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Haiku
4.06.2003 9:47 PM \| Link	Win the lottery Or target for pidgeon shit Chances are the same Labels: poetry
Haiku
9:46 PM \| Link	Town Lake turtles swim Looks kind of like Disneyland Animatronic? Labels: poetry
Haiku
3.09.2003 9:47 PM \| Link	Sunday afternoon, Soy sauce and laundry drying Drifts from the hotel Labels: poetry
Haiku
4.20.2002 9:48 PM \| Link	On 183, Buffet Palace fills the air With soy aroma Labels: poetry
Me and Your Twin
4.12.2002 8:22 PM \| Link	This was a "courtship song" for Helen, combining an idea I had about twins living different lives along with the phrase "Never been to Tucson", which for some reason I thought was cool (in fact, for my only public guitar/singing performance with Hue, we called ourselves "Never Been to Tucson"). The twins idea flowed so well in the lyric that I think this is one of the best songs I've written. Verse Some say that everyone has a twin somewhere Living another life And if that's true, she might see things differently Wrong could just be right Walking the streets of a faraway town Where the sun takes hours to go down On a warm Arizona night Chorus I've never been to Tucson But I hear it's a real nice place I wish I were there To meet your twin face to face Verse She'd have the same smile that I keep seeing Whenever my thoughts run free She'd have the same lips that kissed me once That seemed to care for me Maybe she wouldn't be afraid Of memories that haven't yet been made In Arizona she could just be Chorus I've never been to Tucson But I think I could make the drive And me and your twin Might see things eye to eye Bridge She wouldn't think about the future I wouldn't think about the past Dreams wouldn't fade in Arizona Time wouldn't run away so fast Chorus I've never been to Tucson But I hear it's a real good time If I were there Me and your twin would shine I've never been to Tucson But I hope to go sometime If I were there Maybe your twin would be mine Labels: poetry
Haiku
4.04.2002 6:02 PM \| Link	I love "golden time" Sideways sunlight on my face Nourishing my walk Labels: poetry
Magdalene
3.12.2002 8:23 PM \| Link	I wrote this song "in my head" (without my guitar) on an airplane soon after my divorce. I was seriously considering the humanity of God and at the same time thinking about the "someone" I would one day meet. You can read the lyrics as both spiritual and romantic, which reflects how spirituality and romantic love are essentially the same thing in my mind. Someone who heard me sing this was convinced that in a past life I was part of the Knights Templar, who revered the biblical Mary Magdalene. Chorus Someday I'll love you, my Magdalene And help you believe in yourself You'll see life in me Love will flow into us As rivers to the sea Come quickly, Magdalene Verse The weight of the world and the masses Press upon my soul In dreams you appear to me Anointing me with gold We heal each other with our touch Both equal and both whole I wake to bright new sunlight Still shining from our glow Chorus Verse You have doubts about your loveliness I know them all too well I will hold you until you believe it Release you from your hell I will always speak the truth to you As clear as from a bell That you and I are holy We never ever fell Chorus Bridge I don't know what you look like You are beautiful I don't know what you do to me You love me You speak to me and fill me with your words The most accepting sound I've ever heard Labels: poetry
Green Shirt
2.12.2002 8:24 PM \| Link	Liza was fond of wearing my clothes, and one morning put on an old green T-shirt of mine. She wore it all day around campus and slept in it that night, so I couldn't help thinking about that lucky shirt. I wrote this as kind of a joke, but all of my Tulsa friends would absolutely demand this song when we got together for song circles. Verse I want to hold you like a green shirt Wrap myself around your arms I want to rest upon your shoulders And keep your body warm I want to hold you Like a green shirt Verse I want to hold you in the sunlight I want to hold you in the dark Fill my pocket with your secrets I'll keep them close to your heart I want to hold you Like a green shirt Bridge Oh, to know that you are breathing Oh, to hear your voice so near Oh, to tremble in your laughter Oh, to soak up all your tears Verse I want to hold you while you're sleeping And in the morning feel your touch Though I'm worn, I'll say I love you And try to make you see how much I want to hold you Like a green shirt Labels: poetry
