The mere thought undoes me
leaves me breathless…decaying
in my emptiness I can never hold
the idea of you…of me…of a 
shared motion toward a separate
end; a simple fade into the slow
side of time, the ragged edge
where minutes fall off into
nothing, hours twist out of
shape view measure and mean
little when stacked against
the expectation of sadness of
denial of all the efforts meant
positively meant generously…all
the ideas gathered to focus on
a life meant to be something more
than nothing…while you/me can
only be the person standing, toe
to toe, at the end of our shadow,
we can be life breathing happiness
in our own orbits our own minute
tick tick ticking toward the edge
toward a separate end where
separation exists only as that wistful
idea, slowly ungrasped, that falls
leaf-like to the floor

She watched the minute fall off the edge of waiting and lay at her feet
it sighed softly and expired…she felt sad lonely wanting for a renewal
of faith of desire; another minute inched forward, eyeing the edge…

He sat on the subway dressed in assumption; ready and willing but time
(looking the other way) couldn’t see his motioning eyes, a need splashed
like pain across his face while train stops and starts continued

She tipped the scale with a feeling a movement toward less knowing and
understanding…time laughed somewhere an echo falling from the sky
landing at her feet ending on an angle against the last dying minute

He felt cold in his thinking in his waiting the subway slow so much space
between him and her between thinking and doing…between wanting and
having…he reached into memories and held her hand felt her face

She wondered without wondering felt time stretch across where she knew
he wasn’t where she saw an emptiness a space unfilled…she sighed
and started a small dance of gathering her sorrow, her gloves and coat

He felt the weight of expectation; sitting wet and dreary on shoulders, on
the unlikely notion that time would change reverse speed up, would be
anything else but the barrier the friction he felt between now and his soul

She pulled on cold brass—a slice of cold wind cutting through her—
through her disappointment she entered the idea that she was alone
again retreating again denied again as time ignored her confusion

He walked upwards toward the dim light of a day set to make him feel
make him know and endure, the subway sounds still staining his ears
he hurried to the coffee shop to the cold brass handle

She felt the sharpness in her eyes: the icy corner of brick and without
looking behind she turned a corner towards sadness toward missed
expectation she wandered with nothing but an idea to keep her warm

He sat at the varnished wood table, thick and solid completely unlike his
thoughts while the coffee sat slowly forgetting how to be hot, even his
memories fell into disuse while eyes scanned where she wasn’t

We have become strange with worry, our
lives filled with symptoms with messages of
the times…of things we fear we cannot rise
past cannot let go…just watch

This strangeness is endemic is systemic is
normal and natural yet we react like it is new
different (not required) and we worry into
the strangeness like we can’t see it

Disfigured by stress our lives twist in ways
we can’t understand and we let it…we
watch it like we aren’t our lives like we are
an episode on the television

There are no sponsors no commercials
separating this event from the next from the
beginning to the end we roll without credits
without writers gaffers best boys

We should know who we are but we don’t, we
only know what we’re told explained taught
in school in relationships in time we all find
the question unanswered over and over

Acceptance of what we see hear feel and are
wanting is the end state, the final edit, the
reason (for those that need one) that inside
outside we all want to be

We can’t be anyone who we’re not (some try,
some think they try) we all see through a lens
distorted by our own shadow, our own effect
on this perceptual gravity

Was down near the park today, saw
many people sad worried stressed hurried
people saw a man walking slowly alone with
a sign above his head

Free hugs in a nice Arial font black letters
on a white background easy to read to see
as he held it above his head and I thought
what? I didn’t know what to think

I stopped and watched hidden behind my
eyes I watched him walk and smile and laugh
at people sad and hurried walking around and
through him if they could

He was a nice looking man had an army coat
clean Levis brown suede shoes with one lace
trailing behind each other step it was sunny
and a little chilly (it was January)

I saw hundreds of people file past walk silent
with no looks no smiles no idea how sad they
were how apart and alone even in the crowd, I
saw them part like water around him

I climbed out from behind my city street mask 
and slowly walked up to him, caught his eye his
smile creeping from the center out…he stretched
his arms wide and stopped

Right arm up and left arm down I wrapped my
fear around him and squeezed while his joy
seeped into me and his arms fell around, as
his laughter rumbled from a cavern

It was a few seconds a hundred days it was a
connection touch the direct line from my soul to
his to theirs to all the people walking around
and through us if they could

I could not stop the smile could not prevent the
happy could not understand why but I thought and
thought that the sad worried stressed hurried
people were missing so much

I let go and he let go and laughing we walked our
ways our particular direction with his mark left
on me my echo left with him…40 feet away I turned
and saw another hug being given away

I see people everyday afraid, wary, untrusting
in themselves; making something else a proxy
their stand-in—a manifestation—of who they
are…thinking they cannot be who they are

Career booze TV stress sex…more and more a
façade, a veneer they show to the world; an
opaque coating across-over-covering feelings
regret shame fear neglect inferiority

They, without choice think and are pushed pulled
while imagining the world is something happening to
them…they are buffeted by winds they neither
control or know…they simply go where they go

I see them but cannot tell them, yes I can tell
them but it is not my voice my eyes my love
they hear see feel it is noise it is a background
hum lost in the symphony of living

