From January to July

We’ve traveled roads together

And alone — country roads,

Interstates, island roads,

Bajan roads, roads the Romans built,

Roads with a strip of grass down the middle,

Framed by bright green birch trees.

Snow covered the roads, then spring’s flowers,

Then summer's steamy rain.

And now here, we ride together, more and more.
And all I want to do is to take the road home to you.

Suffering

How intimate

Are you with the concept,

Miss Know-It-All?

Easy for you to say there.

On the numb of reality

— That thin reed —

Things can come unhinged,

And it’s not your fault,

Remember that.

The fear is what

You dread the most —

That darkness,

That hollow place.

You have been there.

Anyone who has not

Has no fucking clue.

Have you ever been

In writhing, white-light

Pain? The crunch and

Fire of nerves setting

The body and mind

And soul afire and adrift.

This is the place

Of no sustenance,

No memory, no hope.

Remember, forlorn sailor,

It will, because it

Will follow you,

But tailwinds accompany it.

That is the wisdom of the thing.
That is the opening of the seed,

Quenched by spring rain.

Night Ocean

Never will this droning,
This clawing,
This wind-swept yearning
Cease — the surf, the ocean,
Sing to me
In my years.
My harmonies,
I see possibilities,
Though at night
I cannot see the sea.
I know it's there
Out on a wave and a wing,
Not a prayer,
My thing,
Buoys ring.
Popples are glottal.
Incantations of water;
Upon the rocks
A slaughter.

Don’t Just Sit There

Do something.

Hastily write a line.

Include an adverb,

And note the defeat

But disregard it,

Because so much,

You are finding,

Is unremarkable,

And dross,

‘Cept what you

Hold inside

Behind your eyes.

Build that space

There away from

The transient material

To feeling, to wonder,
To dreaming, to kindness.

Seal those areas

And regrow new ones.

Escape the shell

And slither 

On the sandy beach.

Nothing seems to matter

Any more. 

Trudge. Trudge. Trudge.

There is freedom in that.