Martha Stewart
1.12.2002 8:25 PM \| Link	I've always had a little addiction to Martha Stewart. One morning after watching her show, I wrote this spoof song (which is in waltz time and required to be sung with a country drawl) to include most of the things I just saw Martha do. She really did call her pie a "mile-high meringue"! Chorus Oh, I want a woman just like Martha Stewart To wrap up my heart in wire and twine And can up my love to stay fresh all winter And bring some good things to this life of mine Verse She'll bake me a mile-high meringue And wreaths on the walls will hang Everything has a place In burlap and antique lace Chorus Oh, I want a woman just like Martha Stewart Someone to make the garden tools shine And cook me a dinner on parchment paper And sew up the holes in this life of mine Verse She'll keep all the photo albums full And stir up some taffy to pull She measures her fabric twice And makes everything so nice Chorus Oh, I want a woman just like Martha Stewart To wrap up my heart in wire and twine And can up my love to stay fresh all winter And bring some good things to this life of mine Labels: poetry
Haiku
11.06.2001 1:34 PM \| Link	Three dollars, six songs Thirty minutes of sweating Lunch-time DDR Labels: poetry
Haiku
8.25.2001 12:44 PM \| Link	Dragonflies humping In mid-air in the morning I wonder who steers? Labels: poetry
Haiku
7.14.2001 6:58 AM \| Link	Perching pidgeons coo Seventy-five degree morn I need some coffee Labels: poetry
Haiku
4.22.2001 8:50 PM \| Link	Long evenings of youth Frisbee flying overhead In California Labels: poetry
Truth
3.26.2001 12:45 PM \| Link	I danced tonight Jumped around to the same song That played in my empty post-divorce house While you shimmied and shook my soul to tears Your eyes catching the candlelight And reflecting it back like pulsars Tonight I lit a candle But I could only close my eyes And dance with arms outstretched Listening to you sing the lyrics off-key And feel your ghostly waist in my fingers My prying eyes finally found your face Snooping around like a bumbling spy Until I discovered your image And at last I had proof you were real Nothing in your expression Contradicted my exaggerated memories I thought I had rewritten you But now I remember It was all true Labels: poetry
Haiku
3.21.2001 9:51 PM \| Link	Watching the sunset Resting after a long walk Drinking Asahi Labels: poetry
Haiku
3.10.2001 9:50 PM \| Link	Best way to feel young Watching a girl's behind walk Up apartment stairs Labels: poetry
Haiku
2.27.2001 9:52 PM \| Link	How improbable More snot in the kleenex than Would fit in my head Labels: poetry
Haiku
1.31.2001 9:52 PM \| Link	Poor Charlie Parker This year I'll outlive the best Thirty-four years old Labels: poetry
Haiku
12.31.2000 9:53 PM \| Link	It's 2001 Wake to greet the Obelisk Tomorrow morning Labels: poetry
Haiku
12.06.2000 9:54 PM \| Link	Talking to myself Pretend the dog understands Stanze knows the truth Labels: poetry
Haiku
11.24.2000 9:54 PM \| Link	Five bottles of wine Two more bottles of champagne Happy Thanksgiving Labels: poetry
Haiku
11.04.2000 9:55 PM \| Link	Waiting at bus stop Higher and higher it goes Kyoto red skirt Labels: poetry
Haiku
10.12.2000 9:55 PM \| Link	Whiff of strong perfume Smells like ripening mango Get away from me Labels: poetry
Haiku
10.11.2000 9:56 PM \| Link	Pink sweater reading Elbow touches my table Plato's Dialogues Labels: poetry
Haiku
10.09.2000 9:57 PM \| Link	Chilly air returns Harbinger of wintertime Steam on the dog shit Labels: poetry
Plate Tectonics
5.01.2000 12:45 PM \| Link	When I first moved to Austin, I attended a great poetry workshop at UT. Here are some of the poems I worked on there - I think these are some of my best because they have been edited many times. For now I have decided to not decide. I trace the distance between us on newspaper weathermaps. We are two inches apart. I bundle myself in warm-from-dryer blankets, thinking of high school science, picturing continents billions of years ago refusing to remain stationary, drifting and colliding until north touched west touched south touched east as a poorly folded roadmap. My reluctant roots could be roused by grinding plates, earthquakes, pumping lava, steam rising from the ocean. I listen to wind and crickets, waiting for tremors. Labels: poetry
