that will never leave my head.

All this that is
that is tugging at my socks
making me add extra lift to every step

work like an unoiled machine
pitting metal against metal and forcing it
forcing it to find its own way to smooth.

I can avoid
avoid all
avoid the problems that will out live me

no wonder we fall easily to religion
and belief in the afterlife,
it makes all this individualism work

allows me to stick here in my own mud
and dwell on small things
small things that cloud only my own eyes

the best in me or worst in me
may hurt a few around me
but really not to the equal of so much
much more left undone in this world

to be able to believe
we'll count
count beyond the time in these bones
that the the space we fill
is only building

only building
a more

a more
to come

to believe

to believe spending so much
time in my own self sarrow, insecurities and improvements
instead of feeding a few of the hungry
is worth it, or worth something

to believe it
that it is worth
worth it.

If my own cement
is fluid enough,
yet thick enough
sufficient enough
I can avoid,

avoid the problems that will out live mestay stuck in this mud,

to believe
we'll count beyond the time in these bones

only building
a more
a more to come

to believe I
I am even the hungry.

Instead of creating a great statue to make another dozen fall in love with art
or a painting for the same

no instead I spend years
writing self pity down.
Or is it up?

To believe
we'll count beyond the time in these bones
in this flesh
that the the space we fill
is only building.

Instead of what I'm doing
this adding of steal rebar to my cement
ever adding weight unneeded.

To get from my current ignoring
ignorance
to working
to believing.

The believing few of any flock
really get to,

to the pursuit
to a goal
the hope
that one day
I'll be a better person
solve a perfect puzzle

some permanence or assurance
like so many search.

Perfect puzzle of words in me
or someone else's book
that will turn it all around

instead of pushing along the whole
instead of pushing on that which only so few really do
and lead others to more.

To do the kind of things
that would actually really boost me out of my lackings
and into feeling productive and wonderful.

I've had days of this
but barely years and certainly no where near
no where near the lifetime
lifetime I have already half lived.

I hope to find a way
under my feet
these feet
that is not just a thousand years in the making or repeating
but true
and willing to be current,

want of feeling worthwhile.
I want of feeling worthwhile
I want everyone to feel a beingness of worthwhile
worthwhile

what a difference
a difference
that makes.

Can't get it without being outside myself
not stuck in my cement
but out in in others.

Feeling worthwhile
what a difference
that makes
if everyone
could feel so important,

what a difference that makes.

Red Lights

Red lights
on open empty roads
whose to stop me,

coming home
again,

feeling a little less proud
than I'd like to be,

red lights
at all four winds.

In day I could hope
to catch a glance
of someone's eyes
in a shared experience,
stopped,
put by chance into a team effort
for a second out of the highly divided lives
and constant quests we drive ourselves around on,
to be here
working to get through
this intersection.

At least in the busy daylight there is someone
to give reason
to the taking of turns.

instead
it's dark,
and quiet,
all alone.

I try to obey the signals and signs
for I know not what,
especially at this moment.

Red lights
on open empty roads
whose to stop me.

Red lights
on empty,
dark,
quite,
lonely roads;

like my own self, the one I see,
a blocker
holding everything back for nothing and most often no one.

Which turn to go
go which way
where to turn
turn these lights off,

turn these red lights off,
send all the cars through,
all through.

where is
everyone.

Why so lonely
here?

Red lights
only for when
or where
they serve me,

but how to know
when day and night
blur,

at least let me have
the clairity to make
mistakes on going through
as opposed to holding here.

Holding here,
all here.

Dirty Streams

The way home
runs though a dirty steam and miles of land
that has been forgotten
but not spared our leveling.

We'd never do this to most of our palaces
but when we all own only
our own little stamps
and don't feel all the land,

feel the land in here,
in here feel like it is all of us,
or feel we're all only here of it.

The real purpose of religion
still failing us whole
potentially flawed in the belief this world was meant to be temporary.

There's temporary and then there's getting enough mileage to get home
enough time for all to have a turn,
to smile,
to breath,
and to rest again

Bridges are so hard
hard to build.
Lets stop digging the ditch we are,
stop digging
and keep the way,
the way home open.

Leaving Traces

leaving traces
that will outlive the trees

the upheaval we are laying upon the land

is burying our thoughts enough
suppressing our minds
in the feeling it will never change the world
even if we know that is only
only if we fail
fail to find all the others that are just like us

but knowing there are numbers and finding them
are so different
so different

will I leave a mark that outlasts these trees
or even just the one tree I planted in my own backyard
will the future dwellers here on this land
just look and curse the shade in the fog
and embrace it in the sun
knowing nothing of the soil I dug
to bury its still living roots

surely they won't find the box
the wood, cloth and fabric that went in with those roots
now in the trunk and mulch of leaves
rounded many seasons over

I look and know
and maybe do my children
but we rarely last beyond

and not that I want to
but I want all to live
as though they are are trying to
and less of all this just surviving
what a world it could be

what a world it could be if all were living
for a legacy and not to survival
a real legacy not coins 

if I could find
and others could find
and were driven to find
all the ways to be better
and all the ways to live the long right, not the fast and short
to protect this land not just write a history we want told
to but to live as bricks for the future we want to tell it

Home in My Own Shoes

In the shadows
the threads are so much thinner,

letting go
too easy
when no one is watching.