I believe that sometimes you have to turn off the
symphony…to hear your instruments your voice
your song…I see people lost in their symphony
thinking knowing agreeing there is no off switch

I am not special wise better than anyone but I
know I trust I love I see myself (I try) with courage
with open eyes heart without filter I live my life
every day…I want to happen to life; planned

The fear I see in people is themselves of seeing
believing feeling hearing what they have to say
when what they have to say is about themselves
about what is behind the façade

I see people and I am sad that they cannot see
themselves anymore for the covering coating the
steel strong veneer stands between them and
living the life they have but can’t see

When we write we want bold
strokes and long shadows
of impression of standing and
respect…we strive for that
indelible stain the mark that
never leaves, the line
from here to there when
there is forever and the end

When we write we search our
thoughts our heads for words
never said never mentioned
in passing…never lost on
uninterested audiences and
we find only what we’ve always
known even when we didn’t
know we knew

When we write we look in
places uncomfortable maybe
always inside always some-
where we didn’t want to look
before but it’s what we are,
(when we write) that is indivisible
from who we are when we
are who we want to be

When we write, simply in truth
and with an eye open toward
the future, and eye toward the
past…we can only really see
now, this moment this time we
are living in are breathing in
and out—we think, we think—
and we write anyway

It’s easy to say that love is everything that love
is underneath the energy that we are that fuels
and moves us through life…it is easy and it is
wrong

Not wrong in the sense that there is a judge jury
presiding deciding watching waiting, a slow cloud
of doubt sitting on shoulders of shame and
remorse

Wrong in the way that it’s said felt expressed
while the meaning lay plain and clean in front of
us…saying it is everything implies that there is
something

When I was a child I watched raindrops fall into
puddles into despair as days morphed into weeks
into years while my sadness stretched to
infinity

A sadness for what I didn’t know, what I couldn’t
ever know, looking on a life laid out in a line
before me; with happy sad fun angry quiet loud
moments

I didn’t…thought I couldn’t know love or the thing
that seemed to be love when it was never a matter
of knowing dreaming seeing believing having or
feeling

When I touch-feel-see-hear-have-own-call-like-
hate-move-ride-watch-live-breath-fuck-touch-catch-
predict-mention-imagine-doubt-kick-spit and smile
I am love

It is not
knowing

It is
being

In that solid darkness of almost morning with

deafening whispers with simple segments of

time sliding past looking slowly like they might

stop wait have small conversations…I am in

that untenable moment that mystical pause

between knowing and needing

I feel something escaping me something a

little lost a little unsure but inside slipping gently

to the outside to the other side to the depths

of missing of meaning and I know that it is me

who is going going gone to the idea notion

that I missed and missed completely

She was and then wasn’t, that simple that

complicated I watched (didn’t want to watch)

myself forgetting forgoing the space where

she was is will be as time pulled her away

into a future bereft of me my mine and all

that I could be want feel see

Simple it seems difficult it is and always

just beyond reach of thinking I can’t stop the

future from coming making itself front and

center from being what I don’t want when what

I don’t want is never clear known around

when I need it the deepest most

I didn’t recognize the last goodbye the last

glance look touch I saw her walk away thinking

nothing different after as I did before and

I am less am slightly lighter, more lost than

found now but I recognize that what today is

is nothing less than it should be

I need want to apologize say deeply simply say

what will never mean enough never cover the

wound, I will…I want and that is where this idea

ends when the caption underneath the sad sad

picture only includes one name one person

smiling not smiling looking at my empty hand.

its an energy, this flow this
movement beneath our skin
internal and frequent it
expands to the size of us no
matter the size of us…it fills
that envelope with a meaning
a motion a message that we
are living alive moving a long
slow arc across our personal
sky across the notion that we
are separate individual alone
(and we are) (and we aren’t) but
always who we are when we
are who we should be who the
energy creates us to be…creates
us today and the today that is
tomorrow and today again and
again…we feel the frequency the
modulation the hum behind our
eyes; it is us and it is them and
it is you and it is me and it is
everything but not something to
touch to taste to smell to hold it
is indivisible from matter from
time…and we can know it and
not know it and it is OK both ways
it is the same.

When I attempt to tell my side of the story my end

of the stick swinging loudly strongly all bluster

and meaning…only (it seems I know) when I try

to tell my story; I stumble on words ideas feelings

People laugh make jokes move the ball toward a

different goal line while I stare and talk with drive

with stern direction toward my point my didactical

effigy of thoughts on life living and motion

I should lighten up should settle down should take

it easy; I talk too deep, they say, words scraping the

bottom of understanding casting shadows of doubt

of swirling philosophy left damp and piled up

There is no stopping—though—no waypoint on this

long arc to awareness I must I will I have to wander

toward the end knowing there is no end and never

will be never can be while it gets easy and difficult

I write words that mean something (to me) hopefully

others more likely (me) but I try to tell my story…try

to spread ideas meaning feelings felt deep on the

surface inside I tell them the way I tell them

I don’t stop I mean them I feel them they are real

words real ideas going toward a place felt seen

known without knowing; never been but have a map

a picture all done inside in my eyes ears…now.