Special Place

When you’re not here
The bed grows and I grow smaller,
My thoughts curled up and around
Those eyes, that face
The special place you take me.

Across The Room, Through The Window

The next room’s all whispers and laughter
And here I am running laps inside my skull,
Making up all the adventures we’d have
Inside my tiny room if only you were here.
If only you were here…
If only I could reach behind your head
And hold you tight against me,
Your warm breath moving gently against my chest,
Across the room, through the window
And out into the starry night.

Feeling

You’re off again
On another of your wanders
And I’m back in my room
Remembering last night and smiling.
As the Spanish sun gets a perfect view
Of your lips against a glass of sangria
My heart races and my mind traces
The outlines of the beauty
You’ve introduced into my life.
When I’m not with you I’m waiting.
If I can’t see you with eyes open
I’ll do so with eyes closed.
Too far to touch
You’re still all that I can feel.

Too Far Away For Two

Too far away
For two (that’s me and you)
to spend a few
and do the things we like to do.
I dream of you, of being in you
Of not wanting to stop
While you’re on top
Waiting for the moon to drop
Below the bed we share.

To Know

To know the same breathe
That raises grass and opens flowers
Animates your breast tonight
Is more than enough for me.
To know the light
That rests on the backs of horses
Warms your skin and includes you in my vision
Is more than enough for me.
To know nothing more
Than wanting to know more about you
Is all that I care to experience
Is more than enough for me.

More Woman

She spends her time
Consumed in careful upkeep,
Fixing contacts and applying make up,
Working so hard to become
The woman that she wants to be
When with each and every gesture
She’s more woman than I’ve ever seen.

Slightly Parted Lips

Inches from me and just above the stars
Your short hair falls over your eyes
So for that moment you can’t see me looking up
And trying to appreciate every breath
That makes its way through your
Slightly parted lips.

Comets Tail

The way you lit the night
With your wide eyes and your bright smile
Made my small room shine
And now dreams I conceived
With hands on your hips
Follow you wherever you go,
A trail of desires, a comets tail.

Time For

Time for bed, time for flipping switches
And closing eye-lids, for lying down and looking up.
Tonight I’ve spread my feelings out across the starlight,
I press my lips to a crack in the window and say these words,
Come back to me and let us share ourselves again,
Let us trade everything we have, glances and all,
For a few more moments together.
I’ve asked the wind to help these whispers
Cross the sea and reach you in your dreams.

California Girl

It’s so cold out here
Where the rain is born
And the clouds are formed
From the blue moods of the Atlantic,
But even on this island
Of dark green trees
There’s a little bit of sunshine
Smuggled from the west
And hiding in the breast
Of a California girl
Six thousand miles from home
But right at home with me.

That Much Tighter

She’s all romance and I’m all scary movies
And there’s popcorn and wine and love
And everything above and I’m smiling like
I’ve forgotten how to frown
Because she still jumps when the baddies come
And I get to hold her that much tighter.

Smiles

Her hair’s so short
And I’ve so much to say,
So much to explain, so much to appreciate
As the lights flash and the people laugh
And my eyes are focused
On nothing but the center
Of the fast closing yet ever expanding universe
That’s no larger than our smiles.

Coke Bottle

I was looking at the coke bottle
I drank out of the day I had
To tell her I no longer cared.
There was a bit left,
All flat and without sweetness
And I felt I probably should
Toss it out too.

Wanting To Share

So drunk and so so
So many pretty people
Talking over one another
Trying to be heard
Not knowing what to say
Just knowing they’d like to
Reach out and grasp the nearest stranger
And tell them everything,
Every thought they had the previous night
And the night before that,
All having nothing and wanting to share.

Rising Steps

When she walks down the road
The streetlights bend their arches
To catch a longer glimpse
And just knowing she’s on her way
Gives the night its radiance
As I sit on my bed waiting
For the sound of rising steps.

Soon

Far down in places we seldom speak of
Where the air is moist and the ground is soft,
Where thoughts linger about lonelier moments
And the quiet pain of reflection,
I use memories of better times, of kinder people,
Of days and nights spent laughing with friends
To keep the spirit moving, the lid from closing,
To help relax the grip dark times have on my heart.

College Green

It happened on College Green
surrounded by people but very alone
I went to ask what I already knew
and I got my answer
and it hurt just like I knew it would
but in the end it felt good
to wipe the slate clean
of someone mean
and set sights anew on the future.

Warmer Underneath

In the city of rain
the sun brings out the beautiful
or rather they uncover themselves,
shedding their scarves and their woolen coats
to reveal that which is warmer underneath.

Before I've Buttoned My Shirt

In the morning
I behold wondrous things
and I've yet to button my shirt
and the day lies before me
like a glittering city
and the first face I see
is likely to be as beautiful
as any I've ever seen
because I'm alive and to be alive
is the greatest of gifts
and all I'll ever ask for.

Plumbing Depths

Certain thoughts and feelings
Darken the night and thicken the clouds.
In these long hours
I plumb the depths of feelings I’d rather not have,
I try to stare whatever it is I can’t speak in the face
In the hopes that doing so will make it go away.
Of course it won’t, of course my jealousies
And my anger and my petty fictional vengeances
Play out before a mind that even if I open
Is doomed to be so human,
Is doomed to be nothing less and nothing more
Than exactly who I am,
A boy with jealousies and anger
And petty fictional vengeances
Racing through his mind.

