OPTIONAL POETRY

Them birds weren’t wrong–
sometimes it’s best

to relax and let a thermal
carry you along

We sat on the rooftop
for the most of the night

a bird-like perch
a bird’s eye view

of a neighborhood
we both lived in

years ago but
never knew

and as the talk
turned to the past

night settled
over the tops

of buildings,
humid and thick

a comforting
weight

draped like a
blanket

laying doubts
to rest.

Already the heat pours
in from the East,

the recently-shorn willow
hanging lank over dry grass

I think I’ll have to leave
the windows cracked

as music from the
apartment upstairs

bleeds down, gentle and
at odds with The Clash

song that I am dancing
to —   we both have

our ways of dealing with
setbacks, I’ve learned from

chatting after she’s put
her kids to bed, she

believes if she seeks
she will find, asks,

will receive, while I chant
go straight to hell, 

boys, trusting more
in false bravado,

the prickly stutter
more in line

with the day
breaking outside.

It’s a bargain I suppose, no need
to swim, just float, no self, only
part of the flow, encompassed
by ocean, a greater whole, but
today I am struck by the

loneliness of the jellyfish.

A man o’war is beautiful
even washed ashore,
fluorescing, dream-like,

not of this world.

But even in death it can’t
be touched, is ever armed,

never safe.

More Midas than Medusa,
it is never just exquisite,
is always bubble fin

and pain.

Behind green alder curtains the bay pretends
to move abetted by the breeze and three
gulls feigning stillness.

Beneath,
their slabby feet beat time
against the current.

It’s only a yacht that disturbs the flat
placidity, churning the surface
and showing depth

but in turn
hiding keel and ballast
and obscuring its true weight.

I’d forgotten how deep duplicity
runs  in the course of new
acquaintance, with no more malice

than a blade of grass– an edge
nonetheless, couched among
clover and stands

of lawn daisies, purveyors
of the sortilege he loves me, loves me not. 

But I’ve abandoned augury —
these birds grown complacent

in unseasonable warmth, only too
happy to take it as it comes, and the moon

is full and faint in a peerless blue sky:
the O in omen, an echo of the sun,
the longing part of Who? 

[note — tearing out hair regarding form — can’t figure if out]

Silent hill, sparse dove, an elbowing
of swifts

this morning colder than all
the rest

How do you feel? We ask
with trepidation

How deep into the hill
this warren

must go, masked they must
think by

dawn and tumbleweed
no longer

prey to a pill-round moon
but I

hear it now faint as
bird wings

and wind caught
in sagebrush

the night is stalking
the day.

Something kept pulling me
from sleep

your open door
a change

enough for me
to search

the house certain of
the worst

only after exhausting
the stairs

I saw the usual topography of
your bed

with you there, also always
too warm

in sleep but I am certain as
an owl

knows its weight in flight
that you

and I are both predator
and prey

Whatever gets us will come
from within.

You explained: If this stadium is an atom

the nucleus is a speck on the pitcher’s mound
and we are the orbiting electrons.

Do I repel you?

Having made some comment about
the lunar effect, admittedly unscientific,

a bit too loony.

You don’t believe in the stars,
well neither do I really, but you must agree

the moon exerts a pull, or,
we’ve really got a hold on it.

Another pop fly. I was talking about gravity—

The inning over, I step on your heel,
drawn in by attractive forces.

The opposing batter crowds the plate.

An atom is 99.9999% empty space,
and yet when our fingers touch

they don’t pass through.

The pitcher tires and relievers appear
in the bullpen, warming up as we watch

in silence.

I would like to know if I am destined

to be an unpaired electron,
reactive in a lonely orbital,

Or might we form a bond?

This may well be a story of decay,
what goes up always coming down,

eventually,

like the two flyouts that will end the game.

Let me explain:
You’ve really got a hold on me.

Should I brace for re-entry in so many days?

Hours from the ocean and yet
I am the tide, longing for return
and mourning slack. I am a draft
that haunts this house, measuring
hours by rooms, minutes by pace,
and prone to sudden rains. I am not
myself but am a force of nature,
the orchard is not an orchard but
is a sea of white and fragrant pink,
millions of blossoms unfurling
overnight to comfort me  with apples
for I am sick, sick, sick of love.

Hours from the ocean and yet
I am the tide, longing for return
and mourning slack. I am a draft
that haunts this house, measuring
hours by rooms, and prone to sudden
rains. I am not myself but am a force
of nature, led to migrate by degree
latitude, percentage of sun.
The orchard is a sea of white
now and pale pink, millions
of blossoms unfurling overnight
to comfort me with apples
for I am sick of love.

A stormy morning, just outside
of Portland –

the sky contused,
the trees and grass electric
as the wind picks up.

Windows open.

I have known too many
of these mornings,

alone and quiet save for
the disinterested chattering

of birds.

The things with feathers.

And nothing,
nothing is crueler
than hope.

These birds do not sing
to warm a soul,
are unabashed by downpours,
give zero fucks about the storm.

They sing because they are birds.
I hope because I hope.

Simple and unfortunate, especially
on mornings such as these,

alone and quiet as the rain starts
and falters and then starts

again.