flashes of life

are all I have really, 
these fleeting memory moments
in sum adding to a 
life lived not exactly
me, more
a reminder of a version
a character's story unwinding
roads meandering across miles
and years, decades of storylines
eventually converging to a single
spec of time
exists only
i can see it
a sweeping history
narrowing to the faintest, tiniest
a pinprick of light in the moment
exploding into an entropic 
future unknown
scope of this life
is yet incomplete
memories roll and rumble 
connected, one leading to the next
doesn't convey an order
understood by anyone
outside of this body
tells the story:

organic washed out tones and soft shag
see under the table and straining to reach
some salvation as the 
disastrous cacophony
wall shaking
pleading to please 
stop; 

I'm flying
unbound by gravity and incoming
faith leapt toward

salvation cold to the touch and 

covered in coal dust

of memory unsure

which came before; 

that wall

integrated in my mind

a map of previous

wild running

I am hurt, but

i do not hurt

protected by providence

the sky opened and 

sustaining life, but oil slicked

roads and drink and speed

and careening for exactly 

me, but 

I remember how the body

crumbled and 

fractured fiberglass and

shattered glass

and bent metal, 

my body whole and bounding down

to wherever was next; 

so many ghosts

that brick shell standing

we crawl inside

exploring the damp

lives brought into and out of 

this physical world it fought

physics,

the immutable laws

of life in that neighborhood

held us all in the same contempt

just under the surface

realizing which

side of the tracks are you 

standing now

2500 miles away; 

I went at some point

up the mountain

freedom of a sort

air tasting different

kind of alone

surrounded by something

unknown until feeling undeniable

I felt at home;

left behind

up a ribbon of asphalt curving 

my circulatory system alive in those 

green hills rolling less

into the built world

at first all the pieces into place just

so, I was set

in theory only works

becoming second nature to 

is quitting a necessary step to every

there was one;

there was no quitting

some things last

thought i have each 

dreaming of a time and place

and those faces

never downcast in 

memories live forever

eventually happens that

we keep growing

older in some ways and 

younger selves imagining a future

filled with what 

i wonder how near or far

today is from yesterday’s

tomorrow;

i can hear the flickering

of the film 

a constant tick ticking

becoming a muted organic flutter

in this heart and belly

the memories on a screen

watching the characters

so familiar

what stories are they going

tell me your wisdom

is learning from the past

lives trapped behind a screen

and safely distant from

what an exceptional 

who was that kid?

I can picture you

balanced, beaming smile 

and those glowing warm eyes

unencumbered by what waits

the future is her home

what kind of gifts are 

the lessons unlearned by them

so that we know their shape 

a silhouette of what should’ve 

i’ve been there

or near there

your there is yours and mine is mine.

 aches just the same, but different

shadows are hard

what casts those 

borders of light and dark

your eyes adjust eventually

you don’t even realize

the difference between light

shadows only exist 

in each, sometimes more comfortable 

we don’t really choose

the heavens move of their own

what accord

is there harmony to be had

does the resonance become

less trill closer

nearer to thee I cannot 

hear the droning

thrumming of an eternity’s

past, present, and future

until

we flip a switch

and finally, 

the show’s beginning

lights and life flickering into 

something was no longer 

is 

this a story i’ve 

lived before?

pretend

you said,
sometimes are perfect
we roll in the tide of just
living limited times
what’s left over after so many
leaping over the edge
rises how many feet
dangling in the ocean
of sky blue, below
or is it above
the inky darkness of
unknowing is as likely as
unliving;

there is no undoing

it continues to unravel

or maybe, we unspool

a wondrous tangle of the 

most brilliant colors

you feel as much as

can you even see them anymore

has it all gone bluegreygreen again

is impossible

home is never a place to go

back to front I’m never sure

which direction to pull out

of this spinning earth

and the glance of a forever

some are

just that, knowing acceptance of

understanding

the golden glow of late afternoon

and late summer

in this transition the same

hearts, but

each beat knowing the countless previous

as only

necessary memory; the pathway

to nowhere, but 

here a monolith

weathering and sunfading

warm thoughts in places so often

hiding from the solar 

storms exchanged for 

familiar blankets hold us

warm and safe no matter how

worn

 

gauntlet

a towel thrown in
or is it running
zigzagging away from my 
truths are supposed to be 
self-evident
what about self?
accountable to what
the feelings welling or 
emotions derailing the simplest
joys can be had

lost and found again

but you have to look

where is most likely

inside or out

there is a scary imagining

life unattached from anything

but my internal compass

the needle spinning as if

peace in the eye of the 

storms hidden from all 

but the most perceptive

hearts can feel it 

can't ever really be 

hidden fears and hopes

I've so many of each

time I'm at the threshold

transforming into 

an impassable dark forest

explored from the safety 

this worn out perspective

doesn't develop with age

clarifies nothing more than

a light shone on the breadth

of what this experience grows

where the fuck is this going

i am lost and on a path

eventually ending in a lost city

a gold tinted and fuzzy remembering

even the worst times

present always playing second 

choices to move from and toward

what focus is drawing in

close your ranks and 

close your eyes and 

prepare

to run

the future

is always

a gauntlet 

coming out the other

sides aren't chosen

they just are

an endless rolling tide

of whatever happens next

must be next 

corners and we choose 

left or right

the Tetris of life

block by block 

it builds up, they fall

into place

some more elegantly

i stumble, but

always forward

thinking; there's always the reset

but, how many do-overs do we

get some new batteries

all sold out, but 

maybe we find a way

recharging and charging

again

headlong into 

whatever around the corner

is ever

only

the next gauntlet

what have i

is this already done
and dusted a patina covering
what began so shiny and 
new love is always perfect love

