gypsy nights hum
real low down

so low
that it’s more like a growl

they come
padding like wolves
catching me off guard

at the edge of the meadow
they turn and look at me

and I know that I should follow
that their home
is my own

that the wild, violent nights
calm

when the wind plays in my hair
and the moon dances
its mad dance
across the surface
of the river rapids
that break and crash

gypsy nights
everything pauses
and the darkness calls to me
its creatures with their
voices raised
in howlings
like haunting songs

gypsy nights
tug at my roots
threatening to uproot
and overturn me
to make me
as nomadic
as they are

forever at home
wherever I lie my head
wherever the stars
turn above

our wreckage
washes against the shore
splinters of masts
and shards of board

the pain is too raw
it’s too early
for them to smooth
into driftwood

that others will collect

placing smooth chunks
of our lives
into their porcelain bowls
their wide mouthed jars
their centerpiece arrangements

with time
pain smooths out its edges
and the jagged splinters
dull and round
into soft edged sculptures

like shards of glass
become pebbles of sea glass

all of our pain
is muted

and what’s left
is only bits and pieces of color
is only an echo of the past

something is breaking
cracking and splintering

something is smashing like glass

I think it’s my dreams
that I burn and I bury

my dreams that I choke
and I kill

late night
and the words won’t come
and I lose
piece after piece of myself
to the sorrow
that washes over me

sorrow I fight
to keep my head above
while it crashes
like breakers
against my body

all I need is a port
I can anchor in
a quiet cove
to come home to

a rest from
the endless waves

there is a lighthouse
not far from me

I see its light
and try to swim
toward the beams

but there’s no one
there to reach me
and the current’s
too strong

sometimes the wars I fight
become too much

suicide feels too strong
and I am tired of fighting against it

I curl up in my bathtub
fully dressed and sobbing

praying someone comes
and praying someone doesn’t

counting line after line of pills
and calculating
the cost of death

so busy dying
that I forget to live

the miles unwind between us
acres of cornfields
ribbons of muddy waters

wild tangled forests
and red rock canyons
empty as my arms
and wide

wider still the distance
that stretches
taut and unyielding

from above,
the fields unfurl like patchwork
golden squares and green

silver rivers are the strands
that tie it all together

strands I wish I could snip
and yank
roughly grabbing yard after yard
of canyon and field

shoving them together
wadding them into a pile
I could climb over

to where I’d find you waiting
arms outstretched

It’s late night,
and the mulberry tree
casts shadows
that slip like silk
over the windowpane.

She stands by the piano,
her tiny fingers tinkling lightly
softly, gently
higher and higher.

She reaches
for the furthest key
and lets slip
the silk sarong
she’d slid
across her shoulders.

The last note plinks
out into the cool air
as I rise to envelope
her chilled nakedness
with the warmth of mine.

lately I am sliding sideways
tripping over tangled brambles
and spilling out

ink on my dress
ink on my boots

ink
seeping through the floorboards
into the corners of my soul

ink stains
on my comforter
on my bed
and on my fingertips

heavy an ink
sturdy an ink
that spills

and gets stronger
the more it is spilled
the more it’s released
the more it loses itself

as it seeps
into those around it.

late afternoon sunlight
slants sideways
a bright orange glare

as if for only
a half hour of the day
the sun focuses on us
watching while daring us
to watch back

I close the blinds
against its burning eye
and hide in the soft
light of a 40 watt bulb

just me
and my music
and the words
I try to force out
try to make meaningful
try to make special
the lines and lines
of words that fall flat

I made sweet tea.
It was the color
of a golden brown shadow.

It was sweet
as a memory of first love
of hands held
and dreams captured
of the time I lived
in the moment

not for the future
nor the past.

Now I try
to make the words come
to call them out to me
but they won’t come.

They too are stuck
somewhere in my past.

I imagine you
putting poetry on fliers
and posting them on boards
on telephone poles
on bus stop walls
and cracked mirrors
across from rows of urinals.

I imagine you
creating a life
out of words that you birth
and bleed onto the page.

You slouch,
naked as your soul,
fully exposed
in the lines you leave
for others to find.

There are noises in my head,
clatters and bangs
I can’t turn off.

There is an endless chaos
infinite and overwhelming.

I’d ask questions
if I could hear myself think.

Music soothes me,
smooths the jagged edges
and moistens
the desert patches
that snag like burrs
and cling

to my sleeves
to my cuffs
to my woolen socks
my worn shoelaces
and the split ends
of my hair.

I want you
to curl up with me
to rock me with your song.

I want you to push me
deeper into the notes
that swell and carry
us away.

I want to write poems that burst out of me
exploding into life like firecrackers

slamming against the shore
like breakers during a hurricane.

I want to crash, to blast, to shatter
to finally feel again

deeply and urgently
faster and faster
spinning out poems

that ricochet and pounce
that clatter and glimmer.

Loud, bawdy, wild and rotten,
terrifying, electrifying
poems!

I taste you
in the words you write.
You are orange and cinnamon,
a mulled brew that bubbles.

You are spiced and sober,
laughing as I gulp
your quips
and quotes that wiggle
like goldfish being held
by the tail.

You’re treading deep water
and I’m naked
clinging to your shoulders
leaning in
and drunkenly confiding.

I can’t swim,
so you flip me over
and tow me off

toward the wild jungles
that crowd up
against the rocky shore.

My love is far from me.
She must have lost her way somehow,
gotten stuck somewhere
rooted to someone’s dreams
caught in someone’s gaze

sitting in a corner booth
idling stirring sugar
into a steaming mug of tea.

My love must wear a hat
and perhaps a mustache too.
He would be wrinkled
from too much travel,
sandaled or pearled.

He or she would like to dance
but only along the riverbanks
and only with me.

I love this land with its crooked pine,
its bright pops of snow drops,
its ropy brambles and briars
that catch on my sleeves and tug.

I love the tawny fields,
prickly and unplowed,
love the earth’s curves, swelling softly
like a woman’s hips.

Late nights, I walk
the unmarked pavement
that winds out like a ribbon
through the old corn fields
and down

past the tangles of raspberry vines,
bowed and looping
past the copse of walnut trees
and upward

to where the grandfather oak
stands guard

over the sycamores and dogwoods
over the abandoned sled trails
and down

to where the bees hum in their white boxes
and the deer slip out of the woods
moving like living shadows

to where the owl hoots low and deep
as it soars across the open fields
at the edge of the trees

and I stand, mittened and scarved,
staring up at a fingernail moon.