Morning

I wake up, shrug on a cardigan and drink coffee.

Next, I tend to starving peasant boys wandering

around my living room. Their blackened feet

remind me that I need to mop.

Fumes from nearby work trucks travel

through open windows. Oddly, it reminds me of Paris.

It's autumn. A wasted summer of muddled thought.

Grainy photographs and words hover,

waiting for their chance.

My hands make crumb cake instead.

Just a little something ...

I was bored a lot on our camping trip. Yeah, nature is beautiful but after burning through an US Weekly, People and Vanity Fair, this media absorber was pining after the rich campers' flat screens a few spaces down. So, to keep from going insane I grabbed my paper and pen and scribbled this as tree-filtered sun sparkled on my lap.


Campfire secrets,
sticky marshmellows under foot,
tent poles bent on an angry whim.
The trees know.

Clanky pots, sizzling bacon,
fresh coffee in the kettle.
A curmudgeonly camper snickers,
while kids on bicycles pedal hard.

Trespassers change,
weeny roasts long gone,
the sound of crisp voices
replaced by electronics
popping against the black.
The trees know.

Glistening sadness tucked
just behind a blushing meadow.
A chubby squirrel goes covert,
peaking into partially zipped tents.
The birds scatter and screech.
Wildfires rage in distant groves,
valley smog creeps up hillsides
— so close, so thick.

The trees know.

Blue

Sliding into Levi's
was always my safe haven.
Faded, ripped or worn,
they swaddled my soul.

A pair draped over
an easy chair. Peaking
through stacks of an
overstocked cubby.
Scrunched on the floor
on moonlit nights.

Bending over pool tables
sodden in sweat,
those jeans kept me full,
those jeans kept me alive.

Five buttons, I can't
snap up anymore.

Inspired by David

She was 38 and she had black feet.
Layers of grime caked on soles
that had walked a long muddy road.
Motionless, her body in a limbo
world of laundered sheets and
tubes with wisps of oxygen.
He soaked them in warm suds,
plunging his own hands into
her confusion, hoping to heal the ache.