swimming against the current

oh those nights
of unspoken promises and small disappointments and secret, unshed tears

i was burrowing for a while, back into that hole for foxes
but then your voice came from the earth itself

and i remember now, your name is Shepherd.

i'm just trying to be a human being

The Glass House, 15 April 2008



Everyone I see I think I've known before
From the opera house to the grocery store
My love for them I cannot ignore
Like a human voice in a quiet morgue

But I don't want to wear no dead man's suit
I don't want to wait until the moon turns blue
I don't want to dream if it won't come true--
If there's something in me, well, I guess it's in you

[Photo thanks to PennLive.com]

to open like a hinge, like a wing

...to listen to the enormous waterfalls of the sun

wake up, wake up, leave cotton dresses and chickens to the world of dreams
pull on stockings, slip blistered feet into stiletto boots, button pencil skirt

you are Serbia, delegate to UNIFEM, urban-savvy
there are no trees, no holy week, and you are inside, eternally
passing resolutions on violence of a seemingly imaginary nature,
inconceivable in the conference rooms of a 45-story hotel

but pay attention young one, to the little things
pho with new friends, snowflakes in april,
paintings at the MOMA which take your breath away

this is where honest gratitude must be larger than dreams
when night comes, you may meet them again

n.y.c. musings

underground tunnels grind and grate in subway chutes too narrow
can you imagine being stuck here?
deep breaths now, honey

in a world full of people far more important than you or me
it is a little hard to listen (am i going deaf?)
(but then who is important, anyway? a farmer grows our food,
because of first grade teachers, we can read)

to participate in your death, so that i may also participate in your life
even in your, the word is foreign in my mouth, resurrection

oh, but these things are frightening and far!

can one word move you?

It snowed a little bit here today.

in central park, I'll find you
we'll walk through empty subway stations
and emerge in northern forests of green

walk & walk & walk
pick an aspect or a pine, and carve our names in the wood
if you'll follow me, i'll follow you
dirty streets, shining city, sunset west

be not afraid.