Some Nights

Some nights I hold myself and wonder
If somewhere across the fields and the cities and sea
There’s another who feels herself and wonders
If somewhere across the hills and rivers
There’s another who wonders and holds and feels.

No Great Surprise

Tonight I’ll creep as quietly as a cat burglar
Up to your back door,
I’ll pick the lock and let myself in
And though you know it’s a sin
It’s no great surprise when you roll back your eyes
And wallow in painful pleasure.

Gifts To Share

The clouds part to give us the moon
But we’ve our own smaller, softer gifts
To share with ourselves exclusively.
The night is in motion and so are we
And as the stars make their way across the heavens
I, no longer a lonely traveler,
Move gently down the nape of your neck
And undo everything in the way of our dreams.

Dame Street

What would you like to do right now
She asked, eyes wide and hopeful
For I know not what,
How can we take advantage of a night
So full of rain and strangers?
So many unspeakable things passed
Through my mind but not through my lips
And all I could manage was one dumb smile
To meet another and more words
To weave into a smokescreen
As we stood by the taxi rank
And Dame Streets evening roar.

Dare I, MacNeice?

Dare I read on, MacNeice?
Dare I speak my piece
When the puzzle you’ve created
Leaves me sated
Yet hungry for more
And rocked to the core,
Knowing more but less then I knew before,
Do I mention the one who gave me this
This newfound bliss
This perfect picture of the words I miss?
Oh gee, oh my, what can I do
Except say “HA”, I’m still younger than you!

Answers

To be young
Is to be full of wonder,
A shining ignoramus.
I’d rather be lost than found
Because at least it’d feel more honest.
In constant flux.
Growth is awkward. Growth is war.
Death is peace. Death is destination.
Death is closed and horizontal
So let me fall for as long as I can
As fast as I can.
Let me make what I can from
All these blurring colors,
To arrange and rearrange then mess it up again
And do it with my friends, to laugh along the way
And provide no answers
Nor be provided with them.

Across Tables

I’ve been spending a lot of time with my peers
Eating and drinking and discussing the future.
I’ve sat across tables and stared into pristine eyes
And all I wanted to do was to reach across the room and feel
The beat of a blank slate heart
To press closed youthful lips and say hush…
It’s gonna be okay and I haven’t a worry in the world
Because if we realized by half how beautiful
These worries and these fears make us
As we’re driving in our cars beneath the city light,
As we wake up with headaches not knowing where we are
Or where we’re going,
As we huddle together every night and whisper,
We’d know that this is what they meant by living.

Fire Into Flesh

In most of us the sex beast lies dormant,
Hibernating our life away,
Made to live in man made caves
As its deep breath spreads the germ of hysteria
To the darkest of our shadows.
Though dangerous,
I desire nothing more than to grab the beast
By the scruff of its collar
And set it purring like a jungle cat in heat,
To caress the scales of the dragon
That breathes fire into the flesh
We all hide from the sun.

Vapor

Airplanes are holy
If for no other reason
Than they remind me
The sky is always blues,
The deepest of blues,
Blindingly blue,
And the clouds
Like all our other maladies
Are as vapor in the face
Of the infinite sky.

We Are Green

We’re too much for one room tonight,
Too much for these walls.
You unbraid your hair
And let it fall with the sun,
I hang my coat on the moon.
As you undress beneath the starry sky
My breath drives trees to whisper
And I can’t help but think
That my green blood, my wintry heartbeat
Are craved by your pink blossom.

Wind Up Doll

I only show lost souls
The things I’ve found
And even they need look no further
Than my heartbeat,
No further than the mirror amidst my eyes
To see their very own face,
Their very own beauty,
The unique way in which
They wind me up each morning.

Breath By Breath

Reality is enough to drive one mad,
nevermind our vivid imagination,
nevermind the stars, the sea,
the objects of our poetry,
the vermin, the abject,
the sewage of psychology.
We're all tuned in
to our own particular frequency,
confident we can make sense
of all this static,
that our picture is clear,
But it's so easy to become unmoored,
to see instead of day and night
infinite changes in the light,
to measure life not by death
but breath by breath by breath.

As Long As It's With You

"I don't mind being afraid with you"
-Belle

I don't mind being afraid with you.
I don't mind growing old
all grey and wrinkled and experienced
so long as it's with you.
I don't mind tip-toeing through life
as everything about us withers
and the day grows into night
as long as our bed is ours.
I don't mind watching us lose everything
except for a hand to hold
as long as it is yours.
I don't mind being surrounded
by the deepest of mists
as long as it's with you.

Very Much

Very much in love,
I'm very much in love
with a girl whose little shoes
give the ground something to dream about
and when the rain falls
and finds itself resting
so gently in her hair
she can't do anything but laugh.
Very much in love,
I'm very much in love
and when I look her
I see her and only her
even when she's not there
because I'm always looking.

Some Evenings We

Some evenings we,
the smallest of creatures,
want nothing more than to squeeze in tighter,
to make ourselves smaller,
to wrap arms and fold ourselves over one another,
to tuck ourselves into all our secret places
and hold on for dear life.
At that moment all we are
are vital signs performing primary functions,
we're breath and sweat and blood and semen,
a mess of flesh,
every action a dedication
to the one we share ourself with.