Past-Date

Wallpaper curling up
Sounds starting spilling out
Door's flung open
Cold-burnt face still hoping

Turn the
Page on another shot
Chest may be thawing out
Door's half-open
But the chapter's closing

          Look and see my space
          Still half-full
          But I'm sitting on the shelf
          Half-
               turn to view my tag
          Plain to read
          Expired two Julys ago

Tongue-tied with shoes unlaced
I'll try to keep my faith
Bottled and frozen
Behind windows fogging

One cup cheap hot coffee
Bones melt, pour out of me
Stuck, still hoping
Frostbit and laid open

          Sit and take up space
          Emptied out
          Full of questions and thin air
          Look
               down to read my tag
          Peeled off
          Expired two Julys ago.

Ghosts, Beasts and Bones

     Commuting with the spectres
creeping out of exhaust pipes
     Tracing lines
     and framing sighs
     as sun creeps slow
        past the horizon

Cells in veins.

Impulses on pathways.

Nervous?

A heart pumps inside a creature
     and thanks its enablers silently.
Vocally demanding
          continued traffic

     Constructing a cadence
with keystrokes and clock-ins.
     Trading ticks on second hands
     for pennies and plans
    as sun walks frustrated
       back toward horizon

Ossify

Framework, spaces, marrow.

Tired?

The form supports itself--its own weight
     and thanks the builders inwardly
Outwardly grinding
                     the stuff of bone.

Somnambulist

Never enough sleep
But I've got sleep in my eyes
     All the time
And I'm walking; left-right-left
          turned on my head
          and stepping blind

And I get swallowed by the night
          sometimes,
when "then" and "now" start blurring lines
and daylight looks the same as
                           star-flecked skies--
          when I forget what day it is
          and daydreams swim in wine.

I know I'll clean my plate,
     but when it's time to push in chairs?
...?

I remember age 16
     like it was yesterday
--A yesterday from a decade ago--
                     I'm growing old

But I'm the same way, now
     cold hands
     quaking knees
On shaky ground
     each night
with less to lose
more to gain
whispering "please"
     on frosted breath to no one.

Then again, some nights...

Don't feel so alone at all.
     --Though I get swallowed
                      by the night--
     --Though I got sleep in
                      my eyes--
     --All the time--
    --Sometimes--
A decade's like one minute

So Lewis, Marion,
     Dow and Highland,
Streets like lines
          in chapters of old books
(Delphi, Red Fox, North Heights,
              Burkitt, Brooks)
Look just like sweating summers,
             shivering winters,
Falls and Springs
           piling up between the pages
         Don't like the view from on the shelf.