In the shadows
all I have is inner focus,

the walls get higher
walls get higher.

The sound gets clearer
and less of it needed to hear,

Less of it
needed to hear.

No sun
to show
me the smoke
rising.

In the shadows
letting go
gets clearer

No sun
to show
me the smoke
rising,

and finding the threads
the threads back out
so much harder once you've dropped
dropped you're grasp.

When your reality
becomes only
where and what
you are.

When no one is watching
and you've dropped
  let go
     started a stop

but here I fell too far
too far gone
or alone,

and just need one extra hand or eye
to get back.

We need the strings
the threads
threads to hold us

We have them
whether we see it
or tug them so loose they seem gone.

But in the shadows
when no one is watching,

the walls get higher,
the walls get higher,
in the shadows
the threads are so much thinner,

letting go,
being bound--having reality
only lasts so long in only one's own mind only.

In the shadows
when no one is watching,

the walls get higher,
the walls get higher,
in the shadows
the threads are so much thinner.

The sound gets clearer
and less of it is needed to hear

less of it
needed to hear

in the shadows
letting go
gets clearer

one day
I may just stay
or keep going down
the tunnel
instead of walking out each morning

can't see my mind through the trees
but you
you
if I can get one smile
on to your face
a day

one smile onto your face
a day
that I will keep coming
back
coming back for
back for
for this all.

In the shadows
it is so easy to have only your own thoughts
but in the morning
I have yours at mind,

and that brings me home
brings me home
home in my own shoes

in my own shoes
but more

more in the company
in hands and eyes
connecting

and as hard as it is
to hear
to hear through the din
of day
I hear what I need
hear what I need
what I need.

Up in air

All my memoried life
I've kept books
and notes
and binders
and dysfunctional squashed spiral bounds
and scraps
and thoughts disposed of on reused envelopes
with any pen I could find
while driving or trying to sleep

now
wasted
and worn thin
or maybe only thinner
I give

nearly give
give in

stand on a small dock
over water

could be ocean
lagoon
or river

flows
but not too slow
nor too fast

enough-- to cause reflection

the papers fly
but can't hold their own air

I

I am

casting pages
paper
ink to melt

paper
to the sea
hoping even there
someone will read

something will last
or find new form
to speak

pages
I have
I have given
given up
given up on

words worthwhile
but stewed over
over for too long
for a solitary life

knowing
but only partly
partially
that this is never
never to be

but not
not wanting
to admit I have no audience

and thus hoping something
something unseen
will find them

find them
my pages
these words
this randomness

and see the sense
the feeling
the emotion
or just something to make another
say me too

find them and reshape
reshape if nothing more
my world
if nothing more
my world
or anyone's

watching the paper
take on water
and sink
like a great sail ship
wood failed
fire or cannon
ripped through
its hull

that is how this often feels

some
critical loss

some intrusion
into the heavier sea's fluid matter

heavier sea's
fluid matter

some failure
that sends us beneath the line
and holds us
holds us
too close

like water used as a weapon
a weapon
holding us from air
but we
we knowing
knowing we're close to drowning

understanding
that survival is just above the surface 
if we could just fight
fight to above
above and in
in to the air

escape intrusion
into the heavier sea's fluid matter
escape the
heavier sea's
fluid matter

escape
the loss
and end
end up
in life

find and reshape
reshape if nothing more
my world

if nothing more
my world

if nothing more
find my voice and talk
to talk if for nothing more
my own words

but knowing all the while
as unique and me as I am
that I am
little of what
the all wants to know

I am piece
not puzzle
and holding onto dreams
is so hard when when you get here

On the coincident of listening to a song of moon on the night of a Full...

Grown
grass,

green
glass,

same
color,

such
a different
feel under foot.

Like yesterday
and today.

Lost
last
find.

What
was I
waiting for?

When was
the last time
buying something
changed my whole mood?

Fast forward back to now
out my back door,

moon beams,

and in house
a song of the same
in title and refrain.

What the hell
are they--
but bad poetry,

lines in music,
so much
better off without them.

Not what I always
thought
but now so overused.

But here
I am
under the full bare ass
of a bright moon,

mushing away
under one too many hours awake
or maybe not enough,

something
isn't working
the same as it used to.

We

You speak
like we are talking of gold;
like our hands are glowing with energy.

Yet
we are lead,

not alchemists,
barely even dreamers

any
anymore.

Full of forgets
and light on
I'll remember long from nows

Love I still have
but stating it is falling
farther into a soup of qualifiers
like
    I think..
    or I hope..
    or still..
Not firm, straight answers
of few words
that should say it all.

