You Did Not Wait For Me (The willow with the lily)

I did not wait for you
By the lilies,
By the weeds
By the bend and
The willow tree
Where switches
Swim in shallows,
Lance spring pools
Full of tadpoles -
Where the air
Is saccharine sweet.

I did not wait for you
As you did
Not wait for me.
When the pond was
First rimmed with rime
As winter was born
In the carpet of icy leaves.

An' by the bend
Of this listless bridge
Upon now which windows
Perch so I might see,
I ran my thumb
To clear wet flakes from
The rivers which run beneath.

Yet with the sun
Summer comes
As the earth spins in place.
The seasons change,
And while crowns remain
In their lofty place
And lilies ring old ponds -
The evening wind still whispers
When the dusk sun blisters
The horizon with it's red adieu'
You did not wait for me.

And so I did not wait for you.

Copper ( Salt and thread)

I dream
Of little things
The copper of your cheek,
The light hung and rippling
Through the boughs of trees.
The not quite dimples -
Creases, at the edge of lips
When you shrug, eyes knotted
And face all bunched up,
Or you laugh
Or you sing.

Strange cities
With white walls,
The ruins of ampatheatres
The veins of marble halls.
Your hand sliding slowly
As you walk by -
Your feet printing crypt dust,
Oiling ancient fresco and relief
With that elemental palm.
You are copper,
You are salt.

I dream
Of undone things
The threads once woven
On some quick fragile loom,
A tapestry which hangs high
On the cold stone of a room
Crimson and copper-
Spilled blood and dull coin,
The rancorous echo empty halls
The unraveling of fifes,
You single fray,
You single thread.

Once pulled leaves lands sundered
And me to dream of little undone things,
My subconscious rooted firmly
In the catacombs of the long and dead.

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?