acorn to tree

it's simple.

2008-04-29T18:50:00.000-07:00

it's simple.
something about that olive
green t-shirt, a day
of dirt hanging
in your hair, and the way you fry up
a pan of brussels sprouts,
keeps me thinking about you,
hours later.
even on the hard days,
it's simple.

early spring (wishful thinking)

2008-04-08T19:16:00.000-07:00

Paper whites peak through rocks
and ragged earth, only to find unwelcoming
winter-like winds. It all ends as quickly as the thought begins.

our night in

2007-08-17T18:10:00.000-07:00

Work sits so hard
on my pursed lips
while words still whip
from the tip
of your tongue, catching
only my corners.

It’s out of our hands now.

So let’s watch, as the heat sticks
to the dusty fan blades
spinning thick thoughts
into our unguarded walls.

2007-03-05T11:05:00.000-08:00

Orly's 4 pound frame hugs heavy
when he sleeps, and my cradled
hand starts to tingle.
I don't want to wake him, so
just like this living room, and these deep
red shadow curtains,
I too, sit heavy.

if i stepped outside, I
would hear the birds try
to rustle up some spring

but inside, white walls and this stall
ing silence press in.
It starts sweet, like a cat nap,
until even the idea
of moving
starts to prickle.

Finally (12-30-06)

2006-12-30T14:37:00.000-08:00

when snow falls,
finely
dusting
brick and tar and tongue the same,
even the chickadees sit quiet,
pausing
for this exhale
into winter.

10-19-06 (last winter)

2006-10-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

when my feet felt so cold,
I tried on your slippers.
my toes tried to touch
each curve in the sole.

your house smelled like hot tea,
compost, and baking,
like books in the basement:
ink mixed with mold.

I'm sorry for trying to fit
in your slippers.
I'm sorry for trying
your warmth for my cold.

I left them behind
just how you first left them,
empty but knowing
your imprints would hold.

2006-10-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

............radicle..........................................................................
...nothing but a chance................................................................
.anchored in shifting soil.............................................................
...the seed starts to peek..............................................................
.....past itself, to seek..................................................................
.....out a stronger grip................................................................
.......like a raw nerve..................................................................
.........the first root:....................................................................
.............radicle..........................................................................

10-12-06 (To Derek)

2006-10-12T09:56:00.000-07:00

2:30 in the morning
and your face keeps sneaking
into my sleep.
I knew it would.
It's getting colder now
and the trees start to mimic
death, bare branches
and creaking limbs
testing their roots.

I used to visit you
in your hospital room.
I'd sit and stare at your
end-of-autumn frame
and beg you to bloom again.

one good thing about winter

2006-10-12T09:54:00.000-07:00

in the winter
just like in the fall
I will come home
to find you
leaning back in my
video game chair
maybe watching t.v.
maybe playing your guitar
maybe with your eyes shut
but waiting
just like in the fall
for when I come home
and it is time for our nap.

It's not that I don't like to share

2006-08-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

but sometime between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m.
the sheets start to shrink
into a heap of tugs and wrinkles
that gather at the foot of our bed

and I want to corral the covers;
but you are like an anchor
made of legs and arms and heavy breath

Waiting with Macmow

2006-07-09T18:56:00.000-07:00

Like waiting for a poem to form,
I watch your exhales escape you.
Nothing now but the frame of you.
Nothing now but the rhythm of death:
slow beats and fast breath.

Your sounds mimic the moans of labor
and so I scoop you up onto my lap
and try to follow your breath, panting
with you now, while we wait
for the final push.

2006-07-08T19:12:00.000-07:00

I watch his hands dance
over the master card
arced like a wave, crushing
rock into the fine white line.

Now on my second drink.
Now on his second wind.
I'm holding my six pack
like a suitcase, searching
for something stronger.

a little springtime rhyme

2006-05-05T05:59:00.000-07:00

let's pretend I'm like that yellow flowered weed
that sprouts up in the spring to nourish those in need.

now you're like the animal who's doubtful that it's free
but is tempted by the thought of some dandelion tea.

Delicates

2006-03-09T09:41:00.000-08:00

Brown Egyptian cotton sheets
meet last night's underwear
in my washer.

I'm pretty sure it's all delicate
but the knob wont push past
cotton-sturdy.

I fish around the side sink, searching
out lint from the nickel sized drain
to let soiled suds seep through.

There's still whiskey on my floor
and on my breath from the night before
but this is just the first rinse.

broken

2006-03-02T11:44:00.000-08:00

what if i had let go

2006-01-04T05:40:00.000-08:00

that summer in Northern California
when the heat stuck to our backs
and our backs to the dirt
and the dirt hung
like your scent to my neck.

we camped on the edge
of a stream, below rebel redwoods
tempting the sheets of moss to stretch further.

my back to the dirt and yours to the clouds,
I tried to take you all in.
But once I noticed the first bit of forest, I noticed it all-
except for you.

I told you I cried after we made love
because I couldn't get clean enough.

We had spent three months in that tent
and three years in us
and now after a year without

it is still the dirt that keeps me grounded.
it is still the dirt that clings back.

a god poem?

2005-12-08T09:57:00.000-08:00

Her forehead presses against the window glass.
She is painting breath against fingerprints
and rain stains.

She is hiding behind her heavy sighs
looking into the night and against the moon.
She is leaning in.

She's too young to doubt and too young to believe
She's got virgin thighs and 12 year old dreams
etched in her poetry.

When the lights go out in her bedroom
she thinks about death and other lights
in other rooms.

She's a tree climber with calloused hands.
She's heard of Jesus and the Sandman.
They keep her up at night.

If there's a place for the seeds that fall from the trees
and a place for the people on bended knees
then there's a place for her.

