Again
I wonder what it could have been?
The taste left on your tongue
Of me?
Of something freshly eaten,
like a fine meal
tender,
succulent,
a succor to your ailing and desperate heart
I wonder what it could have been?
If a taste left on your tongue changed you
That left you as calm as the Zen breath that fills your mind
I'll leave you now
You have peace that replaces your rancour
I have nothing to taste
Nothing, my girl
No tenderness
No succor
Just an old poem to touch my lips

Clean
There was a woman who lit a fire. She took sticks, dried grass, old sheets of newsprint and made what looked like a small pyre in a wide open field. With two rocks she struck a spark against the dried grass and watched the flames grow larger then die down slowly until only a slight smoke rose into the evening air. She drew the smoke into her face with her cupped hands and held her mouth and eyes tightly closed. The woman didn't know this was the way to cleanse her soul. But she felt at peace and was happy when a cool rain washed away the ashes she left behind.

Space
I wonder sometimes if the space between stars is really the space between darkness and first light. There is what Einstein said: 'God doesn't play dice with the universe.' The smartest man knows what's inside a Creator's head... So if God doesn't toss dice, He deals cards? I've known too many people who've been dealt a bad hand, and for certain a cold life isn't random. I guess that suffering space is in truth that space between dying stars. Like Einstein said, nothing travels faster than light.

All
This is a story about a ghost
No, this is a poem about a spirit that slips through the night
It is about death and the dying, the smoke that burns our eyes
Really it is a story about ghosts that come and touch us. Or torture us.
It is a poem about me and you, and the fear we have of spirits
The fear of smoke that shrouds us, chokes us, burns our eyes
I wonder like you about the worthiness of time,
I wonder too about fool's gold and what slips through my hands
My life? Your life?
What slips through your hands? My life along with yours?
Like death and the dying, I'll know the burning smoke in human eyes
But will I know it comes for me? And what will you say in last prayer?
The answer, I say: What comes for one, comes for all.

Contrast
They say black isn't a colour
White, too
They are a contrast as any artist will know
One posed against the other they blend into grey
Like an old movie, there is a special beauty in a life without colour
There is a certain poise, a certain off balance, that can't be explained
The best, I think, is too awash your life in contrast
Feel, hold, see the greyness and let a special beauty take over your special soul

Elvis
I finally understand Elvis,
Really I do
His music
His gyrating grace in shiny black shoes and shimmering hair
That Southern voice
His bright smile
I understand daughters who went wild
And their mother's too
The journey of pilgrims to Memphis and his birthplace
The land he and his soulsters graced
I understand how Vegas killed him
And how Vegas killed the music in some of us
There is that tackiness, cheapness, plastic trail of souvenirs and mementos
I understand the beauty in all these things
I understand the poetry in the lives of those who see him in the strangest places
Like in the dark spots of  their lives
In the clouds that float above
It took me years to understand Elvis
After I derided him
Mocked and belittled his fans
Dismissed his music as trashy verse from an uneducated land
But now I understand Elvis, and someday soon, perhaps, I'll understand the rest of the music of Man

Nothing
If there is a story, I don't know
Of a train that travelled into a small forgotten town
A man jumped out in fine clothes
He held a leather valise in one hand
A rolled newspaper was tightly held between his elbow and his side
The stranger to this town, walked past its buildings and dusty saloons
He walked into the woods and never returned
They found a leather valise. Nothing was inside

Blind
She wore a pretty dress
Her eyes tell us nothing more:
They were covered in darkness, like fallen black doves
This blindness that keeps us from what is her
So I think of a beauty in long golden hair
There seemed this gentleness
I wanted to touch her
Speak to her in whispers
Tell her I loved her
But I saw her only that one time
A distance as strangers; crippled afoot on fallen ground
What did I say to a pretty dress?
In all these years as blind to her as she once was to me?
I know, but I can't say
A speechless deafness strikes me
I wonder, too, if she hears me, sees me in the passing of lonely dreams