When I hear Internet Age it sounds kind of
stupid—talking head made-up—painful
to say…and be…but we are it, it is; the world
has changed. We are changed by it inside
outside across borders-town-the room we all
sit apart and act together losing humanity and
gaining…what? Gaining a promise of connection
oblivious of skin, despairing of touch, moments
all wrapped in bundles of falsity & transported
memories, sold by the dozen on our favorite
blogs…free free free but 1 second is too long
to wait for truth when fantasy can eat hours
days weeks and consume us over and over and
over…eyes glassed and staring; converging on
points both here and there, 12 inches and a
thousand miles are no different when the plasma
rifle not in our arms is getting us to the next level,
when the photo 3rd down from top left is the real
us but unrecognizable to our mom dad grade
school friends and we forget that the ultimate
is to break free of the digital when all we have
are flat screens, megabytes of little passions, lost
motivation outside the zone between what we
think and who we are when we are anyone but
online…

It is an unwelcome sadness, a moment
an hour, forever and now…I felt
estranged from life, from the comings
and goings from the idea itself
I wanted to follow, wanted to see the
path forward…toward that ending
but couldn’t, my fault, my error, my
chemistry didn’t mix, didn’t connect
and I couldn’t command the essence
like I can’t divert the ocean the moon
the stars and yet there is a burning
motive an impetus toward something
that I am afraid I will never
understand.

We talked of comparison, of the never
ending push pressure force of life
quietly tightening against us, against
our skin…propelling us…that there are
choices and we do or don’t but the
inexorable push continues, bereft
of logic and without malice
we climb aboard or we are run
aground…knowing we cannot
be something we’re not…until
we redefine what “not” is, then, we again
are something…yet different…and
(not there) I have no frame to
reference

The ever knowing look, the crossed
arms, the waiting to end when the
beginning is just engaged, just there
and it is knowledge and annoying and
many many “and’s” after and after but
the drink the thought the music
conversation, a
pressing need to impress to caress the
discussion toward and forward and
ultimately end where fear designed
it to…a long look goodbye, a wondering
eye and the insight to never ever
know.

Wayward the dreams come and go, just staying long enough
to make the impression they should, a deep-felt fissure in our sleep
where the replacement is made, where what was…is now what is
that we barely detect with held breath, a shudder felt slight (but deep)

things change all the time; sometimes with a bang, but…sometimes
a whimper and a cry so soft that its often never heard (or heard clearly)
the changes within our souls, the hue and cry of inner landscapes shifting
changing…ever changing…what we feel most often and dearly

time is such a mean bastard yet the kindest soul we know in this life
it allows us perspective, it suspends disbelief, it pushes us to innovate
it creates the need to define our reactions to these many varied changes
it pushes us and pushes us to reach deep inside in order to create

some create with words and pen, some with brush and pigment on linen
some with sound and voice that touches us deep within heart and soul
some with kindness spent haphazardly on the many in need of it the most
…some with a single kiss on lips prevented prior; a frailty rising, a deep hole

as sang; dreams ebb and flow and sometimes they travel away from home
left to our own we imagine with eyes closed…that the dreams haven’t left
a sleep not restful, moving and fitful; ultimately exhausting; mercifully brief
walking in a land of fevered choosing, thinking inevitably of our death

and while we do this, we don’t do so in a somber or darkened manner
just knowing that the journey ends one day is empowering for the time we have
where we are, who we are, what we are and what we hope we will be
are all the things we imagine when our dreams are a thing of the past

happiness happens when we give up the idea of being happy and just are
whomever we turn out to be and we smile knowing that it all will continue
with us, without us, with the rest of the universe cheering us to greatness
with the rest of the universe not caring who we are; good/bad, old/new

the end of the story is never just “the end”…only the backside of a new beginning
because as we live and converse with time; we can only look in a forward direction
we usually can’t see the other side…unless we learn the elusive trick to do so
the other side of the end, the place where our souls will make a selection

the trick? The elusive trick? That is not written down in any book or on the lips of any man?
It is buried deep within all of us, an attribute of our DNA maybe or a structure in a cell
It is within us and without us and a part of the everything and nothing at all
It is the thing that is us, the complete “us”, the thing that we can never really tell

we are dissatisfied with these words but they make the sense they are supposed to or that they can
they point us to other thoughts, other wayward dreams, in order to help us figure out
things that we are allowed to know…by our DNA, childhood, the universe and just ourselves in fact
they are the things that lighten…and eventually bleach into whiteness…all of our doubt.

