Timing Is Everything

Emotions bleeding
Through a thin exterior

The smile is fake
Cheap
Disposable

We all have days
When it rains
With the sun out

We carry umbrellas
When the weather is dry

Often
The choices are chosen
Or forced
Often
We make known that we feel
What we don’t

Sometimes
We get caught in the rain
And get soaked
Sometimes
It feels good
Or make things
Much worse

Dear Puppeteer

The cables
The strings
Garnish the sight

My eyes don’t falter
Stagger
Dim

Enlighten me, poet
What’s more to come?

I see to believe
And I believe no one

For all I see
Are puppets
With prayers
With doubt

A balancing act
Coming undone

Enchant me
With something
Without pulling my strings

Without gluing my eyes
To these obvious things

Leave No Trace and Look Back No More

3/12/09
Dedicated to Cameron Mo

At the crack of dawn
We packed our lunches
Hopped on the train
And headed far enough
To avoid this place

With pails and cups
And sticks and spoons
We stationed ourselves
And got ready to build

These complicated structures
Without a manual
No keys to ever pocket
No bells to ever ring

No bills to ever pay
No duties to ever meet
This world was literally touching
Our tanned and naked feet

And when the sun grew tired
And lay down to go to sleep
The shoreline crawled and reached
Our burned and dirty feet

The water washed away
The dirt and all the sand
It came to wash away
Our little Neverland

Porn, Cigarettes, and Lottery Tickets

5/13/09
Dedicated to Cameron Mo

Hope passes

It’s a mother heading home
To her duties,
Her child
It’s a child spending quarters
To feed
Her desires

It’s desire that claims
You deserve
What they don’t
It’s a moment
In time
To indulge
To engulf

It passes
Like sprinklers
On a hot, sticky day
It passes
Like headlights
As you speed away

It’s fleeting
Like all the choices
You made

It’s fleeting
It’s fleeting
It’s fleeing away