You Broke Up With New York For a Reason; This is the Future and it Sucks

You belong where the crows replace the pigeons
and boys in light pants wear flannel to
cover up their scars
and stich wide mouthed seam to sew
their religion on.

Hip stitch, one, two
let me come and dance with you,
Box step, three, four,
no one's gonna love you more
than these overgrown trees dripping with moss
and tangled hedges in the twilight,
breaking onto docks
to wet your feet
and taste the salt we've come from.

And each of us, in time, will return
to this little place,
a third of our souls,
and keep, keep cracking;
I'll be the glue that holds you together,
I'll be your heart,
beat for you one and two once more,
I'll be.

For Kelly, With Beer

You are my beer,
sitting pretty Ruby in my glass
and you and I
and you and I.

You call when the twilight winds down,
winds the clock down,
and on my coat;
I find you a stain I can live with,
sprawled across my sheets
and oh, oh,
how I love each piece of breath
your mouth releases.

Don't change your name tonight,
don't change your face on me.
Let those curls wrap around my digits,
let me have cinnamon moments
kept in giftwrapped cellophane.

Stay through this sunrise
and I'll keep you in espresso
if you promise to wander this peach again,
if you promise the air stays clean.

You Still My Number One

This town is technicolor celluloid
knee-brown boots breaking onto docks
to catch the end of the rainbow
disappearing ts tail into the Sound.
This town is napalm,
but this time is the aftermath
of burning hearts, a bluff
and a peace misunderstood.

My head is full of wine and weary wisdom,
my throat scratched, parched
from screaming across mountain passes,
your name dangling from frostbitten fingers
icicles fallen from my knees.

And this snow is blinding in sunset
for red and purple and gold;
a summit is a summit is a tangle
of rosebushes with thorns out to here,
and a rhyming heart caught in brambles.

And we'll all fall away,
and we'll all fall away.

It's evolution and reconnaissance
a glass touch in the dark,
and your name home beside me,
warm beneath coals and tended
by something easier said than done.

Birthday Poem from 3

You are my apple sweet-baked with cheddar
in the back of the Dutch oven

You are the moon when nothing else
seems relevant or warmy

You are the pulsing soul
in the midst of an irresistable whimsy

You are eight-legged rainbow bandits
on chestnut rollerskates
and I am falling to the colors falling from those eyes

In your birthday wigwam, there are
shoes on the shelf
and all the while,
you shine like new confetti

And we're clutched in the thrust
of this four triangle linoleum
tightly wound and waiting

And all over the floor,
beer stains and crazy paper sleep
under your birthday shoes
and your toes that "meep!" for
your exciting day,
the day that makes all the windows
clench their fists and say
"Goddamnit, shes pretty."

Our girl,
the prettiest under purple light,
under the grey rain
and in the red Spanish dress;
driving home,
driving home.

A Taste No More

I had a dream in the back
of the car that night,
with your head pressed
softly to my breast,
had a dream where
you were something
more than fun
as your sleep wound
down and out of your mouth.

I wore a little white dress,
I had a dream
as your sleep wound down
and out of your mouth,
of daffodils and parasols,
pink in effervescence with
matching champagne and mary-janes,
and your breath a baby's upon my cheek
wound tender out of your mouth.

Of curls on ladies and hats on friends,
of cotton lace gloves, a garter.
and you so well-spent,
three words against my ears
wound caramel out of your mouth.

I had a dream,
awoke as you stirred,
owl-wide eyes anxious to return.
Gazing out the window
my feet on the dash,
I saw my dream echoed
across the Sound,
the stars and city lights indistinguishable.

And my breath leapt to meet
your breath,
steaming in the secrets
winding down and out of your mouth.

The Paper Moon

If ever my vernacular should fail me,
toss me aside like yesterday's garbage, I

want you to remember that every fixed moment I gave
allotted six years of masturbation material, perhaps one
silken pair of panties pressed sweetly to your thigh.

Ordinary girls never did it for you, this was whispered
nightly, a lullaby of falseities, nice in their flattery, but
lingering a taste to remember how many extraordinary
young ladies you knew; you hunted them,

and so did I.

Perhaps this is why perfection blossomed, perhaps
ancestry had something else to do with it, or
perhaps it was only the flash of an ankle,
entrancing that dance, but please dear, don't
rip apart looking for

meaning, you simply won't find it here.
opening mouths hungry for life, yes
or a head tilted towards a favored star but
not enough to a build a heart from scratch.