Winter in July

Pull back the curtains
Early sun meets eyes
Open window
Breeze escapes lungs
Whisper touch flirts with my skin
Ripples like leaves

But this is July.

Strobes and street signs
Electric tongues
Open eyes stare out the window
Smile escapes control
Keeps me silent and grateful

Unseasonably chilly
A jacket for your shivers
Spider on the flowers
Teardrop on the fire
Whisper in a vacuum

Full night under
a smile like the moon
under the low clouds
under the spirits' power

One night
Won heart
Warm tomorrow
Winter's touch.

then again, the road sounds like a good idea...

when i was younger, all the dreams of doing all these things seemed so real, that iwould find time for all of them. even as we speak, a good friend of mine is in india finding time for his dream, albeit through work, but doing it all the same. im glad youre having an amazing time rusty. and im glad tha you got a tattoo in india. that rules. i dont know anyone who can say that.
after finishing a two week period of working over a hundred hours at a bar, i realized im killing myself for nothing but stupid fucking money. the positives, cause i alwaus seem to find them and latch to them in every situation, are that i have a creative outlet (making new drinks is satisfying in the same way starting a good poem but never findng the finish is-- you know you have something, but you know you can make it better), and the ability to see so many interesting, sweet, frustrating, dumb, funny, friendly, creepy, sympathetic, apathetic, enigmatic, brilliant, full, solid, tragic, moronic, romantic, questionable, questioning people full of hopes, dreams, fears, phrases, quotes, stories, tears, laughs, long nights, liquor, fire, wind, sand, grit, restaurant melodies, songs, sad times, cheap tricks, angels, reservations, etc....all the life livers and little lovers. so there's that.
the root of everything is i've been so sheltered because of my own fear to release from the controls and sift through the layers of all this life. a road trip keeps being discussed with friends jess, matt, julie, and others, and im hopng that i, as well as everyone, stay on board for this one.



her kiss was an empty rain falling on colorful skull,
a smile of fragments and run-ons under lukewarm trees
whispering "I'll never see you again." she reads
in the morning the fiction of the night before,
swears to the heavens, and frantically
gathers her flowers as the burden of clouds begin gathering
like children around a dead bird.

she's sewn water down and trembling smiles
bathed the full air open, but now
she holds her knees under a wailing tree
repeating, "this is the life for me."

freckles upturned openly, flowing,
pierced wings and imagination,

she is an open letter un(ad)dressed.




i feel as though i have let go, slid out of view, and began living someone elses dreams. this has to change. something has to give.

the cavern of her clavice,
distant and echoing a rhythym of what's
come before her,
moves like the ocean at nighttime.

Dark and determined,
unabashed and unapologetic,
turning a blind eye to whoever is watching.

Lover, I'd like to bathe in your waves,
knee deep at midnight, moonlight
the only brave soul daring to cast
the shadows on your flesh,

a vacation with the windows open.


Angels wish to captivate the way the scope
of your landscape forces me to cope with my own love,

because now I'm dealing with the religion of your skin,

and tender is no way to approach this topic.

If fire and brimstone was how the sermons went,
then that's the way I will touch your bones,
swirl to white,
digit to marrow,

"White Trash Heroes" by Archers of Loaf

Frozen out of focus, the sunday crowd
Started dreaming of television turned up too loud.
And coded conversations, half baked and tired,
Left us sleepy on blacktops burning the motor mile.

And underneath the arcade, details collide
There's good shopping, but all those patrons have too much style.
And moving in slow motion the boulevard started seething
With hip half-ravers in techno bars.

It ends life along the neon sign (It is like a long, imperfect time)
all speeding past, collide and crashing, I'm in paradise (on the motor mile).

Sealed in concentration (Soaked in complication), the lantern lights
Started shrinking (seething) on dead men drinking white liquor wine.
And iced with complication (condensation), the methane gas
Started leaking on bastards burning half red and black.

We can ride along in perfect time
Or speeding past, collide and crashing, I'm in paradise.

And standing at the gates of NC State fair,
I saw you smoking with all those new friends you've got to spare.
And melting back in focus the sunday crowd
Started sleeping with (dreaming of) white trash heroes, TV's turned down.

In their eyes, along the neon sky (It ends like a long, imperfect time)
All speeding past, collide and crashing, I'm in paradise (on the motor mile).
We can ride along in perfect time
Or dreaming of the white trash heroes on the motor mile (I'm in paradise).

It ends life along the neon sky (It ends life along in perfect time)
All speeding past, collide and crashing on the motor mile.
We can't lie along in perfect time
All dreaming of the white trash heroes, I'm in paradise.

