trails i traded for a tuesday

“eternity is a very long time – especially toward the end” woody allen

 

escaping an extinction event

i pay the rent

dream i actually went

down trails i traded for a tuesday

 

inside the whiskey

it use to be inside me

drunk people dancing

i race to the sea

forget how to swim

or how to perceive

i leave on a whim

return on a breeze

 

turning at the wiltern

i walk down wilshire

g.p.s. discerns

and asks if i’m sure

 

i shut everything off

including my mind

light up and cough

on a night so sublime

 

asian women walking

the way they walk with intent

with smiles i’m stalking

without making a dent

 

the invisible man

in the emperor’s new clothes

i want to hold hands

with somewhere to go

 

i’ve danced in the ether

of no reason why

laws of physics

isolate the sky

 

people seek purpose

for the patterns of pain

i can’t smooth the surface

with molecular rain

 

i’m just in los angeles

a solitary man

my mind is oscillating

without being a fan

 

people place answers

in effort to bring

the joy of a dancer

in the rites of spring

 

i cannot converse

with these thoughts i display

this shape shifting universe

just happened that way

 

and so i walk lonely

like that one visible star

as if it is only

cause these city lights mar

any view of the heavens

and all it contains

i turn left on the street seven

where all that remains

is me after midnight

longing for love

electricity and photons

erase lights from above

 

my poems will meander

as so will i

i speak without candor

searching faces and eyes

 

love may be selective

but it will do

i’m a detective

without any clues

 

this case has gone cold

decades have passed

the stars will unfold

and run out of gas

 

but i will investigate

this victimless crime

though i can’t help hesitate

and vomit these rhymes

 

i dream of a word

the ultimate nomenclature

beyond what i’ve heard

from lingering legislature

 

to explain all that is

and why i can’t find

her hand in his

without changing my mind

 

be who i am

and still be with her

without building a dam

contained and disturbed

 

and so i will roam

beneath the sheltering sky

make my way home

tomorrow night try

 

to find the right words

that write an embrace

whispers unheard

while my fingers trace

 

the tone of her skin

the meaning of life

put down my pen

and make her my wife

 

***