broken stegosaurus
buried in the sandbox
processed petroleum
magenta fragments
post-modern fossil

like me

I want to be more than this tangled mess of feelings
You fill me with want and panic and sweet dread
Concrete shoes upon my feet pulling me down
Into the eternal green of wine-tossed seas

There is no hope
No escape from what I am
Once upon a time
I had dreams
Sweet as summer clover
Waiting to be mown
Raked into windrows
Dried beneath summer sun
Now I am fallow emptiness
Unfulfilled
Overgrown with scrub
And Goldenrod
Copse of young black willows
Bending flat in the wind
You are innocent catalyst
releasing demons long suppressed
I am winnowed chaff
scattered by ancient winds
across fields you will never see.

shattered the morning with coffee again
broken mug patterns of ceramic and cream
Guatemalan grind bitter black dreams
it rarely ever gets better than this

I used to think
there'd be someone
who would laugh
along with me at 
my clumsy mess

empty voice echoes off hot shower walls
Ella Fitzgerald lyrics rinsing the blues
drip slap staccato showerhead spray 
washing cold morning down through old pipes

lonely is how I am
solitude is what I have
soft cotton towels
warm from the dryer
my only caress

hollow spring rain on patio doors
tip-tap trickle tapping inside my brain
February fading flooding away 
discarded bags in gutter and drains

store bought
chocolate cupcake
cellophane wrapped
topped by wax candles
six decades of stale wishes 
all blown away. 

peregrine 
circling closer
attaining 
perigee  

apology 
reaching rising
missing
apogee

we are separated
by a million years
of evolution 
and muddied memory

yet in perspective
isolated disconnected 
we are not so so different.