Trash
12:44 PM \| Link	In the trash paper cup spills cold coffee on yesterday's news covering lottery tickets ripped in disgust their corners red with ketchup from half-eaten fries dripping grease on ATM receipts, their backs containing To Do lists with 3 of 10 items scratched out. Bits of ice cream cone sprinkle a tissue used to wipe baby's mouth, next to cigarette cellophane crumpled under candy bar wrappers sticking on a long distance bill for 98 dollars, tossed with lavender love letters and torn matchbook covers. Labels: poetry
Imposter
12:43 PM \| Link	I spent time with her because she let me be an imposter. She drank Cuba Libres and offered me pot and seemed to dress a little more like a witch when we met for sushi. On Thursday night we would play pool and lose quarters in the trivia game at the bar, before pouring our words on the table, ready to be sifted by eager hands. It felt like the kind of nakedness that can only be comfortable in front of a stranger, since she only knew what I looked like in the mirror, when I had put on ripped jeans and a flannel. Later at the late showing of a dubbed film she would pull handfuls of candy from her small purse. We ate Rolos, talking through the whole movie. She liked my words - They made sense with hers. On Valentine's Day we read together for the usual crowd, finishing each others sentences and thoughts. Someone told me we were having sex but I never saw underneath those purple dresses. Labels: poetry
Diz is Dead
12:42 PM \| Link	As the cab pulled away from the curb, the driver reached down to pick up a silver trumpet with his right hand, maneuvering through the wet San Francisco streets full of traffic with his left. It was then I noticed the music on the radio, slightly louder than the garbled voice of the dispatch, the way it seemed to affect this man. The mouthpiece to his lips, answering solos of the past with present breath, he detached from the meter, the steering wheel, the brake, the turn signal, leaving those things to operate themselves, taking time to converse and mourn. When I arrived at the hotel, the same jazz station was playing in the bar, accompanied only by ice clinking in raised glasses of scotch, twice as empty. Labels: poetry
All Souls Day
12:41 PM \| Link	Fallen leaves, their delicate ghosts winding away on the wind, danced down to the sidewalk. Shades of brilliant loss colored the lifeless ground, trod under foot like bones. On All Souls Day, the congregation wrote names on tent cards, silently shuffling to the altar. They built a tiny cemetery for the rarely remembered, covering the empty parament with pencil-scribbled grave stones. Later they talked over lunch as their efforts were raked into a plastic bag. At the funeral, my aunt patted my grandfather's suited chest, never hearing the hollow thump. Someone had put his glasses over his eyelids like spray-painting flat green on fallen leaves. Labels: poetry
Lost poetry
4.01.2000 12:39 PM \| Link	I recently found a notebook with some poems that I don't even remember writing! Here are a couple short interesting ones. What do you learn When you sit and watch her Wearing your thick robe Complete with coffee stains When she lights a cigarette And blows a hole Through the smoke? What do you say? When do you mean when you say That her eye catches light (Her crooked eye To match her sideways smile)? What will happen When the CD changer rotates And spoils the mood? Who will care? Labels: poetry
Untitled
12:38 PM \| Link	The sage that tells me To wait for love Sleeps in the hammock of her eyelash Resting without a care Without a responsibility But to bitch at my longing Labels: poetry
Early 1999 poetry
