Coagulating Blood

My nose, it just bled numbers--
Bled for years on years unnumbered
'Til I lost my youthful hunger
For anything but numbers
And coagulating blood

But with figures cold and clotting
And with innards now unknotting
I clear the corridors of blotting
And begin to finally breathe

Know pens belong on pages
In your pockets, in your hands
Not in lives, or heads or veins
Most certainly not in plans.

Better

The sun is awfully mean these days
     and the time for talk is past--
Fades aging, yellowed memories
     reminds nothing ever lasts

I told you once, You did not heed.
Perhaps I spoke too loud.
But I'll speak from the best side of me
If you'll cool your temper down

Who knows where we'll be in 5 years?
I can't have it be here
Can't pierce the brine and murkiness
But today, it's warm and clear.

So let's wreck our heads
     with Red Hook Lager,
Pedal down the road...
'Cause it's all that lies in front of us
that we can ever know

The clouds are overhead, my friend
     but, bleak as this day seems,
We will not came undone because
     we are made with stronger seams

If you tell me once, I'll try and heed
The very best I can
To what tops your list of memories
As we go hand-in-hand

You won't dwell upon next year
If I don't hole up in pride
That starts to seem so easy when
We think back on that time...

When we wrecked our bikes
     on Gould and Brundage,
Laughing, walked back home...
And gingerly cleaned bleeding knees
then watched movies alone

And everything's okay
     I prefer that, anyway
Everything's okay.
     And we're better off that way
It's better than okay

Better than okay.

Autumn None Too Soon

You're not the only one
Who wakes up feeling stuck
and hoping seasons fall asleep
to dream you up some better luck

When you and sidewalks talk
It's not an argument
They like to conjure up old wraiths
from when you stood in better stead.

So what's left now but one more Fall?
     And after that, it's more of the same again
Seasons come and go, that's how
the mountains get so tall

Too easy just to chock it up
           to thinning blood
and fast failing memory
Hard to say
     that each year's still weighing the same

We'll paint the town
          with a broad brush
          in brightest hues
But that won't change a thing.

Sepia Tone Headaches

Summer never ends, these days
And days drag on until
     You spend all night just wondering
When Fall will cool off all
     this lovely strain
     and sweet distress--
Will just bed down in burnt sienna
     and sleep off sepia tone headaches
so you can sleep all through next Summer,
     store your dreams in sweet October
--keep them fresh while the rest decays.

Flip the card and snowy streets
can keep you company through winter--
Keep you smiling through Hot Summer--
     because we don't have Spring no more--
Until it's time to wake at year's bedormance
                                           once again.

All the seasons start to look eerily alike
     after so long at one latitude,
But at least there's still one as speaks
     with seeming silence.

Framings

As the days drag out you're
     drawing lines and
Framing arguments
     (and hanging
     good ones on your walls)
For spending every day inside
You're seated safe beside yourself
     and viewing
Photos on the shelf
--they're framed so nice--
Remind yourself:
     the blame is yours
For shelving your connections
But they're justified defenses
     So why frame yourself?

Other folks can do that, fine.