I don’t care about your God
your deity your Allah your
supreme being the sparkly
thing that catches your eye the
source the energy the whatever
you place at the center…that is
yours; you alone get to decide to
own and remember
…but what I can’t have (can’t
reach) is religion, is oppression
is money politics greed
sitting on my consciousness;
watching listening in on my
heart talking to my soul
(to my what and my when)

I am not angry (that is useless)
a movement backward
I am wondering, as always
and this gets in my way

All the while I am regarded by
this “not me” as lost/less/not
included when by my humanity
I am whom I should be without
judgment disparity without
thought. I want to live to
love be loved be happy safe
sane and watching all the while
to learn to live the straight arrow
of truth flying perilously close to
understanding where I fit-fall-walk
and scream within the confines of
this sad body…these motionless
moments of stillness while I wait
for the man with the sickle black
robe burning eyes…destiny pointing
pointing pointing down the
path toward endlessness
and infinity.

I am not sad (that is foolish)
a moment stunted
I am imagining, as always
and this gets in my way

I am not done (that is senseless)
a mission standard
I am living, as always
and this gets in my way

She was a walk sadly, a moment
lost on dewy grass, on the verge
so very far away

She was motion defined, left un-
said and tried to be forgotten;
a minute of awareness

She was the shadow, the hidden
beneath the seen
always within a heartbeat

She was all and none of the
less than everything…that
awakens me, loves me

She surfaced and was gone at
once; her intersection
my only memory

She learned quickly and (with
clarity too soon) a moment
becomes the past

She found what she had, her
thoughts and…her
sequence of events

She was her nature and is
and will be
forever

There is a particular sunlight, a specific kind
a honey colored glow that creates and defeats
brings warmth and depth to living—to life—in 
Tehran…to thick whitewashed walls, old stories;
dark espresso and cool linen…mothers holding
children like their ideas of tomorrow

The sunlight didn’t change yet became different,
became something menacing something
conceived in dark minds and the place is suddenly
dangerous where before it was singing holding
hands down wide streets it is now not a place to
be so her world physically moved

Picked up in dusky half-light and taxis and cars and
jet planes; her open eyes and empty thoughts, lost
on waiting for the next new thing, the next change
of what she felt saw had in her hand, her small fingers
unable to grasp the huge difference as her yesterday
melted into her tomorrow

Different places names people different just different
time rolled forward without prodding without care
and school and life and everything spoken in a
new accent an English too English to bear;
said with an expectation of impression…of
knowing her place in the world

Flip forward past school friends places times and
into today where she is connected and alive in
the center of her world her life a movement around
understanding and being who she wants to be
regardless of should or shouldn’t…bereft of
regret she orbits her happiness lightly

The sunlight in the city on some days at some
times comes falling honey colored and warm and
brings a stray memory bundled within and she is
smiling running laughing down wide streets
holding hands…and now living the ideas
of her mother’s tomorrow.

It is with abandon we let go these earthly bonds, free
the ties that bind us root-like and static…we wish…
in dreams of flying of letting go of the fear that we
wear like clothes that strangle movements that slow
our progress forward.

Like clothes the fear wraps us but we can’t really see
ourselves as wearing it, being it, just see ourselves as
ourselves we think no different from the next guy girl
walking haphazard down the street seeing others
as we see and be seen.

Until we know what is there, there is nothing there like
seeing red through a red lens we see nothing even
though we know know know it’s there, without the filter
without the artificial-the manufactured-the created for
your viewing pleasure…

Religion doesn’t really remove anything…it’s purpose
is to layer some higher meaning on top within about
to explain and control, denude and deny the fact that
underneath is the same the same the same no matter
who what or where.

Politics is a different religion with different rules but
additive and additional…nothing simple enough if it can be
difficult and can create control divide and define one side
versus the other and convince us that more clothes
are really necessary.

Boyfriend girlfriend husband wife another example of
the threads that are spun on the loom which makes the
fabric that creates the clothes that we all wear while all the
time ignoring them, pretending that they are what we chose,
that we picked ourselves.