Later In the Night

Maybe I should write a poem.
Maybe it's time to pay the hospital bills,
eat an apple, and volunteer in a soup kitchen.

Maybe we should all recycle more and swear less.

As if this place wanted to get better,
like fixing a cheap bicycle,
you have to ask yourself if it's worth it.

I don't have children.
I'm sure parents would say that's it.
But, I do have insides unfulfilled,
a bullet hole slowly being sutured-
no, doctor this ground is not safe-
and questions to ask Time.

And the ones after me,
what questions will they be left to explore?

What will be answered and gift wrapped?
What will be waiting for their eyes to undilate,
their bodies to focus completely?
What will be waiting when their blackness says,

"I have a light."

I believe I'll begin lifting my feet.

Balancing the Throat Chakra

Link to the YouTube video


i haven't figured out how to post videos straight to my website yet, but for the time being, click the link. It's a simple meditation focusing on balancing the fifth chakra, the throat. Most commonly linked to communication and creativity (being between the brain and tongue), this chakra, like all others, needs focusing. Two minute meditation is awesome.

so many

It's been so many years since your mouth closed around my tiny words
and the sunken white echo of your eyes ricocheted off the wall of my skin.

Your legs bobbed, shaking your frail limbs
over a chasm of never-going-anywhere-fast
and i swear
i'll stare at you happily through the cracked and mossy windows of memory
if only the lonely hearts tonight would light their torches
and sleep soundly and safe,
comforted by the losing of minds, the sounds dying
to steal all the hope from the departed souls that hold for a return someday.

remember?

hum that tune you used to hum,
and i'll find you while i strum the guitar of my shortcomings,
i'll have a smoke while you have your drothers,
and together we can still raise the dead with whispers.

those whispers run along all the abondoned train tracks left in georgia,
a spectred network, high grass telegraph routed by ghosts
that work overtime all the time to get a dead man saved.

and i swear i'll shut my mouth while you chase fairies,
laced with ether and carried by the wind is this promise,
a promise to skim the manual of you again if you agree
to bring back the lost planets and vanish the scars
with one smile and a look that says,

i've been where it begins and lived passed the end,

and then there's me with spring, understanding the word

"friend."

Braves Opening Day Roster

Congrats, Jordan Schafer.

PITCHERS (12): Jeff Bennett (RH), Blaine Boyer (RH), Jorge Campillo (RH), Buddy Carlyle (RH), Mike Gonzalez (LH), Jair Jurrjens (RH), Kenshin Kawakami (RH), Derek Lowe (RH), Peter Moylan (RH), Eric O'Flaherty (LH), Rafael Soriano (RH) and Javier Vazquez (RH)
CATCHERS (2): Brian McCann and Clint Sammons
INFIELDERS (7): Yunel Escobar, Omar Infante, Kelly Johnson, Chipper Jones, Casey Kotchman, Greg Norton and Martin Prado
OUTFIELDERS: (4): Garret Anderson, Matt Diaz, Jeff Francoeur and Jordan Schafer

Prize Winner

Exhale the breath you've been holding for years.
Let go of the trowel and remove your hands from the soil.
Stand up and tell me a thing or two about
the years stuck in your eyes,
a thorn in your I-told-you-so sorta
love we got for one another because

the roses are never perfect, you told me once
no matter how well you attend to them and
that's news I painted on my back,
flower tattoo in your honor,

my mother my most tender manipulator,
dirt quietly surging to the quick of the nail,

so walk away and let the damn plants die
as we toast ourselves as pirates,
wind through the moon, lights out, ready for tomorrow.

Take Off This Mask

Take off this mask, then
we will talk like kids under a white cloud sky--

you see an elephant, I see
a dying soldier on a fiery battlefield
slowly rolling over to steal one more breath.

Take off this mask, then
the conversation without words or
fear of free verse can begin with
your hand in my hand,

your hand in the hand of my heart,

a bone cradle made for your digits,
a shade tree after a bare back lay out by the pool,

I sipping the curve and contour of your skin with my eyes,
soaking in the motion of the air's dance around
us,
twitch and pose,
coo and relax,

summer forcing the brightest shine.

The wind's in bloom, on our side
in this battle of brilliance, Junior Kimbrough
on the radio, and what we must do
is ultraviolet, dividing lines
like the spine splitting the world to two
forces.

Take of this mask, then
we can take off our clothes
and revel in inhibitions,
no closed doors between the poems of my chest
and your breasts, my journey and your quest.