Simple Words, Missing Things (Gone unheard)

Simple words.
They stick in my throat
Tied in my tongue
Sewn in my skin
As fingers dance ballet
Down the curves
Of hips and cheeks,
Half escape, half retreat
Part my lips
In croaks and creaks.

The simple words,
Sometimes, become
The ones we can't speak.

Missing things,
The pieces that we gave away
Linger in thought
The infected cuts
Where we were rent in twain.
The fits and starts
The kicks and sparks,
Belts whining, gears grinding
Out the dirge
Of a high mileage heart.

The missing things,
Maybe, the very
Pieces we know we need.

The simple words,
Missing - the heart's
Mechanization gone unheard.

The Midtown Creep (Whole foods and crepes)

The Midtown creep,
Detroit -
After someone spilled bleach.
All the dapper gentlemen,
That pour from the portal
Down by Wayne State;
A time rift to the eighties.
With all their neon v-necks
And stone washed jeans.
Painting black and white
Lines in the street.
"We'll" take back the city
Whether we mean to or not.
Midtown grows, block by block
Whole Foods and crepes,
College kids in costumes and capes;
This is not the city I love.
We came for the communities,
The renaissance and opportunities.
Well, those cass corridor bonfires
Where we found our continuity -
Made plans and plots in the silence
Between the pops of gun shots
Have become Haute parties for
All the kids on Safari from Royal Oak.
Hey, now all my neighbors
Look just like me - in skinny jeans.
I'm sorry, we were naive.
Young idealists who'd believed
The city had escaped it's past;
The day someone said nigger
To me on Woodward I knew;
Every step we take forward,
We're taking two steps back.

I Said, I Thought (Or something in-between

I was never free,
I said, I thought,
Or something in-between. 
As I watched his dignity
Slither down his brow
And his cheek, his knees,
To lie puddled about his feet.
Outside Sala Thai, smoking,
I saw him stroke her hair;
She was delicate, pretty,
Like a stone nymph carved
Into some pagan cliff -
Gorgeous and "just kind of there".

Here we have a man in love,
Pulled into his nicest pants,
Sears dress shirt clinging
With June sweat to his back.
His eyes pleading, to her,
Or to pride; screaming
And on the verge of tears,
Here we have a man in love -
Facing his greatest fear.

Bonfires, I thought,
Between puffs and breaths;
We light them, I think,
Without thought to fuel
And their eventual death.
So caught up in the flames,
The primordial dance,
We build not homes, but
Tinder ringed by rocks.

Here we have a man undone.
Pitiful in his tears, naked for me
To see. If I was a better man
I'd turn my head, but I'm not -
And neither is she, like the oceans
breach, both simple and shallow
I can see the disgust in her pity -
But also like the oceans,
Unfathomable and deep;
There's something in her hips,
Their tilt and cut I can see,
But like an illiterate with words -
I just can't read.
I said, or I thought,
Or something in-between,
I was never free.

Carriage Lights (Down Dark Alleys)

Transient and temporary
The flicker, it fades
With carriage lights down dark alleys.
Puddles pool in muddy mirrors and
As that cold man is carried away
My face is reflected dirty and grave.

Oh, who does the clatter of cobbles
Sing to, this midnight noon?
The mournful steps of shod hooves
Clicking like the gears of
That grinding wheel of time told?
I have not grown, but been whittled old.

Like those great oak trees, come autumn
Shed their crowns as falling leaves,
My once royal brow feels barren;
Robbed by the teeth of winter
Of youth, the noble vitality and pride
Which separates peasants from kings.

Her name, and her name, spoken on
The drops of rain that sputter my muddy
Reflection brown and black - The bells
And chimes of seconds withering, dying;
The clarion call that what's time has come
Cannot be undone nor brought back.

366/365 (The uneven years)

366.

send flowers?

for the grave

or the girl.

i remember

strange stars

wire, twalls

lost as hell.

and as hot

summer came

before snow

could melt.

they say

given time

every thing

fades away.

well, 366

how long

should i wait.

they say

every thing

is temporary

to get through

a bad day.

that's what

i say

when i know

some one

i love

will soon

slip away.

how long

do i wait

365?

The Virgin Stirs (In apollo's dust)

The virgin stirs
In Apollo's dust
Scattered across the breadth
Of that gloaming stripe
Indigo, russet, copper and gold;
I'm their youth divine
By reckoning of men eternal, old.

Celeste, strung out
Among the eaves
Her hand soft through willow and oak
Brittle gold green leaves
Plucked by ghostly fickle fingers;
Like little ships sinking
Across the deepening horizon.

Mirror still waters
Vanity of stars
Collect the wrecks of little oak ships
Where they drift
In my fire's promethean flicker-
The prophecy of tea
Says she's not looking down on me.

Apollo's dark descent
Beneath earthen crest
Speaks of bodies drifting apart;
Every warm sun
Someone else's cold silver star -
Immortal constellations
Move in patterns as mortal hearts.

The virgin stirs
In Apollo's dust
How distant they now seem to be
Across the seraph's sea
Parted by departed day and memorial night,
Yet still they unite
If only by glimpse of familiar, distant light.

It's The Dying (Ignominious ends)

It's not what's dead.

It's the dying

That holds the dread.

The bonfire

Flickering shadow's,

Ghosts of ferocity -

What value

Does anything posses

When what is precious

Meets such an

Ignominious end.