Out the window there must be something.
Out the window there is nothing
but the moon in the sky.

a sonnet of sorts...

2005-12-07T21:25:00.000-08:00

He speaks in silhouettes of her
outlining each curve
and flaw in each year
each vowel
envokes a scent of her
each pause-

He speaks in silhouettes of her
and i want to drag
my finger along each fissure
in the sketch, each break
in the seemingly solid line.
He is a monument
sketched in memories

locked in an artist's eye
so i will be a passer by.

supertunias

2005-04-16T16:22:00.000-07:00

a tiny pinch
between my thumb nail
and index finger removes
the newest growth
from the supertunias
that fill the nursery.

each one has a stem or two
over reaching-falling
more to one side then the other.
So we pinch it back. forcing
their growth in other directions.

First a seed, then shoot, and stretch
and above it all, the first attempt
at a bud. But with the ease
of tip and nail, I snip
off the chance, leaving only an indent
on my thumb.

if only it was this simple
to obey, like nature sometimes will,
and redirect
all new green
still vying for your light.

yellow cat's remarks on his first winter

2005-02-11T10:38:00.000-08:00

I paw at the dangling
cloth she has thrown
around her neck
and watch her slide
on another layer of skin
before she steps outside.

And from the window sill
I see her dig
a path down
to the darker dirt
moving the now interrupted whiteness
into piles.

This is what they do
when the ground swells
overnight and swallows
up everything on it.

The new dirt burns her cheeks
and when she comes inside
there are tears still dripping
from her eyes and chin.
The white earth clings
to her thick layers
and hangs from her hair.

She says she has shoveled.

And from her heavy breath
and slow motion movements
I know this means "defeat".

beneath the ice

2005-01-27T16:00:00.000-08:00

3 days since our last conversation
and your words press
through the phone
like you're stepping
onto a frozen lake in early january.

Treading slowly past the familiar

I can picture you, on the edge
of your bed, shirtless, in your ripped
plaid boxers, taking off your socks, one
then the other
and our green candle we would light at night
and our clear blue dishes that the farm gave us
and our jade plant.

we’re almost tip toeing now
“when will you visit?”, he says.
I can still smell you on my lips if I try hard enough.

and when you say good bye
my name spills out of your mouth
like a stranger or a lost lover
or like a muffled crack from beneath the ice.

striving to be like bamboo

2004-09-13T09:55:00.000-07:00

I am striving
to be like bamboo
and bow
with the weight of winter
arcing my frame, almost
to the ground

and when winds wither
and when snow clumps
melt into puddles
I will rise again and drink
and grow

knowing my roots, too, cling
below ground level
shoots and knots and achors of fear
thoughts grown out of control
holding out of habit
pull down on me.
Still I will bend.

Persephone's absence

2003-04-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

Mid April and still no sign of her.
Frozen earth and naked branches,
a three month affair now flows over five
forcing us to hide inside from winter winds.

Come back, Persephone!
And let us feast on the fruits of summertime.
Put down the pomegranate seeds and send spring
so we can watch damp dirt dry
because your mother will cease to cry
and will restore the warmth with her love for you.

Dry Heaves

2003-04-07T15:25:00.000-07:00

Alzheimer's stole her life
like pages missing from a book,
tearing out chapters by the handful.

And when she died I couldn't cry
but I hung my head over the toilet
trying to gag up the missing pieces.

Anchored then in my rippled reflection
I looked my grip around the rim
and remembered all that she couldn't

Georgia rips and Kent cigarettes,
soap operas and back scratches,
my name and her mother's face.

I added her story to mine
and flushed away her sickness
with he tearless toilet water.

Sunday Night Shopping

2003-03-18T13:10:00.000-08:00

Tonight I walk down each isle, searching for something simple to make for dinner, when I haven't slept since Friday and the fluorescent lights make my head pound and eyes squint and each blink lets me see the fall again.

I watched him perched on my third floor balcony, 2:30 in the morning, gripping
the edge of the roof for balance, tempting me to join him.
I watched him, locked in a stare, like he was trying to memorize each branch and
twig of the tree in front of him.
I watched him shout off each thing I said to him, each threat I made, and push off
the edge.
I watched him fall, thirty feet, through the brittle branches of the pine tree to icy
ground.

And now, his skull lined with fractures
And now, his brain lined with blood
And now, bruises paint his eyelids like a cheap whore.

I would pray for him if I had a god, crouched and waiting, like he was that night,
tempting me to join him.
I would cry for him if I wasn't so tired, so angry, trying to think of anything but
the brown snow patch and fallen branches outside my window.
I would sit by his bed, not looking at his piss bag, morphine drip, scabbed
forehead, swollen face.

But now my stomach pulls me back to the supermarket, down each isle, scanning the shelves for something simple.

Before you come to bed

2003-01-20T15:21:00.000-08:00

I slip under our faded
down comforter and in between
our pale blue jersey sheets,
wrinkled with signs of sleep

and stretch my toes down
touch each sock stuck
in the tucked in sheets

and press my nose deep
into our bed, past the smell
of your after shave
and our sleeping bodies
to where the sheets still smell new

then, drag my hand down
to that rust colored stain
from when my period came
too early and the thought
of waiting on our love making
seemed impossible.

Tracing Grandpa

2003-01-13T14:57:00.000-08:00

Like a statue, he sits
silent, still, representing
the memory of a man.

As the IV clings
to his forearm, dripping
life into his violet veins
Nana traces her finger
along the cracks of his face
like she's searching
for directions on a faded map
studying
83 years of experience
chiseled into his cheeks and forehead
remembering
a life of boundaries
his love, like barbed wire
keeping her at a distance
unless she wanted the scars.

But now he sits silent
thinning like an icicle in thaw
with bruises, like inkblots, dying
the paper thin skin of his hands.