What do you do
When the smiles aren't fake
You feel like a million, billion, trillion dollars has just somehow fallen into your lap
You can ford the rough waters
Build bridges
And climb over mountains that seemed impossible before
And it seems like forever is not a long way ahead
Or even a long time ago
For forever is now
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The ship

Art and beauty haunts me
It tells me of a land where I came from
An island I was born on
It tells me of my home
And all I want to do
In these piercing, bloody, painful moments
Is jump on the first ship -
But I can't find one
I lie in torment
I lie writhing in pain

Remind me, oh blackbirds
Perching in a tree
Watching crawling insects
Watching me

Remind me, chirping dogs
Bouncing squirrels
Climbing vines
Slime trailing snails
Tell me winter, cold and dark
Tell me, springtime flowers hearts
Tell me autumn, summer blue
Fashion flesh and make me new
Tell me feet that carry me
'Cross ocean waters, wild and free
Tell me island stepping stones
That these sweet breaths are not my home

Come in whispers, shadows, lies
Tales and stories, lullabies
Come in reflections, make your nest
Glide to my shoulder, make your rest
Come towering mountain, make me low
Come shower the earth with lazy snow
Come shining moon, a frosty pearl
A dream of ancient dusty worlds
A peeled banana
A spinning wheel
Beyond the markets cold and steel
Coat of fresh paint
Plume of smoke
Greying hair an aged cloak
Bring me fire from the sun
A dying dream, a smoking gun
Watch every program on TV
Build admiration, plant a tree
Build every tower every sky
Has ever seen with watchful eye

Come word, be nameless, come like day
Come change this shape of this small clay
Come come deliver, make it right
Small newborn crying in the night
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The end

The end of a chapter
I sit in your pocket now
Snuggled and tuggled and tucked away
It's a perfect fit

The end of an empire
The grandest illusion
Clandestine confusion
Great balls of fire

There's a tall tower above me
Made of ivory
Still focused on just one little pinpoint of light in the night sky
And I'm ablaze down here
Just trying to see
If I could be seen by you
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the "how-to"

Many of us wish to teach But the how to is a cave The how to is cold and dark The how to is a grave

dad poem, august 3.

I carry you with me, Mr. MacLean

In a pocket of steel-blue pennies and magic rings

Down dusty Wranglers tucked over your snakeskin boots

And I remember what it was like to be carried by you.

Kept from a windstorm

Rocked and baked and well-groomed, bloomed and safe

With tender roots, unstretched, unsettled

I was a tender plant.

Was there anything more noticeable than you?

You peeled the paint from my windows

and dragged me along in the grass

Like a kid with invisible water skis

Now with you here in my pocket 

There is nothing less detectable than you, it seems

And there is nothing less believable

Than the way things seem to be to me.

I'm carrying you now, Mr. Wisdom

Instead of you carrying me.