As He Was Sitting on a Windy Evening

Grey dripped from the sky
Like clockwork
As bending blades of grass
Bowed to the breeze.
The elements of a misshapen mystery
Took root next to a mulberry tree.
A melancholic stillness
Of something yet to be
Snaked its way through
The gnarled monstrosity
Called fragile evening.
4:47 p.m. to be exact
As if time was of essence
To his invisible tears,
Or the sentiment
That nearly escaped
From his back jean pocket.

Cupid's Eulogy

When push comes to love,
You’ve got to grab him by the arrows,
And let Cupid do his thing.

Fling! Fling!
Arrows fly.
Like a reverberating echo,
A poisoned dart suddenly turns
And takes a deadly dive.

When push comes to death,
It’s best to lie down in the dirt,
And let the grass grow.

The Simple Song

In my newly leavened
State of living
I pick at my heartstrings
As if to say
I just try to love.
I want to be able to someday.

A Pocketful of I's

I’m the indigestion in your stomach,
After you ate that last June bug with Tabasco sauce.
I’m the half-written letter that never made it to your mailbox.
I’m the secret you hide in your locked desk drawer -
The one with the hand grenade and 10-inch knife.
I’m of the unlucky breed, the kind you never want
To socialize with.
I bother you when you want to be left alone.
I leave you sterile when you want to have children.
I set my priorities above your more important matters.
I bleed even when you bandage the cut.
I haggle with your positive outlook on life
And give you minor scrapes.
Sorry about the major ones.
I eliminate polite gestures and courteous deeds from your mind.
Sex, theft, and addiction follow you because of me.
I play God when you lose sight of your faith.
I am the last lie that curled from your lips.
And lingers in your first morning breath.

The Image

I see a pixilated skyline,
Its edges bleeding through
To expose a carbon copy cloud
Desiring a clean-cut hue.

A pine tree protrudes into
Reserved space and knocks
Some branches off the glossy page.

I look to the corners
For an element worth keeping.
And there’s a smudge where
You picked up the image
When it was blowing.