But we’re 6 again or 9 or…waiting for the school bus in
new Sears jeans so stiff they make us walk like stick figures…
in the wrong color dress-pants-ugly shoes sister’s top and
we give in because we can’t see ourselves any
other way.

What does it mean to live in this time-this place-now
this America so wrapped and so unwrapped with lines
of poor, of lost, of last chance and hope…all waiting
for something unscheduled undreamed unbelievable
and always always always left standing wide mouthed
staring and surprised at the opportunity willfully laid
out at their feet…demanding they lift it and carry all the
way to the end of their own future, the future entwined
enshrined defined and wholly 100% free

What does it mean to the ones here for centuries for
decades for months for fathers and mothers for
complicated destinies themselves twisted into the fabric
of who we all are yet upset that what they (old) have is
what they (new) want without the courtesy to thank them…
the ones who knocked down trees made roads created
the stuff that was used to create the stuff…not saying that
they got here first and now hate having to defend
something they’re afraid to admit

What does it mean to be unaffected by that-by this-by
the hate anger sadness gladness and envy that so
permeates so envelopes so stains the words that fly when
even birds are smart enough to roost…what does it mean
when the middle ground isn’t the safest and only polar
opposites make sense because hate is the only resource
in abundance and it collects on the ends, the edges, on
24 hour a day talk radio, on the minds of those who
cannot stand up without a wall behind them.

Time is a frame of film sliding past a lens in front of
the thin light of everything you know and who you are
in those moving pictures is only an illusion…what any
of this means (I have no answers to give) is what we
make it to mean and today is not so different than
yesterday tomorrow and now…but by degrees by
tiny slices of time we all create a reality we’re happy sad
joyful mad contented and anxious to live in, to swing in a
wide arc from then—through now—and into wherever

The words were poison on my skin, a tattoo;
permanent until her cool breath, enveloping
contrition and sadness, will wash away the
memory, toward the end of disbelief.

She asked a question…one better left sitting on
the shelf, on the premise that everything she
means, means something more than what
she says…who she is.

I watch the question slide across the air, the
space between us a million miles, less than
a blink; it falls across that chasm and stains
like a shadow.

“Do you love me the way I love you”, she looked
though that space between us with intent…
the weight of unrealized dreams pressed
tightly against hopes.

I hold my breath for an instant, for an hour, a
day and then weeks seemingly flow around
us…and I think about who I am, who
I want to be.

Inside my thinking grows the kernel of a truth
an origin of honesty in layers of personal
deceit…all geared towards hiding who I am
when I am who I think I should be.

“No” is the truth but not the truth because
I guess not know what she feels…in my world
are guesses suspicion estimates and all
based on this side of my eyes.

I don’t know can’t know want to know
but see that knowing is never to be mine
never to be who I am…her words are right
and hurting and sitting on my skin.

Time ticks slowly toward the next and next and
next…while she shifts her dreams slightly away
from the center, anticipating where the vibration
will settle and resonate.

That’s where I am now; suspension…sitting looking
watching wondering after words slide past me,
over and through my thoughts…matter vibrating
between states, between moments…

She saw the danger in his eyes, saw
an empty promise a glittering ending
more than she deserved
or wanted (she thought)
He felt her trust like hot wool on
a (warming fast) April morning, like
the tip of a pencil writing in one
long line, (he thought)
She imagined a diversion an alternate
motion quite unlike what she knew
was perilously close to choosing
now, (she thought)
He regretted not saying not believing
love was a spring shower a gentle mist
but inevitably fucking with traffic, and
life, (he thought)
She said “Now is too late to be too
soon” and went away with her heart
intact, her tears reserved…her Life
in tatters, (she thought)
He waited amidst the showers he was told
were something gentle and found tears
where before he had little more
than hope, (he thought)
She sat in the shadows thinking and
dreaming of words he never said, words
he did…waited a beat, two and
returned to him empty, (she thought)
He thanked all who would listen and put
his words in a shining box of promise, locked
it with a kiss and buried it where
it wouldn’t be found, (he thought)
She held his hand and waited
He held her back and smiled
She looked for the glittery ending
He wiped away a tear
She accepted
He let go
(they fell in love).