Upon the placid keyboard,
I pounded with dismay,
Skeletal,
In black and white,
It answered nothing grey.

No in-between,
No cushion,
To ease my fumbling hands,
No marrow,
Twixt the whittled bones
That jostled as I played.

The ligaments and muscles,
That should have worked the tune,
Were lost,
As empty sacks of skin:
My mistakes,
Wrinkled and old.

For Maya Angelou, and Those Who Cage Birds

Petals turned toward the netted window,

Basking in a filtered light,

Doused and soaking in a phosphorescent 

Cocktail of fertilizer,

The faces of these flowers lucidly remind me,

Why the caged bird sings.

And I want to wake up,

With my hair growing roots in the carpet,

And under the heat lamp,

I'll find soul food.

Plastic and concrete riveted

With steel posts,

Will be my canvas. 

As I romance the vanilla keys of the synthesizer,

The currents and copper wires

Will carry my thoughts like water droplets,

 In a vapor somewhere in our polluted

Atmosphere,

To you,

In the doldrums of progress.

Marbles

A marble spinning round a rim,
Is to its carven path a slave,
Never to escape its course,
Which daily circles, spiraling.

Whatever lies within this ring,
Is out of reach: the marble's grasp,
Extends no further than the rutt,
On which its sullen course is set.

To circumference ever endlessly,
Yet know within there lies much more,
To never know more than this taste,
Is how these wasted marbles spin.

Sitting in an office chair remembering what Danny did

The moment she said it,
When her eyes darted to the ceiling,
And slowly fell
With the gravity of remembrance,
To meet mine---
Lucid with the clarity that comes
After healing,

I felt the horror,
That somebody ripped her
Inside,
I felt the terror,
Of seeing her
Hurt,
Lying in drying pools of her own blood,
Little by little,
Having the sparks reignite,
And seeing those same clear eyes
Fly up from the ground.

A Handle on a Tea Cup

Weight into the mattress,
Weight into the floor,
Weight into the eyes,
Unready for the organic pallet,
Unlike the Technicolor pixels of dreams.

Cold leather seats,
Frost on vinyl,
Snakes of rain,
Serpents on the window,
Dark now,
With only orbs of electric lights,
Lightning bugs on Earth's surface.

Panels of lockers,
She takes off her sweater,
Rippling in his arms,
His hand on her waist,
A handle on a teacup.

Later, yawns departing,
He gently brushes my elbow.
I panic.
He touched me.
A handle on a teacup.

Weight into the mattress,
Weight into the eyes,
Serpents slithering down my window,
Six more hours until tomorrow,
A handle on a teacup.

today i saw
an orthodox priest
pushing a pram
the baby liked to watch
his gold cross swinging
back and forth
against his black robes

Braille

Braille is the epitome
of poetry.
With what else
can you truly
Feel
a word?