Rest of Your Life

Summer before Stern:

time with no time
days without dates

one second, hour, week,

tumbles into the next.

July twentieth slides right by

with no notice, exactly 

one month before 

the rest of your life begins. 

You are here in 

the now by the lake

your single concern is

where to curl up

in a book 

in a spot of sun.

The next year:
you stroll and elbow

through Chinatown with you mother 

purchasing parasols for your wedding photos.

She pops in to a posh coffee shop

you dash out to take his last call

before the two of you cannot, will not, talk for a week,

and the next time you meet, 

it'll be the rest of your life.

Another year later:

Still in class, you scrawl

your ten thousandth lined page of notes

when does this end 
life begin?

You decide to be a writer

when you grow up

he says you are a writer, 

you are grown up

the second hand crawls to a stop

the clock in this room never ticks the right tock

no use waiting for the bell to 
tell you when you’re done, 

it’s never done

you’re at Professor’s mercy

class dismissed

another class begins.

Tiny Poems

TWITTER POEMS

~~~

Show, don’t tell

They TELL us.

Concrete Nouns and

Vivid Verbs

They ABSTRACT. 

THIS, They explain

is a Poem

and it must be done

My way.

#highschoolwritingteachers

~~~

Library books smell

like coffee stains,

pulpy, aging paper

and humanity. 

~~~

I don’t dog-ear my books 

– it ruins them. 

I scribble multicolored notes 

along their edges

between their lines 

– it makes them mine. 

~~~

Libraries had

picture books

and me-sized chairs

and my daddy’s full attention.

Libraries have

novels

and solitude

and anonymity. 

~~~

HAIKU 

Droplets disappear

in puddles. But puddles are

nothing without drops.

Counter Me

Does every shape need pointy tips, sharp edges?

Every point a counter,
every rainbow, rain?

Does heat need to burn so bad?

Must every resolution begin with a fight?

Does every hand held,
need a verbal slap in the face?

Every kiss, a sip of poison?

Does sunshine need snow?

Can’t we ever just agree?

Does every iamb need a stress-unstress?

Need passion breed pain?

Do you have to egg me on to pull me up,
to help me grow?

Must ground be broken for a building gained?

Does fall always end in winter?


Why can't we circle round to when
I love you
was the easiest hard thing to say?

Unwriting

I cannot write or see beneath these tears,

there’s always more to say and more to feel

I fear that it will take too many years.

I must press on, although it feels surreal.

Some days the words don't come, unsettle me

or come but brim-filled, sin-filled leaking all

untruth, cannot untangle and set free.

Long verses all begin to sound so small.

Some sidewalks slip, they drip with grey-brown rain

there's too much downpour, even in the sun,

mud seems to cloud the colors, the terrain.

I wonder where it ends, I’ve not begun

to sink my pen in ink, that paints for me

soft illustrated words that sing and flee.