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Let’s forget our careers

for a moment and go

on a trip somewhere.

We can sit someplace

with grass or dirt

and watch the sun rise

or fall into the flat

or mountainous horizon.

We can talk about us,

our love, the trees,

or listen to the distant

train chug away

and let silence strike

the scene, as the world

lightens up, or dims

towards orange

then black in a mist

or on a clear night

or day.

I could look at you,

in your pink

or yellow summer dress

tucked under your

knees, or draped

along the ground.

And we could call

the place home,

or we could call it nothing.

But let’s go, leave, and find

this place, just so

we can see it exists,

home, or nothing,

someplace to dance

naked, wildly, with one another

or sit with quiet smiles.

Images in New Jersey, Ideas that are Our Fault

What do you want me to prove?

That I read? That I have culture?

That I have important ideas

that you can’t see

from your consciousness?

There is nothing new

in this world

but what we make

and call new.

And you want it said quietly?

Slowly? With purpose?

Allusions toward obscurity

flooded in language?

Here is an image for you:

A year old condom,

and a single rain boot

dance on the foamy shore

of Sandy Hook, New Jersey.

The condom, half-filled with

bubbly water, deflates

as a young girl

in a baseball cap and

dirty-white gloves

drops it in a trash bag

and another idealist

puts a tally mark on a clipboard,

parallel lines uncomfortably together.

The image, disturbed

by the youths, is regenerated

the next day. Another boot,

another dance, another rubber.

How can I say this quietly?

There is a lot of trash out there.

Back to type,

my fingers, ink,

techno-natural

creativity pours

from neurons

onto white space

in the birth of matter

from primordial idea.

Home in my small

unkempt cave

under blankets,

hunched over keys

alphabet blazed

symbols on their chests,

I type to fill time,

and empty my brain.

While writing

has great tradition,

and infinite canvass,

my boxy white corner

of the universe is happy,

caught in its own trap,

expanding slowly

with the rest of everything.