Perishable Summer

It has been hot hot hot
these past few days.
The sun beats down
and the air is stiff
and humid
like being locked away
in a stuffy closet.
And yet I wouldn't
have it any other way.
The sky is blue
and the clouds are pregnant
almost ready
to give birth to thunderstorms
with labor of lightning
and birth of fat rain drops.
I know in my heart
that in six months from now
there will be only snow
and cold winds that chill you
right to the bone.
There will be no sunshine
no clouds ready to burst
only the sterileness
of impending winter.
And I shudder at the thought
that all of this will come to an end.
This must have been
what John felt
when he saw
the end of the world,
and knew
it would soon come to pass.

Half Smile

Maybe you don't remember
how you used to make me
read to you in bed

And how I'd kid that you
were too old for that.
I wonder if you were trying
to hold on to the last bits of
childhood you could salvage.

Don't think I didn't like you.
I liked to tease you and show
you how much I cared in a
different way than most.

Especially when I'd debate with you
and let you think you won.

Like when I'd let you do what you
you really wanted to do,
stay up late with me and talk.

I still thought about you all the
time after I left.
wondering if I'd ever see you again
if you were mad at me.

Now you must be so grown up,
the same age me when I used
to read to you in your bed
late at night.

Every now again I find myself wishing
that I'll run into to you somewhere,
and that things can go back
to how they used to be.

So long ago

Some nights
when the air is still
and there is no sound
I still think of you.
I still miss
being your friend
and no more than that.
I think of being
half awake
half asleep
in the car together.
The asphalt too black
to see in the night.
The lines of the median
blurring together
separating
what should
and should not be.
The only sound
was our laughter
as we laughed
at our own lame jokes.
The sweet scent
of perfume
exhaust
and sweat
in the air.

The Dandelions

The dandelions
have already come
and gone.
The last traces
of the white dust
blown away
and still
time marches on
and the sun
seems hotter
everyday.
But nothing
seems as bright
or promising
as a boulevard
painted yellow by
the dandelions.

I don't need any help to be breakable, believe me

The National, "Slipped"

Psalm 100

Grains of Time

I thought I had lost my spark
my need to create
as the rain beat down
on dirty window panes
and one day melted into the next.
I drifted from week to week
never stopping to savor this.
This one last vacation
one last pit stop on my journey
to true adulthood.
There has been something so mindless
in these faded days
that seem to have been hung
worn and tired to dry on a clothesline.
And now I find myself catching my breath
on a cool evening
looking up at the blue blue sky
wondering where all the wasted minutes go
when I refuse to acknowledge their existence.
And as I wash ashore
onto the sandy beach I realize
they are the grain which slipped through my hands.
Well no more.
I take them and mix them into paint
to paint sunsets in the back yard
adding them to the green
of freshly mowed grass.
Sprinkling them on the flowers in the garden.
Breathing them in like exotic oils
as I begin to dream once more
while the moon rises solemnly
in a deep ocean of night.