Fleeting Things and More Poems

Arachnid's Touch

Unlike the silk of a fine-spun web,
they do not touch at any point.
Instead, they run parallel threads
and orbit  each other in patterns of mistrust.


Like an entrapped fly, gently caught
he cradled that lie and held it still with quiet force.
A spider's delicate, deadly bite
drained their love brittle and dry
until it cracked from unspoken cruelty.


She tasted him like barnyard dust
that settled behind her teeth.
His name became a profanity on her lips,
her losses, a lifetime's work.


The Museum

I am a museum.
My body, artifacts artfully arranged by gravity.
My mind, a montage of catalogued memories.


Behind refracted light,
glass-enclosed, free from tarnish and dust
lives static the exhibits I visit.


The one perfect autumn afternoon at the beach, 
when the curvilinear lines of the sloping sidewalk
melded with motion, smooth and infinite.


Long shadows, straight sharp spokes of shade from the railing
intersected my walk as your fingers intertwined my own, 
creating harmonious, aesthetic interruption.


The sea, persistent as a lover, wore away the sand
as you wore down my defenses and I said yes.
Love would always smell like salt.


Miracle of Sorts


The other day she cried,
an impossibility of belief--believed.
Seen with my eyes, salty water seeped from jagged cracks of rock.
A miracle of sorts, on par with sea parting and water to wine.
I made cold, unfeeling granite weep
my magic--unknown to mere mortals.
God-like,
I should hold pride that I have a gift for rarities such as this.
But the sobbing stone scares me,
I want to undo my miracle and cannot.
I thought I would feel differently when done,
but now my pleasure is all pain, 
my innocence burned by guilt.
Her stoic heart so broken, can never be rebuilt.


Fleeting Things


Angry, foolish thoughts go home.
I won't accept, nor welcome you.
To fight the forces surrounding my song
composed notes of embarrassed pink and blushing reds,
I sing green and blue instead.


I understand what has been said,
the lies are yours, not mine.
You cut me with your words, 
bludgeoned my bones with belief,
though blackened, still I sing.


My anger like fire grows,
consuming what I felt for you, 
intent on eating me too.
But I transcend this conflagration
and sing away those fleeting thoughts.


The Boats


Low, gray skies
pressure the darkened lake,
but abandon it to the fog
which grows legs 
and creeps about in wild motion.


Boats sleep upon the shore,
like summer ghosts, chilled and waiting--
hibernating against winter's imminent descent.


Like the boats, we rest apart,
never touching any of the other.
Holding ourselves flat against the earth, the tangible
we hope to be swallowed, welcomed
beneath the heavy comfort of dirt and rocks.


Sad and forlorn, we linger
pathetically proud 
in our disdain and dependence.
We wait,
we rot,
and the fog dances endlessly on.