3.01.2000 12:37 PM \| Link	From March to June 1999, I wrote a huge mess of poems. Here are three involving women - some real, some imagined. Talk to me again and make yourself whole Already you are dismembering in your silence Your eyes are disconnected from your brow I thought they looked better on someone else When your hair flew away It landed on someone in a magazine I haven't found your mouth yet If you would speak, words would assemble What my heart deconstructs Only you can Leave a blind woman, a bald actress, a quiet girl And take back what is yours Labels: poetry
Honestly
12:36 PM \| Link	I want a schizophrenic girlfriend Who takes her cat on the subway Who wears only black, gray, and red clothes And runs after taxis in the rain Drenching her hair She doesn't know how to do taxes But quotes lines from The Simpsons all day Making a mess eating Turkish food Teasing with unspoken thought Always between jobs She knows what she likes, but not why Disillusioned, disinterested, sullen, afraid Disappearing behind a glass of bourbon She rolls over and sleeps until 11:00 Never understanding me Labels: poetry
Quebec
12:35 PM \| Link	Too dark for shadows Yet the moonlight lit the chateau So we stood in its path Shivering in our dinner-best Minds wine-clouded The breeze was chilled by the river And embraced us, so we, too Needed to embrace We felt again the security of arms And at last braved The gaze of eyes A moment of motions Our lips meeting, practiced as ritual And suddenly letting go for an instant Reveling in the place and time Trying to hold on, yet pushing away And then we both saw it A kind of goodbye and bittersweet hello We strolled to a bar to forget Both changed forever And held back tears Labels: poetry
Marco
1.01.2000 12:31 PM \| Link	An ode to a high school friend written in 1995. After losing contact with him for many years, I recently had news of his death. Hey Marco - let's have some coffee The student union, the Crossroads Cafe You pulled me away from my morning Fruit Loops That were so stereotypical for a commuter Though thankfully I never liked that sour strawberry cream cheese The way Scott did Telling me this was the thing to do, an initiation Starting me with double cream and triple sugar Training me every day until I surpassed your palette That would drink a second pot from the same filter But that was probably because I could afford the beans Hey Marco - let's have a meal Cook me that family recipe in your head Spaghetti with hundreds of carrots and baby shrimp The only part of your family you acknowledged Let go like the other interests I saw passing through your life Forgotten black Chinese slippers Hours of Tai Chi in my girlfriend's living room The staff of wood permanent in your callused hand Growing from the tree of a man they called the Prophet Just before I knew you at church, before your shorts Were 'unacceptable' or the redhead seduced you Hey Marco - let's go for a drive Only riding with you once in your trashed white Bug That you named Bayatta, which no one could understand Like the Latin phrase on your bracelet That months later you confided in me read 'Purity of Heart' Before you stopped wearing it You drove me home sitting on the exposed cushion springs To steal Amaretto from my dad's stash under the sink And cried in the dim light because you felt too much Expressed in a poem I had written to show you That you thought you had written days before Hey Marco - let's not be so secretive I heard from a friend you were at the mall last night Wandering the icy parking lot for stuck cars Anonymously pushing them out of the snow Your long gray overcoat attempting to cover such bitter thoughts Your scotch flask in the pocket You're walking the winter campus now in bare feet So everyone will notice your black painted toenails Against the harsh white of the library sidewalk Later at home covering your walls in brown calligraphy Seeking absolution for nothing in the aesthetic of holy words Hey Marco - let's be open again Pulled by unaccepting love to your distant Colorado cabin Sending your thoughts on Seneca in the mail Delivered on sepiatone photo portrait postcards An image of Gershwin bursting with creativity and sorrow Wearing your sad eyes Honoring a friendship I hindered in such blind ignorance Pleading with philosopher's arguments and empty praises The key you gave me to your desk in high school Used to lock away a love I only now understand In your amber pen's lonely sweeping gestures Labels: poetry


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