for m
the sun has almost fallen of this side of the world
only a small light still hanging in the west
waiting for someone to say goodnight
we have come to the milky purple end of twilight
when you can (almost) still remember how the sun felt
as we talked this afternoon
maybe you don't realize how powerful you are
(and how i love you)
i have lit a candle for you next to my bed
when i awoke from sleep filled with your dreams
something small enough not to protrude into the night
but still give me solace
and enough light to offer you my thoughts

it is now midnight
i don't know how many days have passed
time slips by with only the opening and closing of this book to mark any intervals

i need the sun to shine
i need the warmth of your hands on my eyes
beyond anything i can give

i need to hear the windchimes on the porch
i need the birds to laugh
and the wind to cry
i need winter to come to hide my tears
and i need spring

i need it to rain
and the ocean to reach out for you
beyond everything i can give

bone box of buried secrets
hopes and dreams
and things i never dared tell you
wish there were windchimes
or strings of silver in the trees
something to make it seem more familiar
instead of occasional passing traffic
and silent whispering tree leaves

i've built monuments in your honor
tiny roadside artifacts
sonnets written on thai restaurant napkins
and architecture carved in memory
everything that's happened before
and everything i can't remember
everything + me = what might be
but i'm to afraid to look in that direction

i always denote structural landmarks
with notation
and leave development up to improvisation
up here my arms are shackled
--humbly (and silently) documenting the development
and leave the structural landmarks up to you

today i would settle
for a postcard relationship
once a six month
late night call
and lunch when you're home on vacation

told my brother yesterday
that i have to do something with my life
at some point
--follow you across the country
would either of us know what to do?

my brother told me to wait a couple of months
to say something
right as you exit this world for another
off to start a new life

there is block of trees
lining my dreams
silver candles and moonlight
illuminating the unknown

don't look says the crow
i don't believe you
spiraling downward
blue to grey to black
twilight simmering
twenty-five miles and two lifetimes
in the blink of an eye

that overhanging tree
always blocks the sun
secret garden dew drop whisper
silent pool of bird song and loss
consent for outside of daylight

unlock
sunblocked clouds
rain the size of stars
daydream out the window
two lifetimes and twenty-five miles home

morning (dreaming of meredith)
it's been so cold
strange waking dreams
roll over and over
wash away the thought
hiding from something i can't describe
judgement of time thru a window
unspoken decisions
guiding each thought or action
another sip of water
turn the alarm off
needle of the arm to a joni mitchell record
and five other excuses to
let me forget
change my mind and
make me stop thinking about it

waiting out the midday sun (for meredith)
imprint of an imprint
of a chance
for one second i thought myself strong enough
gauging my timing by the sun (and you)
all my thoughts collected and calm
and placed in the correct order
--the night before sleep eluded me
so i sat up till dawn working out the perfect questions
imagining the scenario/making footnotes on placement
and the correct number of girlscout cookies to purchase
my strategies airtight and perfect
(morning showed my plans layed bare)
every inherent flaw opened
till my inevitable surrender and retreat

this afternoon was the perfect set up
180 degree turn and there you were
radiant light blocking everything else from my vision
disjointed time elapsed to fast before your fateful goodbye
o captain my captain - what can i offer?

twilight (waiting for meredith)
cross current collection
twenty-five thousand wires
spider webs across globes across time
(schematics of a dream)
from here to spain
and all the way to you
candle wax moon still to come

twilight lights in perfect eclipse
every connecting dot burning bright
footfall traffic before night fall
dispels cold raindrops
waning moon scared away
given no other option

(closer than one can imagine)
transparent ghosts meet tear dried stares
external rhythms against internal fears
internal thoughts shadow external actions
every last second accounted for

intersecting cross currents
taught electric wire to leap and chase
sleeping against other warnings
on routes unknown
north on 53rd street
to the high desert
blue/black haze left empty for the moon

late night (missing meredith)
low rumble just the passing of another motor
lost soul making his way home
rolling with the bumps and lower my eyes from oncoming traffic
orion so low on the horizon
thought we made it to the edge of the world
drink the water to make us young again
limited only by our dreams
instead, swarming hills of incessant lights
somehow leading home
eternity of new beginnings
lost chance of waiting for the end

dinner with an old friend pushed me over the edge
from tired to completely worn out
ryan asked
but i didn't have strength to admit yet
told him to ask again in a couple of months
keep thinking the long drive will help give new options or
some different way to think about it

i hum in time with the road
singing myself to sleep
with a melody dedicated to you
my humble offering to the wall i have erected
drawing lines/creating boundaries
white stripes defining what is right
merging borders of late night

micro hole in the wall waiting for the last ring and what i could possibly say to change your mind however all is silent and the wait will have to wait it is said that the brushstrokes leave much to be desired things i will never understand needing to say something but knowing resistance is futile and will never work small resistance of force and the oscillation of a million small motors at work to create something perfect, lasting and pure until next week when it will be taken over, assimilated, copied and left for you i could apologies but it doesn't matter beyond the passing of one lazy afternoon and one more lover passing (passing) alternately pushing and pulling in two opposite directions until i realize this isn't why i came here this isn't why i'm here but no one answers back above/below maybe just all around waiting (never that way) belly's full of nothing but still eating given time for consumption and nothing else passing thru five different doorways hoping for transformation of self/hate/pity/self or maybe just sleep without dream cold wind and sweat hearing voices but only mutterings things that never happened and/or old daydreams of youth of passion without regret without memory of tomorrow clanging of metal and chirping of insects praying for nothing and having no thoughts beyond emptiness space and loss looking to deeply into something that never happened and has no future beyond a postcard and lunch leading to silence a fate deserving better than the waiting which never comes the walls my roof glasslike and polished showing only the starless night tomorrow being a year since our first hello if i did the math right calculating the star charts and position of the moon sleepwalking in the semiporous grey area of a