port clinton.

you call me
from the insides of port clinton
locked down
between walls
barred steel
wired webs
voice quivered
they do this to break you
low
remind you of where your two feet stand
and the perimeter they will solely walk
their days to
but these are not
their days
give them nothing
they will never carry you circular motion
one foot in-front of
the next
time goes by
in four year intervals
last time I saw you
me
driving cross country
thru cleveland
don’t go back there
when they let you out
don’t go back there
people die in the homes they grew up in
we ‘grew up’
but growing old is not the same
you and me
we'll never die
there
in those homes
i woulnt let us dissolve
like that
burnt ash
we spent our days
groom creek
cabin style
wood burning stove
at war with freezing air
outside
heading north on montezuma
towards sundance place
drink our fill of beefeaters and
tonic
that was life
in a moment
you don’t know how to tell me
on this collection call
what worlds your two feet walked
we sit on telephone wires
a man echoing in
silhouettes of time
to let me know
where exactly you are
i don’t trust your story
but i trust you

break the verb.

i am making moves that have turned my bones into years
with all this solidity ive taken weight strong enough to pull a river down
it wasnt how it was the night before the rain
it came down steady and strong
and that was after the clouds
we part our ways
down towards the middles of our life lines
and say goodbye
because its better then not saying you were right
and id agree
but only if you stay with me
because staying never brought you closer to your thoughts
of love and life and ties that unbind before your eyes
it was the way she said it that wrote itself down on paper
inked and remembered
because life is simple and smart and pure
and you had to come back
with all your hollow tears pretending
all to bend the water
break the verb
to become the noun that ive held up against
the place of a person
but you were the thing
and you woulnt remember this way of knowing by morning
extraction has become a method for means

"hello girl"

it didnt help to stop the commentary
the second guess of a good hand
handed down in generational habit
the stomach exceeds tension
a breath drops to a shallow gaze
and you are pivotal in these lines
lined up against the odds of fated outcome
the coffee didnt hold to the heat
the morning effected the light
and then you were going
i know all about it
straighten out the right and wrong
but not right now
it must have been the color of the day
quick hold to moments intertwined in lifes sentence
does the beginning always know the end
illusions ive become
hard pressed for ideas that keep me yearning
wake up to a man you do not know
and ask again what you have found here
in the silence of lips and lust and lacked love
become someone better
walk central down to where the park breaks
past a home you never found comfort in
after lies you told yourself at night
"hello girl"
did you remember in the city of fog that it is june
one year older then the last time you thought about it

pull.

the stronger downward pull
towards inevitable mistake
a breath lengthens
heady in the lungs
couldn’t see through thickness here
if only the water would break the damn
a storm gravitate south
the body conceal the tear
but the skin sweats beneath the sun
a river pulls downward
love empties the heart
a breath becomes betrayal
hard to grasp in the chest
nights dream of something other then lived
i listen to my own advice
forget to calm and come to it
like a child weans from a mother
i wean from the desert
a cold night
im not in my body today
im nowhere near it
brushed up against matter
revenge is the seeker
hungrily mistaken
distraught in memory
city walls to bind believers
believe me
the heart knows reason reason knows nothing of
he said
shutter your eyes
the light bleeds through onto paper
onto pen
but i will not write for you
for the world
or myself most of all