my father's right foot--
five toes packed into church
shoe shined with mink
oil and sunrise

tapped briskly down
on a wayward snail
with a crisp more
than a crunch.

if it had been
a tuesday or a wednesday
rather than a sunday
i could have forgiven him.

"I will deal with them according to their conduct, and by their own standards I will judge them”  Ezekiel 7:27

people will find a way to justify any action, no matter how horrific or cruel.

always.  always.  always.  trust.  your.  gut.

i know you won't believe this, but it happened.

i got to the mall.  i got out of the car.  and my pants.  fell.  off.

bad day to be going commando.

i know you're not stupid.

right now that's just about all i know.

would you judge a bucket of vomit?  and, even if you did, what insight or understanding would that provide?  it's a bucket of vomit.  all the rest is in YOUR head.

it's that place where all that your body knows to do is curl in on itself.  you twist and shrivel like cellophane in a fire until you are a fraction of your size, head buried in your arms.  you cradle yourself because there is nothing and no one to do it for you.

you rock slowly.  it is not hard to detach and see it as it is, babe without a mother.  that open-mouthed cry that is silent because the breadth and depth of the noise exceeds that of its only available exit.  that primal loneliness, so expansive and so heavy and so old that it feels like a story from a dusty tome on the shelf rather than the thing that has suddenly flowed in where your blood used to be.

she came home
two hours after she said
the butterflies in me
turned to fire, instead.

please don't tell me what went wrong, my love.
do you remember how it was when we first met?

kiss my lips before
they go away.
let me kiss your lips
while they're still mine.

please don't tell me what went wrong, my love.
do you remember how it was when we first met?

your friends are worse liars
than you
and there's no flowers bright enough
to change my mind.

i awoke alone
and filled with pain.
she's left a letter
that i won't read.

i won't think of what went wrong, my love
i'll only think of how it was when we first met.

it would be so much easier if i knew i could walk the halls of my life without memory taped like a kick-me sign to my consciousness.  it would be so much easier to say goodbye were it not for the memory of hello.

i want to be able to live as though i never loved you at all.  and i don't think i can.

grey

the sky is grey
the sand is grey
and the ocean is grey

and i feel right at home
in this stunning monochrome
alone in my way

i smoke and i drink
and every time i blink
i have a tiny dream

but as bad as i am
i'm proud of the fact
that i'm worse than i seem

what kind of paradise am i looking for?
i've got everything i want and still i want more
maybe some tiny shiny key
will wash up on the shore

you walk through my walls
like a ghost on tv
you penetrate me

and my little pink heart
is on its little brown raft
floating out to sea

and what can i say
but i'm wired this way
and you're wired to me

and what can i do
but wallow in you
unintentionally
what kind of paradise am i looking for?
i've got everything i want and still i want more
maybe some tiny shiny key
will wash up on the shore

regretfully
i guess i've only got three
simple things to say:
why me?
why this now?
why this way?
with overtones ringing
and undertows pulling away
under a sky that is grey
on sand that is grey
by an ocean that's grey

what kind of paradise am i looking for?
i've got everything i want
and still i want more
maybe some tiny shiny key
will wash up on the shore