Bones-

Life is that clock
looming on the wall.

Seconds tick by
tick tick tick
the minute hand
swoops forward,
hours add up-
morning,
noontime,
afternoon,
dusk-
nightfall.

In the morning of my life
I tied balloons
to my head
and danced in the snow
on the hottest day in July.

In the noontime of my life
I swallowed
lightning strikes,
farted them out as crocuses
and burped booming thunder.

I still want to believe
six impossible things
before breakfast,
but in the afternoon
it’s harder.

For the afternoon hours
I feel the possessiveness
of the mother bear
with her new cubs.

In the afternoon I just want 
to write words that let me
burrow like a mole
and feel the honest earth
on my nose.

In the afternoon of life
dreams and bones
break more easily,
so you hold them closer.

As the afternoon sun
beats down
I still want dreams
and crocus farts-
but I need explanations.

Somebody please
explain to me
why all bones
crack under pressure-
but society only cares
about some of them.
morning, noon or night-
bones are bones, son.

As the progressing hours
bring more questions
than answers
I want to feel more
than the easy emotions I get
from sad, angry songs
on the radio;

Yet I still want to sit
on the porch
and sing along with Iris Dement,
watching lightning bugs fly
with tears in our eyes-

Those tears fall to the ground
and water seedlings
that become flowers
and stinging nettles;
we place them
on our heads
like crowns
and eventually somebody
in the morning of life
will gently lay them
on our graves.

Tough Love

that poem was nothing
but trouble;
-the rose bush that
wouldn’t bloom;
-the puppy who refused
to stop piddling
on the carpet;
-that godamned haiku
that insisted
on having 18 syllables.

you can’t lock a puppy
or a rose bush
in a drawer,
but I got smart-
I stuffed the poem
in there.

walked away for a week;
then another.
and a day more
just to be sure.

then I took it out
and opened it up
like a flower petal,
and the words
that refused to work before
were suddenly pliant
under my fingers;
my lovers’ touch
fondled them
and they fell into place.

a moment
of satisfaction.

then I walked away
for another day

just to be sure.