Dreams
 
It is later than late,
the simmered down darkness
of the jukebox hour.
 
The hour of drunkenness
and cigarettes.
The fools hour.
 
In my dreams,
I still smoke, cigarette after cigarette.
It's okay, I'm dreaming.
In dreams, smoking can't kill me.
 
It's warm outside.
I have every window open.
There's no such thing as danger,
only the dangerous face of beauty.
 
I am hanging at my window
like a houseplant.
I am smoking a cigarette.
I am having a drink.
 
The pale, blue moon is shining.
The savage stars appear.
Every fool that passes by
smiles up at me.
 
I drip ashes on them.
 
There is music playing from somewhere.
A thready, salt-sweet tune I don't know
any of the words to.
 
There's a gentle breeze making
hopscotch with my hair.
 
This is the wet blanket air of midnight.
This is the incremental hour.
This is the plastic placemat of time
between reality and make-believe.
This is tabletop dream time.
 
This is that faint stain on your mattress,
the one you'll discover come morning,
and wonder how.
 
This is the monumental moment.
The essential:  look at me now.
This is the hour.
 
Isn't it lovely?  Wake up the stars!
Isn't it fabulous?  Kiss the moon!
 
Where is the clock?  The one that
always runs ahead.  The one
that always tries to crush me with
its future.

Rivers
 
In the room
where I learned how to lie,
to cover my bruises
with long sleeves,
to cover my lies
with a speechless tongue,
to invent a separate life
than the one I was living,
to imagine a world
fluent with flowers,
populated with trees,
cities with skyscrapers,
ten times taller than my dreams,
my mind filled with rivers
I knew I would someday cross.

Idol
 
I call you prince,
my gorgeous one,
heart restless as a thief,
eyes full of filthy justice.
 
I am sitting here,
in the long grass,
my throne on the hill
The wind is moving along
quietly.  The ghosts
of my thoughts are circling
up over my head,
then through my head,
through my flesh and my skull,
down along the marrow of my spine.
 
I lay back,
and the earth embraces me.
I look to the sky and its infiniteness
astounds me.   Clouds shuffle past,
mystified.
 
Long after daylight has gone,
and the golden flower of the sun
has fallen behind the nothingness
of Iron mountain, I'll still be waiting here
for you, my devotion.
 
I could have died, but my love for you
won't let me.

Summer
 
When June approaches,
warm and dry, with its
lightweight days and insect
nights, with its assassin-early
sunrise and its everlasting
afternoons, I swim and dwell
and sway and dream the whole
month away.
 
When the new harmony of July
arrives, soft with heat, I
embrace it.  I strip off my clothes
and I lay down with it.  Without
sophistication or worry.  And I sleep.
I sleep and sleep the whole month away.
 
When the fairytale of August comes,
swift and bright, dancing, swirling
its colors, turning its skirt, I trot
alongside it, twisting my hair up top
of my head, escaping escaping into
the lost parade.