6 Year Marker

on rare days
in any weather
moments least guarded
eyes barely register
mind drifting
pedaling
I see you on the street.

already  passed by
no looking back
pondering invisibility
adrenaline
did you notice?

long
years
don't
erase;
they
retaliate.

[1st found poem]

Virgin

like wilderness without

concrete caging.

In a sense, you feel it

like a flu

under your skin

FLAMING hot.

Even in winter 

it burns her path

thru the ice

and she is

so

nice.

Thru the golden

breakbeat sunset

between buildings

of december

I will find her

and rejoice

(together).

sunset & th train

I saw static waves of color explode from the setting sun,

bands of light flowing across the sky,

modular freqencies splash against shifting clouds

to move the light n' dark from where the trains go underground

to the weightless skyline,

pointing girded fingers towards the vast inverted ocean.

I am less than these colors,

I am awash in no glow

{tho my blue is deeper than the sky},

I extrovert a shade of brown

projected from my eyes n' hair.

I do not compare to this glorious wash of light.

Memory Well Met

She tucks her hair behind her ears,

and a ten-year body of softness

pulls at my every memory and muscle. Let this go.

She is timeless as the

line of buildings, as the lake

pounding rocks into pebbles,

a handful of sand thru my fingers,

the lingering sense of sangria

and cigarettes from long ago.

The sun pounds concrete & glass &

the people I pass on the street

seem black n' white,  or maybe

I stopped being sensitive to

hues of mood, substituting

reaction for compassion. Trying to

save it all up for her.

Everywhere I see women,

but none that I would treat better,

for a while, at least.

For the streets change fast like

Chicago seasons,

like weather or not you're

prepared,

the air shifts and is gone.

Long, shadowed halls of the

intangible enveloping waves of steam of days

& the way I wanted things to be.

Traces of transcended flaws

of personality and her afterimage

outlined on the lids of my eyes.

I think about sleep,

and decide to write.

A Day Made New

I feel the flush of desire

run red to my face

pupils relax & dilate, palms sweat.

Claustrophobic in my awkwardness

racing thoughts for conversation & 

banter, 

can't or won't join in with 

cheap shots & drunk excuses.

I'm in for risk-taking n' chances,

I know you've got a man but

I don't think he dances. 

See, here I am stuck waiting

for girls my age to grow up;

I just want somebody 

I can talk to

(afterwards)...

for certain words fail me,

here I am standing & reading,

miles away from the point

around which my city

still revolves,

for with nightfall I dissolve

& spread into the dark that

holds the lake under

it's palm. The mist in the morning

re-births me, and I walk to 

work reassembled.

Untitled #4

I can see green thru

windows, from where I sit. 

My Chicago is a fickle femme,

ready to go out, then

changing her mind. Left, then,

with what I can find of the

sidewalks, I am

trapped between rivers.

I follow them home & rest.

Birds follow me, dogs accompany me,

lightening precedes me & my

footsteps are thunder.

One lonely three-millionth of the City.

Heat Death

her
sizzle 
is stealthy.


she 
smoulders.


across the room,
I can feel it.


the 
menacing energy
of truth,
forthright
in your face


it is the 
breathing
light she


establishes
silhouette
defining by outline.


designed to  
occupy 
my mind & 
how I spend 
my time. 


her heat is 
the kind that destroys
burns holes in you


every time

Ancient Herstory

Thru blood sunsets laid

on their backs, legs spread wide,

to the snapping sparks of the el train;

it speaks to me with her voice.

In the parade and phony pagentry of

Michigan Avenue, along the lakefront

in the public places;

it speaks with her voice.

The white-capped lake, wind whipped

trees & the endless debate of birds

& highschoolkids in the heat;

speak to me with her voice.

On this, the first bright day

this year, I am free

enough

to agree that she adulted me.

We, as two, cocooned; & then a

longlovely metamorphosis,

into a mercifully gentle,

almost imperceptible decline.

It was long, it

lasted forever.

We, as two, emerged into winter anew;

changed & uncomfortable,

unrecognizable & alien, grew into

new skins,

new abilities.

Today
I would not know her if I saw her.

The Chicago of Me

Flame-built n' cured

still smoking from celestial

atomic alignment;

poured thru layers of atmosphere

to here;

dragged clouds down with me

for my clothes, stained now

black with soot to match

my hair n' eyes. Earthly body

made manifest this way

skin kilned ceramic white

by the rubbing burn of air.

Pages n' pages left in my book

there is only friction n' gravity

to tug at clouds

while I pull n' work n' flame n' drift

all with equal purpose

n' justified ends.

That quiet voice that speaks to me

of the backs of buildings

tells me the stories

of the ones who leave running.

I stare at their backs, unconvinced.

I am not of the type to flee.

I am of the roots of the trees here

the bricks of houses are a trillion

metamorphed molecules of me.

I have no home,

but I contain multitudes.