live in twos

straw sticks
in sticky shoots
like squashed up birdsnests
to the souls of these boots

snow crackles round
the lakes frozen blue
the parts fit together
with invisible glue

we're tired of the battle
the grocery aisle's choose
the model's puckered lips
the crazy man's ques

the smokies poke their ledges
toward the plaster of the moon
crosswinds lining up the grasses
like a weaver's rythmic loom

we've got our tanks and tonkas
we've got our dirty dues
our wireless negotiations
our dusty, unused pews

the birds are kind and feathered
beaks pecking at my shoes
with their tiny tear dropped bodies
they shift my wordly views

we don't have to live in twos
mixed up story, mother goose
the workings of the inner world's
not blinking on the news

return to shine

---------------------------------photo christina poindexter


at what point
was your army built?
your tires popped?
your jewels spilt?

your mirror draped?
your eyes drawn?
your costume shed
from queen to pawn?

your windows fogged?
your horses tied?
your eggs dropped?
your wires fried?

your chapel burned?
your trial tried?
your judgement learned?
your dream box pried?

pin you villian -
the cause of blind
open tenderly
return to shine

now here's the story

------------------------------------photo susi white


now here's the story
of a place so cold palms
rubbed themselves together
to have something close to hold

the sacred sites and chapels
lost their faces to the mold
grown by the foggy tongues of liars
who left the truth untold

give us strength
to slay these dragons
give us faith
to lose control
with the smokey eyes of battle
grant us grace
to unfold

we fled from eve's garden
abandoned the knoll
where the mother served her blessings
and the angels took parole

the saints have all gone running
put down their holy poles
they poked portals in the heavens
and are slipping through the holes

fifty foot flames

you pry apart the lips
of a fifty cent lawn chair
garage sale bargain
lock jawed with sea air

there's nothing in this town
but a lost child's theater
you'd passed my house
a thousand times
though you didn't know
i lived there

why does it take
fifty foot flames
for us to walk across the street
to learn
our neighbors names

the shingles slide like playing cards
the windows melt like taffy
the door frames snap like toothpicks
smoke bitter brown as coffee

you're flushed with blush- igneous
fire fingers flick at us
we take a turn to watch it burn
a heated urn
to love
love
we love to learn
we learn to burn
we burn to learn
we burn to learn

you pry apart the lips
of a fifty cent lawn chair
garage sale bargain
lock jawed with sea air

what's black and white

what's black and white
and red all over?
a boy at his piano
with the stage lights at his shoulder

handing over his explosives
like the hunt for red october
his bench is warming up
but the world is getting colder

whispers in the night
the exhiliration of a floater
when you dig your fins into the bottom
and get high off what you told her

sifters taking flight
the gambler leaning over
checking inbetween each ivory key
for that unturned four leafed clover

what's black and white
and red, red rover
lock your arm with mine
and send your sadness right over

KISS her on the neck
and forget you ever loathed her
i'm tugging at your cuff links
falling open like a folder

dark wind

it's the first of november
you feel her moving in
to strip down your branches
to goosebump your tanned skin

she comes after hay rides
cider and pumpkins
running laps around your mouth
spit glistening down your chin

she tell you where she's going
she won't tell you where she's been
she phantoms in like dry rain
and get's you sloshed like gin

there's no line between
where she ends and you begin
taking over like a pirate
moving in like dark
dark wind

a bit of heaven

i sat to close
to the window
to your fever hot, hot
to the mad hatter's laugh
to your worry wound rot

to the soft shelled crab
to your watering pot
to the taxi's cherry break lights
to the red sign's white stop

to the jars of sugar candies
to the callosed feet of the poor
to old man picking his nose
and then opening your door

to the pregnant penguin woman
with her crinkled coat of cash
to the questions in your suitcase
you'd never move to ask

to the plastic egg dispenser
to the permanent marker letters
splashed across the faded posterboard
like whirling modern dancers

and it's all out of focus
it's all too close to tell
if it's time to change the guard
if it's time to clank the bell

it's all a bit of heaven
it's all a bit of hell
fetching your pail of water
drawing wishes from the well