Living here in this place

Life
so much
slower
getting there now.

Here
from this place.

Still running still.
Falling a slow slide
the pace of rotting wood
with a few bugs helping along the way.

So much happens
but there is really no measure of time
that I can tell you of.

The ground never freezes here
but I still get cold
and never quite as warm as I'd rather
save-- a few
        rare-- summer afternoons.

This place
I choose

yet choice
was not enough
for contentment.

Mostly I smile
to this never an extreme,
but lately these cold foggy days
and my wish to grow something more than mold
have me longing.

Longing like we all do
one time or another
or always.

Still running still
a slow slide
to what I'll be
anyway,

or for best of all
always where I really wanted to be
despite what I failed to bring with me.

Still running
a slow slide to still
to stillness
to a final act of contentment

Yes
still running strong
but a little slower
and more rested now.

Looking to be warm and happy
empty on complaint
and no more looking for what I missed over one shoulder or another.

But again that's what keeps me going for better
loving this place but wanting to build
into it
whatever better
I can.

The fog will never leave this coast
but I can find
all the good
it has
and be.

Where to go

One beer
past inspiration.

One day
and a full night
past caring
about your loneliness.

Self absorbed,
sponge
in hand,
head, and heart

I mop
up.

One day
and a full night
past caring
about our loneliness,

where
to go
next?

Dull as that thumb
or these two
here.

One day.
One week.
One year.

Too soon
one lifetime
past inspiration.

Past caring
for you,
or for me,
each of us in either each way around

Where to go
last,
if not next.

So much less concern
doesn't make this
feel any less
like my last chance
to make this,
or any part of it
right.

After Leaving the Office

Losing
my life
in concrete
and organization.

I make a laugh,
but we all know
we are dying
or passing time
but nothing else that remakes this world.

Here
goes
my foot

holding the carpet
that otherwise
would have pulled us over long ago.

I help
make money sweep this way
or not

or make a something say
something meaningful

and yet
it is
all never good enough

as when two faces
and bones connected
had to reconcile
ability,
excess,
and need;
just the two of them
there standing in the road.

No one to come and save them.
No one to come and combine them.
No one to come and separate them.
No one to come sell
a way out,

just them,
souls,
with no option but to live
and cast a bigger darker shadow
for the sun to part.

Our own bad situations
are the most fertile ground
in which to plant the seeds
of a way up.

My Sunny Days of May

Where was I
when I was still
and you were kind?

Where were you
when the lights
went on

and we
were
t0o far apart to undo
or redo
any of it?

Where are
my sunny days of May?

Those days when life
was all out in front of me
all waiting to be lived

Every day free-er than the last
where are my sunny days of May?

Young enough to live and love and love to live
but old enough to feel and taste the lure of new power

no knowledge of naiveté
at least not outside a thick book

Oh to be sure of each step
no matter the reality

Oh on to my sunny days of May,
well past any chance of frost
and yet no wilting heat.

I long
to come around
again

to such swelling
of potential

or great wonder.

Oh come
my sunny days of May.

In My Backyard

In my
backyard

burmese honeysuckle
and passion vine
intertwine.

Round and round
and round,
they dance.

But not--
for love,
rather
like too much,
it is survival--
  and a common pursuit
that drives them on

then
again

is that any different
or less
than the ingredients
in everything more

Standing Still

If we keep
all this going
how long before you're gone?

If I break all the walls
how long before we fall?

While I am stalling
this is dying.

While what this was is collecting dust
your brushing off
all my attempts
at shaking it back into the air.

If I keep
all this
just the way it is
I'll never get back to what I had
or where we were headed.

And this
this is
not all it looks
to be

more weight
than wealth
and more a sink
than a fountain.

How long
before it all dies?

How long
before it all
takes on its own life
out of my control
out of our grasp

If we keep all this going
where does it eventually stop?

Losing sight

Looking for a way-- to be me
not like I am now

A way to not have to survive
but rather thrive

Not to rush to work
like I am now
just so I can buy food

water, electri-
city, several flavors of gas
and the latest distraction

Rather I want
to labor over real work,
in love, paint, clay, words-- or any art
or just passion
even be it in-- just-- sitting still
like I am not now

so long as it is alive
a wonderland
I don't just-- wonder about
like I am now

To be a bird
eating the best seed and flying high
not stealing bread in a fast food drive through
like I am now

Three Springs from Now

What
makes me
look so one footed?

Is it in my
my own head?

What makes me
look so
unstable?

I see in the mirror
all the failing

but my words
only half
do me in.

others still
trust
in me

Trust in me
more than I.

What--
what
is--
what is it--
that does
me in.

The cliff I walk
is soft--
soft,
but not so
so near
near collapse,

no
I should
should be able,
in safety,
to walk.

I should not blend away,
away,
away in the crowd,
but I do.

like a brilliant
flower
that forget to set seed
in time for winter

three springs from now
not making it through
the cold.