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.