Keeping Up

I turn through pages, giddy with empathy -
it has been over a year for me,
a whole year and some months -
and now I return looking for solace
from life's irregular battery.

I am turning my back to the cold.
The winds that sang a rain
have distilled - the warm
static returns life
to the young and the old.

There is great distance in me.
I am further from my words
than makes me comfortable.
They alienate and abduct me
to a land of miserable memory.

Tears tug on every horizon.
Faces far away steer me
without any clue of my condition.

It feels good to be at the grind,
sharpening my studded senses
with my scythe of maroon.
I owe it as much to you
as I do the spirit of my youth.

My wisdom is a blur.
I have missed the river
over and over.
I feel it now like a stopper
in my throat. This book,
these many cares I took
to myself and multiplied,
are what kept me awake
crossing over.

cross-continental bad news marquee

as interest rates decline... so does our interest... going one way.... going twice... the city has been sold... key to the city's changed sides... the walls're coming down... 71% space available underground... plant a tree... bury the turkey bones... ooga booga spirits from the marshes are sick of their tea... a noble gas expunges... eyes twerked... jesus sends a mass text... exodus on the highways... a mote of dust before the spring... piano keys in the pines... luck is a pocketed harmonica... lace is expendable... seals swim in grid-like formations... toward the mists... dashing away... numb from the nagging law... up and adam and eve out the door.... there's some room for your kid... that is if he likes jerky... the cold's getting brave and it knows your name