Labor Pains

There you sit, just tick-tack-typing

At your desk,

Thinking you should’ve learned to type,

As the hours slip away like

Crumpled whispers from dying lips,

Softly-rustling papier-mâché birds

Flapping off into the dark.

It’s blood and strife makes tick-tack-type, to

Get this right. Who would have

Guessed it would be so hard?

It’s just

Writing words, after all, not

Giving birth.

When I Find You

When I find you, it won’t be

Forced, but

Natural, flowing, smooth, like

A song from the practice room of lips and throat,

Now flying, long rehearsed,

At last set free, this single

Night,

No more concerned with

Intonation, but only, now,

With being.

When I find you, it won’t be

Artificial, but

Fundamental, whole, like

The dark and living earth

Beneath our feet,

Full of promise,

Life squirming between our toes,

Green and color startling forth

Like sparrows through the

Air.

Fork

I would never hurt you.

I would never do you wrong.

All I wanted was to look and see

a spark of recognition,

like a grizzled old sea dog

who locks eyes with the sea,

and sees, again, what 

made him love her first.

But it wasn’t meant to be

that easy, love,

because the road to love

is one hell of a storm, and

we, it seems, aren’t above

getting holes in our ships

on the way.

I thought we’d bind our rafts together,

sail the sea together, share our

journeys, and our stories; but

it seems we still

have some storms to weather; but

we’re going different places.

So let’s leave this desert place,

because Cupid smiles
like the Cheshire Cat,

and I must go, 

and I must go;

but I’ll look back once in my

rear-view mirror.

Because, you see, it

wasn’t meant to be,

my love.

It wasn’t meant to be

my love.

It wasn’t meant to be

my love;

but that doesn't mean it's easy.

Palms

I understand you, you

bushy-headed palms,

stretched so tall

against the sky.

My soul's moved with you,

bit by bit,

raising the tent

of the sky;

upward, toward the

stars.

You've risen above the other trees,

tall to see

beyond their crowded heads.

You long to see a

vastness

can't be seen so

low. You

miss a place to stand and

let your unobstructed gaze

touch anything,

everything,

like a shepherd patrolling

the slumbering ranks

of his fleecy white charges,

his touch like bell tolls:

"All is well."