lasts as long 
as breath continues filling
a balloon bursting inside
my chest alternating between
fluttering and an 
ache of the first morning’s dawn

at the time so many
our small steps and tentatively 
believing the unbelievable

a Universe aligning 
the light pouring through the most
perfectly straight lines 

an infinity between the 
deepest blood red of 
histories unknown, but sympathetic 

a harmony of hurt
suddenly salved under that
cautious plague sky

Crisp blue and perfect 
we’ve been here before

you and he and she and i 
and each i, in each 
memories live forever

to be forgotten is 
an impossible past 
improbably but precisely
could have been no other

Life led but this 
determination an incalculable product of
choices &
chance;

Is there a difference?

Between you&i
there is no space for (Us)
realizing
the creature in the mirror
is the same as when we 
close your eyes and imagine

it’s the easiest thing in the world
apart we lived the alternate version 
of the other
the same

i spelled backwards is still i 

bearing, carrying the
black and blue and red of our own 
souls straining against this
life, offering nothing
more than
choices

once more

 into the breach I 
throw myself down the stairs
 & knowing that to ascend
a building momentum 
impelled by an unknown
(is it really though?)

we know exactly how most
stories you grab hold of
those dreaming alone times
remembering and realizing
only after they’re gone 
how close to fairy tales
you might’ve lived

if all life was just living
and loving
and free
(i have never been free)
chasing, being chased, trapped, 
by nothing more than the unasked
unmasked in the worst of times
energy within that drives
this whole life

to what end though
there is only ever one
inevitably 
to say things fall apart
of me wants absolution
I am not the bad guy
there is neither
all regrets are avoidable
choices are made even
unable to choose
life runs on and then, 
out

no matter if 
then what, always
needing to know 
what are the contingencies
there’s no safety in it
ever, because ever eventually
is forever
the sun sets on these
too

i am trembling

at the though of it
either/or

maybe I should wait and see

until a hundred more 

sleep on it 

this life is daydreaming

fugue of in between and 

torn in two

halves of the same million 

pieces making all of us 

something more than meeting the 

eyes, impossible to read

though utterly beautiful

i have no truth 

aside from the heart

a clarifying ache impossible 

to reconcile

how to walk away

intact

an emotional amputee

looking for some quiet safe place

somewhere I have felt peace

what kind lasts?

more than those minutes 

moving from one memory to the next

stepping stones chosen 

my feet are my own

whatever choice arises must be

making a path of my own design

has never been a strength

in only surviving 

life as it passes by

chance playing its role

and recognizing my own

i am trembling.

no answers

are given, nor expected
the ache within realizing 
bottomless capacity for enduring
hope for the intervention
of a universe at best
allowing us to stumble along 
what path we've lost ourselves
on our way, a clearing

the fog lifting 

on a tableau impossibly 

understood as a heartbeat

just there

neither beginning nor end

a cascade of moments

propelled by some molecular, 

some visceral

stardust passing through 

from origin to destination

both unknown, unseen

despair crowding out the 

possibility for joy

must not lose sight

of that horizon

where unknown maybes

still reside and 

parables inscrutable

until time is too short

another little pinch 

in my heart at the

realizing, i 

am only i,

& I is nothing more than

a memory projected into 

a space never occupied

is past & future

all one

moments, 

all we know

we have

no answers.

Surrender

I've been preparing for this
days an unbroken chain
wrapped up in the rising
& falling
Forever until ever arrives
sooner than my blood has 
prepared
for me only stop motion
snapshotting past lives
shared and lost

Recognize these days as
presents bound together
through an understanding
few are aware enough to know
there's so many different
inflections through this in and out
breathing life
into the ether I'm slingshot
and slipshod
but seeing how this curve
diverges and vanishes at some 
alternate point beyond seeing
from one sunsetting
in presence of each
streaming consciousness shared
with the other
inevitably to become an other
lives past led
and surrendered

I can see him standing there

Sill resting so often

needing neither light nor dark

a permanent memory

written in the physical world

grooves worn so deep into the flesh

of experiences; narrow;

but alive even after 

Death.

The soundtrack of 
those past lives
alight and breathing sweet tobacco
air held cloying on the skin
reminding you of exactly
from whence and wherefore 
You exist.
the product of memories
Once (and again) visceral.

Staccato cobblestone thrum
as an anxious heart
beating now and only
because their’s did so
first
at last we find the bottom
of things so easily seen
from such a distance
but never giving the 
attention to the truth of 
this family, an afterlife for
40 years
days and nights passing
shuffled from the same deck
And along the same narrow path as 
His father.

All things gathered
eventually, inevitably dispersed 
Out of entropy arises from
intentions waning and 
following the path cleared 
momentum’s own gravity
holds order until
the scales tip and kinetic is less than
potential
finds it’s zenith in the depth
of the heart’s chaos

Here, it is from which
we grab the compass’s waypoint
and go
building a new momentum
and the gravity of each movement
Spilling life into itself
the heart beats still
impelled by
the perfect 
combination
of
kinetic and potential

Our energies 
in constant balance
never all or nothing
even if memory’s only marker
is one never again seen
because it once was
it will
Ever be.