Head to Hand to Pen to Page: Minimally Edited Poems from a Summer Afternoon

Summer sun hits the sidewalk and my face
in the just same way
harsh
but just right for
ten minutes or more if I'm lucky
if I'm lucky if I'm lucky
I'll be able to handle
the sun for an hour
and your smile in
the just same way
can handle me for ten more minutes.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Dog--
yellow-haired,
big smiling thing,
why do you insist
on clamb'ring atop the table
I'm sitting at and writing on
and then settling there to
be that much closer
to a breathing
being being,
Dog?

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

4 o'clock
the shadows stop
hiding.
5 o'clock
the shadows start
running.
6 o'clock
my thoughts start
wandering.
7 o'clock my thoughts keep spinning,
but the sun's almost done
dipping
and I must start
collecting
blown down papers
fragment words
keeping
them all for tomorrow.

Brave New World/Tired Old Room

I don't want comfort.

I don't want fear.

I want God,

I want hope,

I want poetry,

I want intelligence,

I want real danger,

I want real life,

I want freedom,

I want wings,

I want goodness.

I want to be happy.

I want sin.

I want choices.

I want to know what I'm doing.

448 days left

What are they going to do when their glass box finally breaks into three thousand jagged pieces? When the doll has snowflakes in her hair and wings on her heart?