Trying to Say

An endless series of poems.

An endless series of novels.

An endless desire for sex.

An endless trying-to-say.

And endless trying-to-show.

An endless series of paintings.

An endless series of sculptures.

An endless superabundance.

An endless overfilled cup.

There are those of us who try to find

That final thing which will still the mind.

But do we want desires to cease?

Do we want our active minds at peace?

The poem which finally says it all.

The prose which shows the finished soul.

The full-filling orgasm.

The at-last-I-have-said-it.

The at-last-I-have-shown-it.

The painting which expresses all.

The sculpture which turns all truth to stone.

A final satisfaction.

The cup is finally emptied.

A dream of death--

A dream of Hell--

A loss of breath--

A dungeon cell--

I must share, I must share my view

Of life--for my sake, not for you.

I never wanted this rare gift, it's true--

But now that I have it, I must confess

It is a curse that manages to bless

My life, transforming all the more from less. 

On Partly-Cloudy Days

The clouds clear out to an azure opal sky,

The blue patches white and gray we've seen for days--

The sun sits unseen behind the thick, slate remnant clouds,

But warm, felt at last.

I sit, sullen, in the shadows now--at least

There's sun shadows I can sit in, separate

The well-lit and shadows all the same, the dusty

Dull shade-colors same.

The clouds move above, the light expands, contracts

In life-pulses slow upon the gray-green ground,

And yet, every slow expansion of the light

Shines life-life to me.

I know clouds will soon depart, the opal sky

Transform, spread above in even shades of blue,

Give free reign to sun and sunlight--and yet I

Will miss clouds of gray.

Romantic Lips

I want to sing about your lips, so red

And thick and full. I want to part them, kiss

Them moist, brush them with my fingers, keep fed

Your thoughts I may have tried to lead amiss.

If the lips I speak of in this verse

Are those you use to kiss and breathe and eat,

I know that you would never think to curse

This as anything but a romantic feat.

Why cannot speaking of those further down

Be so expressed in all our poetry,

As this? Why must these lips bring such a frown

Of disapproval--they should be set free.

Beautiful, romantic, and not perverse,

Those that think not, it's their souls that are worse. 

The Baobab Tree

In the cavern we carved in the baobab tree

We awoke to the life we had created

In the openness cut out between the thick

Wood walls and branches.

In this space we can find a small place of peace,

A small place where we can separate ourselves

From the wildness we find outside these walls--

Out where leopards lurk.

The unpleasant heat of the sun stays outside,

All of the smells are replaced by just the one,

The cool, soft, heady, pleasant smell of the wood

Penetrates us both.

In here each of us can make a home of each

Other, the dark hollow of the baobab 

Is a place where our closeness can finally

Be felt most fully. 

Falling Stars (2003)

Above us, in a clear, blue Texas sky, 

Our heroes we forgot were heroes

Scattered out in a trail of white and sparks.

Our heroes in death, our heroes in life--

Where were we when those stars shot into space?

Why must their bravery become their deaths

Before we remember them as heroes,

To love them for who they already were?

Look up to the blue sky and understand--

From star dust we have come, and to star dust

They, who came closest to touching the stars,

Have returned to us as a falling stars.

Such brave stars rising into the heavens,

Men and women facing death on the edge

Of their own destruction for us on earth--

We, who proclaim the death of the hero--

We, whose lives are made better by their work

And their sacrifice and heroism.

Why must we act until it's too late?

Our heroes also return to their homes

On intact vapor trails of white on blue.