Noon
When I was a boy I found a stone as smooth as a small poem. I tossed it up and down, catching it in my hand. It slipped from my weary fingers and fell into a shallow pond. The perfect ripples became wider and wider as the stone rested on sand as bright as gold. Now that I am older I know what I would do. I would blend my hand in the water and pick up the stone as a haiku. Then it would lay upon a gleaming shore and dry in the noon sun.

Wall
I'll frame a poem this way:
one verse, then another
a work of art I'll hang on a shaky wall, crumbling by the forsake of rhyme: one verse, then another
I'll react to each line, paint it the best I know
When you frame a poem a certain way: you see the remnants of a falling wall: one verse, then another

Sometimes
Sometimes I go to a restaurant and eat bad Chinese food. I seek it out. The cranky waiter. The lonely fat men drinking cheap beer out of a bottle. The silence, but for those lonely men drawing in their breath or the hobbled waiter dropping steaming plates on wobbly tables. I go to this place to replenish my creative emptiness. A red neon cursive is my beacon. The feel of salt stays on my lips. For when I am hungry for the cranky and the alone, I eat bad Chinese food and watch stories with foreign eyes.

Perhaps
It was 6 a.m. I got up, put on my socks and nothing else. I went out my door and saw we were all nearly bare. These strangers I knew always in my life. All of us naked. I never heard such laughter. Peals of joy pierced the dawn air. What came over us, none of us could say. But it was fun and it lasted till the next morning when we bundled ourselves in cloth. None of said a word, as if we were strangers once again. Perhaps what happened was, we were ready to know joy at 6 a.m.

Dress
It's what happens all in time
As she tries to save her grace
A long dress torn into lines of white linen
Deeper,
Deeper,
Deeper,
She tries to salvage her grace
It's what happens in desperate time
This fall, this tattered hopelessness in torn linen

Name
I met a stranger at funeral procession. I wondered who had died.
The stranger said: A life as a problem unresolved.
I asked if he knew the departed as a name.
He said, No.
I looked around at old faces, and could speak to no one.
I just walked and wondered who had died.

Alone
They stood under the shade of an old oak tree
One man spoke to the beautiful clouds above
The other whispered to the silence of the day
A wind rustled the leaves; the shade broke free
Early clouds had turned to darkness
Alone and afraid the men went on their way

Step
I stepped outside this Square Corner to step inside myself. I found darkness in places where my mind's eye couldn't see. It was here I was afraid, scared of what I was. The Square Corner was good, I thought. I stepped back at peace, but my journey changed me, as the great fear now in this return. So I contemplated and thought in time: Between here and there I'll search these steps till I'm abandoned by what I seek. Then what will I touch? The unrest inside a tortured heart? If that moves our souls, I suppose it is fine.

Suitcase
You say I'm on a journey
I got a suitcase filled with clothes
They say someday it gets cold
Lonesome and weary too
I'm on this journey with a suitcase filled with words

What

What would I do if my pockets were filled with sudden gold? Empty them into a brief period of time? Or would I hold them tightly till I got old? There is one other thing I might do: leave them all behind. Go on as I've always been. Stop this suddenness. These random dreams of gold.

One
I swung 'round and saw a sky in sorrow
Its warmth and joy bled through cold heavy winds
And those gray clouds swept by its dying sun
I stood and felt inside this sky's true sorrow, as if I too were its son
Then something rose where my soul once was
I swung my arms as wide joyous circles
Perhaps in me is what is above, and we are as one

Higher

I see something rustling in the sky. I think it's rising.
Invisible wings take it higher and higher
Now I know it's rising. Going somewhere finer.
If it swoops down low, I'll race to touch its gliding wings
I can't see them now, but I believe it's what takes a spirit higher

Wind

She walked against a dry wind that made her eyes as stone
This girl I knew has fallen over time,
And when she walks slowly now in old tattered clothes,
I curse what I resent: that cruel dry wind